throne of universal domination, had long ago departed from the
degenerate and weak posterity of the world’s conquerors! The name of
Roman was but the lucid meteor of the charnel imparting a faint lustre
to corruption and decay! The bold hordes of the hardy north had
oftentimes already avenged the wrongs done by the elder Cæsar, while the
frail silken puppets, who had succeeded to his style and station,
trembled in the unguarded capital at every rumor from beyond the Danube.
For, to the limits of that mighty river had they extended, years before
the time of which we write, their arms, their arts, their sciences, and
their religion—the pure and holy doctrines of the crucified Redeemer.
All the Dalmatian coast of the bright gulf of Venice, now little more
known than the wilds of central Asia, was studded with fair towns, and
gorgeous palaces, and gay suburban villas; and all the wide spread
plains of Thrace and Thessaly, now forest-clad and pathless, save to the
untamed klepht or barbarous tartar, waved white with crops of grain, and
blushed with teeming vineyards, and nurtured a dense happy population.
At times indeed the overwhelming deluge of barbarian warfare had burst
upon those fertile regions; and, wheresoever it burst,
“With sweepy sway
Their arms, their arts, their gods were whirled away—”
yet ever, when the refluent billows ebbed, the grass had sprung up green
and copious even in the horse tramps of the innumerable cavalry that
swelled the armies of the north, and the succeeding summer had smiled on
meads and vineyards abundant as before, and on a population careless and
free and jocund.
But now a mightier name was on the wind—a wilder terror was
abroad—Attila!—Attila—the dread Hun! Still all as yet was peace; and,
although rumors were abroad of meetings beyond the Danube; of the bent
bow—emblem of instant warfare—sent with the speed of horse o’er moor,
morass, and mountain—although the tribute, paid yearly by the
degenerate Cæsars, had been refused indignantly by the bold
Marcian—bold, and wise, and worthy the best days of the
republic!—although from all these tokens prudent men had foreseen the
wrath to come, and brave men armed to meet it, and cowards fled before
it; still careless and improvident the crowd maintained their usual
demeanor, and toiled, and laughed, and bought, and sold, and feasted,
and slept sound o’ nights, as though there were no such things on earth
as rapine, and revenge, and merciless unmitigated war.
It was as sweet and beautiful an evening in the early autumn as ever
looked down with bright and cheerful smile from the calm heavens upon
man’s hour of rest, what time the labor and the burthen of the day all
past and over, he gathers round him his blythe household, and no more
dreaming of anxiety or toil or sorrow, looks confidently forward to a
secure night and happy morrow. And never did the eye of day, rising or
sitting, look down from his height upon a brighter or a happier
assemblage than was gathered on that evening in a sweet rural villa,
scarce a mile distant from the gates of Singidurum one of the frontier
towns of Masia on the Danube.
It was a wedding eve—the wedding of two beings both young and beautiful
and loving. Julia, the fairest of the province, the bright and noble
daughter of its grave proconsul, famed for her charms, her arts, her wit
and elegance, even in the great Rome itself before her father had taken
on himself—alas! in an evil hour—the duties and the honors of that
remote provincial government—and brave Aurelius, the
patrician—Aurelius, who, though not yet had he reached his thirtieth
summer, had fought in nine pitched battles, besides affairs of posts and
skirmishes past counting—won no less than five civic crowns, for the
lives saved of Romans on the field, and collars, and horse trappings,
and gold bracelets, as numerous as were awarded to the deeds of Marius,
when valor was a common virtue in Rome’s martial offspring.
They were a noble pair, and beautiful, as noble—well-matched—she,
light as the summer cloud and airy as its zephyr and graceful as the
vine that waves at every breath—he vigorous and tall as the young oak
before the blight of eld has gnarled one giant limb or scathed one
wreath of its dark foliage.
Delicate, fair, and slender and tall beyond the middle height of woman
with a waist ‘shaped to love’s wish’ and every graceful outline full of
rich rounded symmetry, young Julia was a thing to dream of as the
inhabitant of some far bright Elysian, rather than to behold as an
inmate of the rude heartless world. It seemed as though it were a sin
that the sun’s ardent kiss should visit her transparent cheek too
warmly, that any breath but that of the softest summer gale should
wanton in the luxuriant ringlets of her long silky auburn hair—her eyes
were blue and clear as the bosom of some pure moonlit fountain, and
there was in them a wild, yet not unquiet gaze, half languor and half
tenderness. She was indeed a creature but little fitted to battle with
the cares and sorrows of this pilgrimage, and as she leaned on the
stalwart arm of her warrior lover, hanging upon him as if confident in
his vast strength and relying absolutely on his protection, and fixing
the soft yearning gaze of those blue eyes full on his broad brow and
expressive lineaments, no one could doubt that she had chosen well the
partner who should support and guide her through this vale of tears and
sin and sorrow.
But who thought then of tears—who ever dreamed of sorrow? The day had
been passed happily—alas! how happily!—in innocent and pure
festivity—the blythe dance on the velvet greensward, the joyous ramble
amid the trelliced vines, the shadowy cypresses, the laurelled mazes of
the garden; with lyre and lute and song, and rich peals of the mellow
flute and melancholy horn blent with the livelier clashing of the
cymbals, waking at intervals the far and slumbering echoes of the dark
wilderness beyond the Danube. Oh! had they but known what ears were
listening to their mirthful music, what eyes were gloating with the
fierce lust of barbarous anticipation on their fair forms and radiant
faces, what hearts were panting amid the dense and tangled forests for
the approaching nightfall—how would their careless mirth have been
converted into despair and dread and anguish, their languishing and
graceful gait into precipitate and breathless flight—those blythe light
hearted beings!
The sun set glowing in the west—glowing with the bright promise of a
lovely morrow—and many an eye dwelt on his waning glories, and drew
bright augeries from the rich flood of lustre, which streamed in hues of
varying rose and gold up to the purpled zenith; while on the opposite
verge of heaven, the full orbed moon had hung already her broad shield
of virgin silver, with Lucifer the star of love kindling his diamond
lamp beside her.
“Farewell, great sun—and blessings be upon thy course”—whispered
Aurelius to his lovely bride, as hanging fondly on his arm, she watched
from the Ionic porticoes of spotless Parian marble, the last sun of her
maiden days—“that thou hast set so calm and bright, and with such
promise of a glorious future—Hail, Julia, Hail with me the happy omen!”
“To-morrow”—she replied in tones of eloquent music, half blushing as
she spoke even at the intensity of her own feelings—“To-morrow, my
Aurelius, I shall be thine, all thine!”—
“And art thou not all mine, even now, beloved—By the bright heavens
above us—for long—long years!—my heart with all its hopes and fears
and aspirations, my life with its whole crime and purpose—my soul with
its very essence and existence have been thine—all! all thine—my
Julia—and art not thou mine, now!—why what save death should sever
us?—”
“Talk not of death!”—she answered with a slight shiver running through
all her frame—“Talk not of death, Aurelius—I feel even now as if his
icy breath was blowing on my spirit, his dim and awful shadow reflecting
darkness on my every thought—dost thou believe, Aurelius, that passing
shades like these, which will at times sadden and chill the soul, are
true presentiments of coming evil?”
“That do I not—sweet love”—he answered—“that do I not believe; when
by chance or some strain of highly wrought and thrilling sentiment the
heart-strings of us mortals are attuned too high beyond their wont, like
harp chords, they will harmonize to any sound or sentiment that accords
to their own spirit pitch; and, neither sad nor joyous in themselves,
will respond readily to either grief or sorrow: that, feeling no cause
for mirth or gloom, we fancy them prophetic feelings, when they are but
reflected tones, and so disquiet ourselves often with a vain shadow!”
“Well,”—she replied, still sadly—“I wish it may be so, as I suppose it
is. Yet—yet—I would it were to-morrow!”
“Come, come! I must not have thee thus sad on an eve like this, my
Julia—lo! they have lighted up the hall—and the banquet is spread, and
the wine poured—the queen of the feast must not be absent!”
And shaking off the gloom which had, she knew not why, oppressed her,
she turned with one long lingering last glance to the sun as he
disappeared behind the dark tree tops which seemed to swallow him up in
an unnatural gloom, and entered the vast hall which, hung with
tapestries of silk and gold, and garlanded with wreaths of choice
flowers, and reeking with unnumbered perfumes, lighted with lamps of
gold pouring their soft illumination over the gorgeous boards, shewed
like a very palace of the senses.
The bridal strains burst forth harmonious at the first, and slow and
solemn, but quickening and thrilling as they rose, till every ear that
heard them responded to their enlivening impulse, and every bosom glowed
and panted to their expressive cadences. The wine went round, and
laughter circled with it, and many a tender glance was interchanged, and
many a whisper that called up burning blushes, and many a pressure of
young hands betwixt those, who hoped that as this night to Julia and
Aurelius, so should one be for them at no far distant!—and many prayed
that such might be their lot—and many envied them!—Oh God, what
blinded worms we be—when left to our own guidance!
The bridal feast was over—the bridal hymns were hushed—the banquet
hall was left deserted—for in an inner chamber all hung with spotless
white at a small altar placed beneath a cross gorgeous with gold and
jewels stood Julia and Aurelius—the tender and solicitous mother and
the gray headed noble father at her side—the priest of God before them,
and all the joyous company hushed in mute awe, that arose not from
fear—and the faith of that bright pair was plighted, and the gold ring
set on the slender finger, and the last blessing was pronounced, and
they two were made one.
Just in that breathless pause as the words of the priest ceased to
sound, although their cadences were still ringing in the ears of all who
heard them—there was a sudden rustle heard without, and a dread cry.
“The city!—the city!—Singidurum!” So piercing was the cry, that not
one of all those who heard it, but felt that something dreadful was in
progress—in an instant the whole company rushed out into the
portico—and lo! one flood of crimson flame was soaring up the sky from
what an hour before had been a beauteous and a happy town—and a
confused din of roars and howls burst with the shrill yells of
despairing women, the clash of arms, and the thundering downfall of
towns, palaces, and temples, filled the whole atmosphere with fiendish
uproar. Scarce had they time to mark, or comprehend what they beheld,
before, about them, and around, on every side came the thick beating
hoofs—and in another moment they might see the myriads of the Hunish
horsemen circling them in on every side, and cutting off all hope of
flight or rescue with a dark living rampart. “Romans,” Aurelius
shouted—“Romans to arms—for life, and liberty, and vengeance!”
His words were obeyed instantly, for all perceived their truth—but what
availed it? To hew down a dozen trees and batter down the village gates
was but a moment’s work for the blood-thirsty hordes who swarmed around
the building. The outer gate was shattered in a moment—the inner,
frailer yet, gave at the first assault, and now no bulwark was left any
longer to the Romans save in their own good swords and stalwart sinews!
Bravely they fought—aye, desperately—heaping the marble floors with
mangled carcasses, and dying, each man where he stood, where the sword
smote or javelin pierced him, dauntless and undismayed. Long they
fought, for each Roman slain cutting down ten barbarians—but by degrees
they were borne back—back at the sword’s point, foot by foot—and
marking every step by their own streaming gore. At the hour’s end but
five were left—five, and all wounded, and one old: the father of the
wretched Julia, Aurelius and his brother, and two young nobles of the
province. Retreating, step by step, they were at last driven back into
the bridal chamber—the altar stood there yet, and the great cross above
it, and the priest clinging to the cross, and at his feet the bride,
with her fair tresses all dishevelled and all her lovely comrades
prostrate upon the ground around her. The door was barred within—brief
respite, no defence—and the strong men leaned upon their weapons in
despair and gazed on one another, and then from one another to the
women. It was a sad and awful scene. A rush of heavy feet was heard
without—a halt, and then a rustling sound, with now a clang of steel
and now the clatter of a grounded spear, as if the multitude was getting
silently into array and order—a pause, and a loud
cry!—“Attila!—Attila!—the king!”
Then came a slow and measured footstep striding up to the door—one
short and heavy blow upon the pannel, as with a sword’s hilt—and a
stern, grave voice exclaimed “Open!”
“I will,” answered Aurelius, “they would destroy it in an instant—it is
but one chance in a myriad, but best trust to his mercy.” With the words
he drew back bar after bar, and threw the door wide open—and there!
there on the very threshold, with his swart cicatrized features, and
short, square, athletic form, sheathed in scale armor of a strange
device, with the hideous Charntean head gleaming out grim and awful from
his breastplate, and the strange sword—all iron, hilt and blade, and
guard and scabbard—his weapon and his God, firmly grasped in his right
hand, but as yet bloodless—there stood the dreadful Hun!
“Death,” he exclaimed—“Death to all who resist,” in tones singularly
deep and stern and solemn—“Mercy to those who yield them!”
“Do with _us_ as thou wilt, great king,” returned Aurelius steadily,
lowering as he spoke his sword’s point—“but spare our women’s honour!”
“Down with thy weapon, or die, Roman!” thundered the monarch, striding
forward as he spoke and raising his sword high.
“The terms, great Attila?”
“Death for resistance!—Mercy for surrender!—A king’s love for fair
women!” shouted the Hun, enraged at finding opposition where he dreamed
not of meeting any, and his blood fired almost beyond endurance by the
exquisite charms of the women, whom he could clearly see beyond their
few defenders.
“Then die, Aurelius! die as becomes a Roman—and by the Heavens above us
both, I will die with you,” exclaimed Julia, nerved by despair to
courage.
“Ha! wilt thou?” exclaimed Attila; “Onegisus, reserve that girl who
spoke so boldly, and that black-haired maid with the jewelled collar,
for the king’s pleasure! Make in, Huns,” he added in an appalling
shout—“kill, win, enjoy—but leave this dog to me!” and with the word
he assailed, sword in hand, the new-made husband. One deadly close
charge, and the four defenders were hewn down—yea! hewn limb from limb,
by a hundred weapons—and then what followed was too terrible for
words—enough! all that war has most horrible—murder and agony and
violation, in their worst, most accursed shapes, reigned there and
revelled fiends incarnate.
Onegisus had seized the bride and the other wretched girl indicated by
the king, and they were for the moment safe among the tumult—and still
Aurelius and Attila fought hand to hand, unwounded, and well paired, a
perilous and deadly duel. And ever as she stood there, unconscious of
the hellish deeds that were in progress round her, she gazed with a
calm, fearless eye upon her bridegroom. Onegisus had her grasped firmly
by the left arm, and as she neither strove, nor shrieked, nor struggled,
but stood still as a marble statue, he thought no more about it, but
gazed himself with all his eyes upon the combat. At last, as if by
mutual consent, the champions paused for breath.
“Thou art brave, Roman,” said the Hun, in his deep, stern, low tones,
not seeming in the least degree disturbed or out of wind—“Attila loves
the brave!—Live and be free!”
“Her honour, mighty Attila—my young bride’s honour—be merciful and
generous as thou art brave and noble.”
“Choose—fool!” the king exclaimed in a voice resembling more the growl
of a famished tiger than any human sound—“choose between life or
death!”
“Death or her honor!”
“Then die—idiot—Roman!” sneered the other, and with a fearful cry,
grinding his teeth till the foam flew from them as from the tusks of a
hunted boar, he leaped upon Aurelius. Three deadly blows were
interchanged, and at each blow a wound—but at the fourth, Attila’s
sword descending like a thunderbolt, shivered the Roman’s blade into a
thousand pieces, and, glancing from his helmet, alighted on his
shoulder, and clove deep into his chest!—he staggered forward, and at
the next instant met the sword’s point, driven home by a tremendous
thrust into his very vitals. Headlong he fell backward; but, as he fell,
his glazing eyes turned fearfully toward his loved Julia—they glazed
fast—but he saw, and smiled in dying, and died happy! For, as the last
blow fell, she saw the fight was over—and by a sudden movement, the
less expected from her complete and passive quietude, she snatched a
long knife from the girdle of Onegisus, and before he well knew what she
had done, much less had time to prevent it, had stabbed herself three
times—each time mortally—into her virgin bosom.
“Husband,” she cried, “I come!—true to my word—Aurelius—I am thine
now—all thine!” and, as the horror-stricken Hun released his hold upon
her arm, she darted forward, and threw herself upon the bosom of her
brave lord. Convulsively, in the death spasm, his arms closed about her,
And in that act
And agony her happy spirit fled.
* * * * *
NIAGARA.
[WRITTEN ON THE BANK OF THE NIAGARA RIVER—BETWEEN THE RAPIDS AND THE
CATARACT.]
BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.
Their roar is round me. I am on the brink
Of the great waters—and their anthem voice
Goes up amid the rainbow and the mist.
Their chorus shakes the ground. I feel the rock
On which my feet hang idly—as they hung
O’er babbling brooks in boyhood—quivering
Under the burst of music. Awful voice!
And strong, triumphant waters! Do I stand
Indeed amid your shoutings? Is it mine
To shout upon this grey cliff, where the bird,
The cloudy monarch-bird, shrieks from his crag,
O’er which he’s wheel’d for cent’ries. I lift up
My cry in echo. But no sound is there—
And my shout seems but whisper. I’m afraid
To gaze or listen! Yet my eye and ear
Are servants to a necromance that God
Alone can hold o’er Nature! Ministers,
At this immortal shrine of the Great King!
Ye never tiring waters! Let me pass
Into your presence—and within the veil
That has no holy like it—a great veil,
Within which the omnipotent outspeaks
In thunder and in majesty—within
The shadow of a leaping sea—where He
Opens His lips in wonder—and His brow
Bends ’neath a crown of glory from the skies!
My prayer has speeded to the fount of power—
The veil has lifted—and I’ve entered in!
I feel like one whose visage has been bar’d
In presence of the Father of all earth—
Like one transported to another sphere,
Of the far company that walks the sky,
Who, in the stern confronting of a God
Has scann’d his own dimensions, and fall’n back
From an archangel’s reaching, to a man—
I feel like one on whom eternity
Has graven its large language, in the lines
Which mem’ry may not pass—nor can send back!
I am as one admitted to the door
That bars me from the future—the black port
Where clust’ring worlds come round, of spirits dim
Beckon’d to mysteries of another land.
Tell not of other portals—tell me not
Of other power or awfulness. If you’ve stood
Within that curtain of Charybdis—if
You’ve seen and heard the far-voiced flood above,
Clapping its thousand hands, and heralding
Seas to a new abyss—you have seen all
The earth has of magnificent, like this—
You’ve stood within a gate that leads to God;
Where the strong beings of his mercy bend
And do his will with power—while they uphold
Our steps that grope the footstool.
O! go in
Say not that to your gaze has been unbar’d
The mightiness of majesty, until
You’ve stood within the shadow of that sea
And heard it call unto you—until eye
And ear have stood the terrible rebuke
That rolls from those great caverns—till your blood
Flies to its citadel, and you grow white
Within the whirlpool presence of a flood
That leapt thus when on soaring Ararat
Rested the broad bark of a world! say not
The front of glory has been yet reveal’d
Until you’ve _felt_ the tempest in that cloud
And heard, ’mid rock and roar, that harmony
That finds no echo like it in the sea!
O! go in
All ye who view not earth as monuments
And men as things but built to—to decay;
Pass ye within—ye will take lesson there.
How passing is the littleness of Earth—
How broad the empyrean reach of Heaven—
How fading is the brilliance of a world—
How beautiful the majesty of God!
* * * * *
THE VAGRANT.
BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.
A man was lying at the further end of a dismal cell, in the prison of
Versailles, when one of the jailors, thrusting a huge key into the lock
of a small but massive door, roused him with the unwelcome salutation,
“come, get up—the time is come, and the gentlemen are waiting for you.”
“What, already!” replied the unhappy wretch to whom these words were
addressed, and stretching his muscular limbs, he added, “what a pity, I
was so sound asleep!”
He rose, shook the bits of straw from his hair and beard, and putting on
the remains of an old hat, which had once been white, calmly said,
“well, I am ready—the sooner it is over the better.”
The executioner, who was waiting with one of his assistants in the outer
vestibule of the prison, threw an oblique glance upon the prisoner,
then, looking at his watch, exclaimed, “come, make haste! we are already
after our time—the market is nearly over.”
“Oh, but you have not far to go,” replied the turnkey; then addressing
the prisoner—“old one,” said he, “it will soon be over, and the weather
is fine. Here, take this, it will keep up your spirits.” And he handed
him a glass of brandy, which the prisoner drank off with evident
delight.
“Thanks, good master,” he replied, returning the glass to the good
natured turnkey, “I shall never forget your kindness.”
“Well, well,” said the latter, “that is settled. Never mind what I do
for you, man—it is little enough, God knows—only behave well—dost
hear?”
The executioner’s man drew from his pocket a long and strong cord, with
a slip knot at the end, and tightly tied the hands of the convict, who
calmly looked at him, and said not a word. The executioner himself
carried a board, on which was a sort of notice, partly printed and
partly written; and all three proceeded slowly towards the market place,
where the prisoner was to be placed in the pillory for one hour, and
exposed to the gibes and taunts of an almost ferocious populace.
From the scaffold to which he was fastened, the old mendicant cast a
look of pity upon the crowd, and said—