STRANGE and subtle are the influences which affect the spirit and touch
the heart. Are there bodiless creatures around us, moulding our thoughts
into darkness or brightness, as they will? Whence, otherwise, come the
shadow and the sunshine, for which we can discern no mortal agency?
Oftener, As we grow older, come the shadows; less frequently the
sunshine. Ere I took up my pen, I was sitting with a pleasant company of
friends, listening to music, and speaking, with the rest, light words.
Suddenly, I knew not why, my heart was wrapt away in an atmosphere of
sorrow. A sense of weakness and unworthiness weighed me down, and I felt
the moisture gather to my eyes and my lips tremble, though they kept the
smile.
All my past life rose up before me, and all my short-comings--all, my
mistakes, and all my wilful wickedness, seemed pleading trumpet-tongued
against me.
I saw her before me whose feet trod with mine the green holts and
meadows, when the childish thought strayed not beyond the near or the
possible. I saw her through the long blue distances, clothed in the
white beauty of an angel; but, alas! she drew her golden hair across
her face to veil from her vision the sin-darkened creature whose eyes
dropped heavily to the hem of her robe!
O pure and beautiful one, taken to peace ere the weak temptation had
lifted itself up beyond thy stature, and compelled thee to listen, to
oppose thy weakness to its strength, and to fall--sometimes, at least,
let thy face shine on me from between the clouds. Fresh from the springs
of Paradise, shake from thy wings the dew against my forehead. We two
were coming up together through the sweet land of poesy and dreams,
where the senses believe what the heart hopes; our hands were full of
green boughs, and our laps of cowslips and violets, white and purple.
We were talking of that more beautiful world into which childhood was
opening out, when that spectre met us, feared and dreaded alike by the
strong man and the little child, and one was taken, and the other left.
One was caught away sinless to the bosom of the Good Shepherd, and one
was left to weep pitiless tears, to eat the bread of toil, and to think
the bitter thoughts of misery,--left “to clasp a phantom and to find it
air.” For often has the adversary pressed me sore, and out of my arms
has slid ever that which my soul pronounced good: slid out of my arms
and coiled about my feet like a serpent, dragging me back and holding me
down from all that is high and great.
Pity me, dear one, if thy sweet sympathies can come out of the glory, if
the lovelight of thy beautiful life can press through the cloud and the
evil, and fold me again as a garment; pity and plead for me with the
maiden mother whose arms in human sorrow and human love cradled our
blessed Redeemer.
She hath known our mortal pain and passion--our more than mortal
triumph--she hath heard the “blessed art thou among women.” My
unavailing prayers goldenly syllabled by her whose name sounds from the
manger through all the world, may find acceptance with Him who, though
our sins be as scarlet, can wash them white as wool.
Our hearts grew together as one, and along the headlands and the valleys
one shadow went before us, and one shadow followed us, till the grave
gaped hungry and terrible, and I was alone. Faltering in fear, but
lingering in love, I knelt by the deathbed--it was the middle night, and
the first moans of the autumn came down from the hills, for the frost
specks glinted on her golden robes, and the wind blew chill in her
bosom. Heaven was full of stars, and the half-moon scattered abroad her
beauty like a silver rain. Many have been the middle nights since then,
for years lie between me and that fearfulest of all watches; but a
shadow, a sound, or a thought, turns the key of the dim chamber, and the
scene is reproduced.
I see the long locks on the pillow, the smile on the ashen lips, the
thin, cold fingers faintly pressing my own, and hear the broken voice
saying, “I am going now. I am not afraid. Why weep ye? Though I were to
live the full time allotted to man, I should not be more ready, nor more
willing than now.” But over this there comes a shudder and a groan that
all the mirthfulness of the careless was impotent to drown.
Three days previous to the death-night, three days previous to the
transit of the soul from the clayey tabernacle to the house not; made
with hands--from dishonour to glory--let me turn theme over as so many
leaves.
The first of the November mornings, but the summer had tarried late, and
the wood to the south of our homestead lifted itself like a painted wall
against the sky--the squirrel was leaping nimbly and chattering gayly
among the fiery tops of the oaks or the dun foliage of the hickory, that
shot up its shelving trunk and spread its forked branches far over the
smooth, moss-spotted boles of the beeches, and the limber boughs of the
elms. Lithe and blithe he was, for his harvest was come.
From the cracked beech-burs was dropping the sweet, angular fruit,
and down from the hickory boughs with every gust fell a shower of
nuts--shelling clean and silvery from their thick black hulls.
Now and then, across the stubble-field, with long cars erect, leaped the
gray hare, but for the most part he kept close in his burrow, for rude
huntsmen were on the hills with their dogs, and only when the sharp
report of a rifle rung through the forest, or the hungry yelping of some
trailing hound startled his harmless slumber, might you see at the mouth
of his burrow the quivering lip and great timid eyes.
Along the margin of the creek, shrunken now away from the blue and gray
and yellowish stones that made its cool pavement, and projected in thick
layers from the shelving banks, the white columns of gigantic sycamores
leaped earthward, their bases driven, as it seemed, deep into the
ground--all their convolutions of roots buried out, of view. Dropping
into the stagnant waters below, came one by one the broad, rose-tinted
leaves, breaking the shadows of the silver limbs.
Ruffling and widening to the edges of the pools went the circles, as the
pale, yellow walnuts plashed into their midst; for here, too, grew the
parent trees, their black bark cut and jagged and broken into rough
diamond work.