Fancies and thoughts that seem to spring
From inmost depths of feeling!
Nay, often they have power to bless
With their uncultured loveliness,
And far into the aching breast
There goes a heavenly thought of rest
With their soft influence stealing.
How often, too, can ye unlock,
Dear wild flowers, with a gentle shock,
The wells of holy tears!
While somewhat of a Christian light
Breaks sweetly on the mourner’s sight,
To calm unquiet fears!
Ah! surely such strange power is given
To lowly flowers like dew from heaven;
For lessons oft by them are brought,
Deeper than mortal sage hath taught,
Lessons of wisdom pure, that rise
From some clear fountains in the skies.
2. Fairest of Flora’s lovely daughters
That bloom by stilly running waters,
Fair lily! thou a type must be
Of virgin love and purity!
Fragrant thou art as any flower,
That decks a lady’s garden-bower.
But he who would thy sweetness know
Must stoop and bend his loving brow
To catch thy scent, so faint and rare,
Scarce breathed upon the summer air.
And all thy motions, too, how free,
And yet how fraught with sympathy!
So pale thy tint, so meek thy gleam,
Shed on thy kindly father-stream!
Still, as he swayeth to and fro,
How true in all thy goings,
As if thy very soul did know
The secrets of his flowings.
3. And then that heart of living gold,
Which thou dost modestly infold,
And screen from man’s too searching view,
Within thy robe of snowy hue!
To careless man thou seem’st to roam
Abroad upon the river,
In all thy movements chain’d to home,
Fast-rooted there forever:
Link’d by a holy, hidden tie,
Too subtle for a mortal eye,
Nor riveted by mortal art,
Deep down within thy father’s heart.
4. Emblem in truth thou art to me
Of all a daughter ought to be!
How shall I liken thee, sweet flower,
That other men may feel thy power,
May seek thee on some lovely night,
And say how strong, how chaste the might,
The tie of filial duty,
How graceful, too, and angel bright,
The pride of lowly beauty!
Thou sittest on the varying tide
As if thy spirit did preside,
With a becoming, queenly grace,
As mistress of this lonely place:
A quiet magic hast thou now
To smooth the river’s ruffled brow,
And calm his rippling water,
And yet, so delicate and airy,
Thou art to him a very fairy.
A widowed father’s only daughter.
XLVI.—DISCRETION.
ADDISON.
1. There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there
is none so useful as discretion[369]; it is this indeed, which gives a
value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and
places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed
of them. Though a man has all other perfections, and wants this one, he
will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single
talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he
pleases in his particular station of life. At the same time that I think
discretion is the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon
cunning to be the accomplishment[370] of little, mean, ungenerous minds.
2. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most
proper and laudable means of attaining[371] them; cunning has only
private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed.
Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well formed eye,
commands a whole horizon;[4] cunning is a sort of short-sightedness that
discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able
to discern things at a distance.
3. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to
the person who possesses it; cunning, when it is once detected, loses
its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about those events
which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion
is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of
life: cunning is a kind of instinct that only looks after our immediate
interest and welfare.
4. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good
understanding: cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and
in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. In short cunning is
only the mimic[372] of discretion, and may pass upon weak men, in the
same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.
5. The cast of mind which is natural to a discreet man, makes him look
forward into futurity, and consider what will be his condition millions
of ages hence, as well as what it is at present. He knows that the misery
or happiness which is reserved for him in another world, loses nothing of
its reality by being placed at so great a distance from him. The objects
do not appear little to him because they are remote.[373] He considers
that those pleasures and pains which lie hid in eternity, approach nearer
to him every moment, and will be present with him in their full weight
and measure, as much as those pains and pleasures which he feels at this
very instant.
6. For this reason, he is careful to secure to himself that which is
the proper business of his nature, and the ultimate[374] design of
his being. He carries his thoughts to the end of every action, and
considers the most distant as well as the most immediate effects of it.
He supersedes[375] every little prospect of gain and advantage which
offers itself here, if he does not find it consistent with the views of a
hereafter. In a word, his hopes are full of immortality, his schemes are
large and glorious, and his conduct suitable to one who knows his true
interest, and how to pursue it by proper methods.
7. I have, in this essay upon discretion, considered it both as an
accomplishment and as a virtue, and have therefore described it in its
full extent, not only as it is the guide of a mortal creature, but as it
is in general the director of a reasonable being. It is in this light
that discretion is represented by the wise man, who sometimes mentions
it under the name of discretion, and sometimes under that of wisdom. It
is, indeed, as described in the latter part of this paper, the greatest
wisdom, but, at the same time, in the power of every one to attain. Its
advantages are infinite, but its acquisition[376] is easy.
[369] DIS-CREˊ-TION, prudence.
[370] AC-COMˊ-PLISH-MENTS, attainments.
[371] AT-TAINˊ-ING, reaching, obtaining.
[372] MIMˊ-IC, imitator, counterfeit.
[373] RE-MOTEˊ, distant.
[374] ULˊ-TI-MATE, final.
[375] SUˊ-PER-SEDE, to set aside.
[376] AC-QUI-SIˊ-TION, acquirement, attainment.
XLVII.—STABILITY OF CHARACTER.
ALISON.
1. Stability[377] of character is, in all pursuits, the surest foundation
of success. It is a common error of the indolent[378] and the imprudent
to attribute the success of others to some peculiar talents, or original
superiority of mind, which is not to be found in the generality of men.
Of the falseness of this opinion, the slightest observation of human life
may satisfy us. The difference of talents, indeed, and the varieties
of original character, may produce a difference in the aims and in the
designs of men; and superior minds will naturally form to themselves
superior objects of ambition. But the attainment of these ends, the
accomplishment of these designs, is, in all cases, the consequence of one
means alone—that of steadfastness and perseverance in pursuit.
2. “It is the hand of the diligent,” saith the wise man, “that maketh
rich.” It is the same diligence, when directed to other ends, that
maketh great. Every thing which we see with admiration in the world
around us, or of which we read with delight in the annals of history—the
acquisitions of knowledge, the discoveries of science, the powers of
art, the glories of arms, the dignities of private, or the splendors of
public virtue—all have sprung from the same fountain of mind, from that
steady but unseen perseverance which has been exerted in their pursuit.
The possession of genius alone, is, alas! no certain herald of success;
and how many melancholy instances has the world afforded to us all, of
how little avail mere natural talents are to the prosperity of their
possessors, and of the frequency with which they have led to ruin and
disgrace, when unaccompanied with firmness and energy of mind!
3. This stability of character is the surest promise of honor. It
supposes, indeed, all the qualities of mind that are regarded by the
world with respect; and which constitute the honorable and dignified in
human character. It supposes that profound[379] sense of duty, which
we every where look for as the foundation of virtue, and for the want
of which no other attainments can ever compensate.[380] It supposes a
chastened and regulated imagination, which looks ever to “the things
that are excellent,” and which is incapable of being diverted from
their pursuit, either by the intoxications[381] of prosperous, or the
depressions of adverse fortune. It supposes, still more, a firm and
intrepid[382] heart, which neither pleasure has been able to seduce, nor
indolence to enervate,[383] nor danger to intimidate,[384] and which,
in many a scene of trial, and under many severities of discipline, has
hardened itself at last into the firmness and consistency of virtue.
4. A character of this kind can never be looked upon without admiration;
and wherever we meet it, whether amid the splendors of prosperity, or
the severities of adversity, we feel ourselves disposed to pay it a
pure and an unbidden homage.[385] The display of wild and unregulated
talents may sometimes, indeed, excite a temporary admiration; but it
is the admiration we pay to the useless glare of the meteor, which is
extinguished while it is beheld; while the sentiment we feel for the
steady course of principled virtue, is the admiration with which we
regard the majestic path of the sun, as he slowly pursues his way, to
give light and life to nature.
5. This stability of character is, in another view, the surest foundation
of happiness. There are, doubtless, many ways in which our happiness is
dependent upon the conduct and the sentiments of others; but the great
and perennial[386] source of every man’s happiness is in his own bosom—in
that secret fountain of the heart, from which the “waters of joy or of
bitterness” perpetually flow.
6. It is from this source, the man of steadfast and persevering virtue
derives his peculiar happiness; and the slightest recurrence to our own
experience, can tell us both its nature and its degree. It is pleasing,
we all know, to review the day that is past, and to think that its duties
have been done; to think that the purpose with which we rose, has been
accomplished; that in the busy scene which surrounds us, we have done our
part, and that no temptation has been able to subdue our firmness and our
resolution.
7. Such are the sentiments with which, in every year of life, and still
more in that solemn moment when life is drawing to its close, the man
of persevering virtue is able to review the time that is past. It lies
before him, as it were, in order and regularity; and, while he travels,
over again, the various stages of his progress, memory restores to him
many images to soothe and to animate his heart. The days of trial are
past; the hardships he has suffered, the labors he has undergone, are
remembered no more, but his good deeds remain, and from the grave of time
seem to rise up again to bless him, and to speak to him of peace and hope.
8. Such are, then, the consequences of firmness and stability of
character; and such the rewards which he may look for, who, solemnly
devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of that station or
condition which Providence has assigned him, pursues them with steady and
undeviating labor. It is the character which unites all that is valuable
or noble in human life, the tranquillity of conscience, the honors of
wisdom, and the dignity of virtue.
[377] STA-BILˊ-I-TY, firmness.
[378] INˊ-DO-LENT, lazy, slothful.
[379] PRO-FOUNDˊ, deep, thorough.
[380] COMˊ-PEN-SATE, make amends.
[381] IN-TOXˊ-I-CAˊ-TION, inclination.
[382] IN-TREPˊ-ID, fearless, bold.
[383] ENˊ-ER-VATE, to weaken, to deprive of nerve or strength.
[384] IN-TIMˊ-I-DATE, to inspire with fear.
[385] HOMˊ-AGE, reverence, respect.
[386] PER-ENˊ-NI-AL, perpetual.
THE YEAR OF SORROW—IRELAND—1849.
AUBREY DE VERE.
XLVIII.—SPRING.
1. Once more through God’s high will, and grace
Of hours that each its task fulfills,
Heart-healing Spring resumes her place,
The valley throngs and scales the hills
2. In vain. From earth’s deep heart o’ercharged
The exulting life runs o’er in flowers;
The slave unfed is unenlarged:
In darkness sleep a Nation’s powers.
3. Who knows not Spring? Who doubts, when blows
Her breath, that Spring is come indeed?
The swallow doubts not; nor the rose
That stirs, but wakes not; nor the weed.
4. I feel her near, but see her not;
For these with pain-uplifted eyes
Fall back repulsed, and vapors blot
The vision of the earth and skies.
5. I see her not—I feel her near,
As, charioted in mildest airs,
She sails through yon empyreal sphere,
And in her arms and bosom bears
6. That urn of flowers and lustral dews,
Whose sacred balm, o’er all things shed,
Revives the weak, the old renews,
And crowns with votive wreaths the dead.
7. Once more the cuckoo’s call I hear;
I know, in many a glen profound,
The earliest violets of the year
Rise up like water from the ground.
8. The thorn I know once more is white;
And, far down many a forest dale,
The anemones in dubious light
Are trembling like a bridal veil.
9. By streams released, that singing flow
From craggy shelf through sylvan glades;
The pale narcissus, well I know,
Smiles hour by hour on greener shades.
10. The honeyed cowslip tufts once more
The golden slopes; with gradual ray
The primrose stars the rock, and o’er
The wood-path strews its milky way.
11. From ruined huts and holes come forth
Old men, and look upon the sky!
The Power Divine is on the earth:
Give thanks to God before ye die!
12. And ye, O children worn and weak!
Who care no more with flowers to play,
Lean on the grass your cold, thin cheek,
And those slight hands, and whispering, say,
13. “Stern Mother of a race unblest,
“In promise kindly, cold in deed,—
“Take back, O Earth, into thy breast,
“The children whom thou wilt not feed.”
XLIX.—SUMMER.
1. Approved by works of love and might,
The Year, consummated and crowned,
Has scaled the zenith’s purple height,
And flings his robe the earth around.
2. Impassioned stillness—fervors calm—
Brood, vast and bright, o’er land and deep:
The warrior sleeps beneath the palm;
The dark-eyed captive guards his sleep.
3. The Iberian laborer rests from toil;
Sicilian virgins twine the dance;
Laugh Tuscan vales in wine and oil;
Fresh laurels flash from brows of France.
4. Far off, in regions of the North,
The hunter drops his winter fur;
Sun-stricken babes their feet stretch forth;
And nested dormice feebly stir.
5. But thou, O land of many woes!
What cheer is thine? Again the breath
Of proved Destruction o’er thee blows,
And sentenced fields grow black in death.
6. In horror of a new despair
His blood-shot eyes the peasant strains,
With hands clenched fast, and lifted hair,
Along the daily-darkening plains.
7. “Why trusted he to them his store?
“Why feared he not the scourge to come?”
Fool! turn the page of History o’er—
The roll of Statutes—and be dumb!
8. Behold, O People! thou shalt die!
What art thou better than thy sires?
The hunted deer a weeping eye
Turns on his birthplace, and expires.
9. Lo! as the closing of a book,
Or statue from its base o’erthrown,
Or blasted wood, or dried-up brook,
Name, race, and nation, thou art gone.
10. The stranger shall thy hearth possess;
The stranger build upon thy grave.
But know this also—he, not less
His limit and his term shall have.
11. Once more thy volume, open cast,
In thunder forth shall sound thy name;
Thy forest, hot at heart, at last
God’s breath shall kindle into flame.
12. Thy brook dried up, a cloud shall rise,
And stretch an hourly widening hand,
In God’s good vengeance, through the skies
And onward o’er the Invader’s land.
13. Of thine, one day, a remnant left
Shall raise o’er earth a Prophet’s rod,
And teach the coasts of Faith bereft
The names of Ireland, and of God.
L.—AUTUMN.
1. Then die, thou Year—thy work is done:
The work ill done is done at last.
Far off, beyond that sinking sun
Which sets in blood, I hear the blast
2. That sings thy dirge, and says—“Ascend,
“And answer make amid thy peers,
“(Since all things here must have an end,)
“Thou latest of the famine years!”
3. I join that voice. No joy have I
In all thy purple and thy gold;
Nor in that nine fold harmony
From forest on to forest rolled:
4. Nor in that stormy western fire,
Which burns on ocean’s gloomy bed,
And hurls, as from a funeral pyre,
A glare that strikes the mountain’s head;
5. And writes on low-hung clouds its lines
Of cyphered flame, with hurrying hand;
And flings amid the topmost pines
That crown the steep, a burning brand.
6. Make answer, Year, for all thy dead,
Who found not rest in hallowed earth;
The widowed wife, the father fled,
The babe age-stricken from his birth
7. Make answer, Year, for virtue lost;
For courage proof ’gainst fraud and force
Now waning like a noontide ghost;
Affections poisoned at their source.
8. The laborer spurned his lying spade,
The yeoman spurned his useless plow;
The pauper spurned the unwholesome aid,
Obtruded once, exhausted now.
9. The roof-trees fall of hut and hall,
I hear them fall, and falling cry,
“One fate for each, one fate for all;
So wills the Law that willed a lie.”
10. Dread power of Man! what spread the waste
In circles hour by hour more wide,
And would not let the past be past?—
The Law that promised much, and lied.
11. Dread power of God! Whom mortal years
Nor touch, nor tempt; Who sitt’st sublime
In night of night—O bid thy spheres
Resound at last a funeral chime!
12. Call up at last the afflicted race,
Whom man, not God, abolished.—Sore,
For centuries, their strife: the place
That knew them once shall know no more!
LI.—WINTER.
1. Fall, snow, and cease not! Flake by flake
The decent winding-sheet compose.
Thy task is just and pious; make
An end of blasphemies and woes.
2. Fall flake by flake! by thee alone,
Last friend, the sleeping draught is given:
Kind nurse, by thee the couch is strewn,
The couch whose covering is from heaven.
3. Descend and clasp the mountain’s crest;
Inherit plain and valley deep:
This night on thy maternal breast
A vanquished nation dies in sleep.
4. Lo! from the starry Temple Gates
Death rides, and bears the flag of peace:
The combatants he separates;
He bids the wrath of ages cease.
5. Descend, benignant Power! But O,
Ye torrents, shake no more the vale:
Dark streams, in silence seaward flow:
Thou rising storm, remit thy wail.
6. Shake not, to-night, the cliffs of Moher,
Nor Brandon’s base, rough sea! Thou Isle,
The Rite proceeds! From shore to shore,
Hold in thy gathered breath the while.
7. Fall, snow! in stillness fall, like dew,
On church’s roof and cedar’s fan;
And mold thyself on pine and yew;
And on the awful face of man.
8. Without a sound, without a stir,
In streets and wolds, on rock and mound,
O, omnipresent Comforter,
By Thee, this night, the lost are found!
9. On quaking moor, and mountain moss,
With eyes upstaring at the sky,
And arms extended like a cross,
The long-expectant sufferers lie.
10. Bend o’er them, white-robed Acolyte!
Put forth thine hand from cloud and mist;
And minister the last sad Rite,
Where altar there is none, nor priest.
11. Touch thou the gates of soul and sense;
Touch darkening eyes and dying ears;
Touch stiffening hands and feet, and thence
Remove the trace of sin and tears.
12. And ere thou seal those filmed eyes,
Into God’s urn thy fingers dip,
And lay, ’mid eucharistic sighs,
The sacred wafer on the lip.
13. This night the Absolver issues forth:
This night the Eternal Victim bleeds:
O winds and woods—O heaven and earth!
Be still this night. The Rite proceeds!
LII.—DEATH OF LITTLE NELL.
DICKENS.
1. By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
chamber. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips, “You plot
among you to wean my heart from her. You will never do that—never while I
have life. I have no relative or friend but her—I never had—I never will
have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.”
2. Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went,
he stole into the room. They who were left behind drew close together,
and after a few whispered words, not unbroken by emotion, or easily
uttered, followed him. They moved so gently that their footsteps made no
noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and
mourning. For she was dead.
3. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was
no marvel now. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from
trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the
hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived
and suffered death.
4. Her couch was dressed with, here and there, some winter berries and
green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. “When I die,
put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it
always.” These were her words.
5. She was dead! Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little
bird—a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed—was
stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress
was mute and motionless for ever!
6. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings and fatigues?
All gone. His was the true death before their weeping eyes. Sorrow was
dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in
her tranquil beauty and profound repose.
7. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes.
The old fireside had smiled on that same sweet face; it had passed like
a dream through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor
schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire, upon the
cold, wet night, at the still bed-side of the dying boy, there had been
the same mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty,
after death.
8. The old man held one languid arm in his, and kept the small hand
tightly folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had
stretched out to him with her last smile—the hand that had led him on
through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips;
then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now;
and as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if
imploring them to help her.
9. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she
had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was ebbing fast—the
garden she had tended—the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts
of many a thoughtless hour—the paths she had trodden as it were but
yesterday—could know her no more.
10. “It is not,” said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on
the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, “it is not in this world that
Heaven’s justice ends. Think what it is compared with the world to which
her young spirit has winged its early flight, and say, if one deliberate
wish, expressed in solemn terms above this bed, could call her back to
life, which of us would utter it!”
11. When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject
of their grief, they heard how her life had closed. They were all about
her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after
daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the
night; but as the hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could tell, by
what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings
with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of those who had
helped and used them kindly, for she often said “God bless you!” with
great fervor. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that
was at beautiful music which she said was in the air. It may have been.