I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high--
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook 'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun 'll shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light,
Ye 'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool,
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
Ye 'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And ye 'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid,
I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but ye 'll forgive me now:
Ye 'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
Nay,--nay, ye must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
Ye should not fret for me, mother, ye have another child.
If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place
Tho' ye 'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Tho' I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what ye say,
And be often--often with ye when ye think I'm far away.
Good night! good night! when I have said good night for evermore,
And ye see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green;
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She'll find my garden tools upon the granary floor;
Let her take 'em,--they are hers,--I shall never garden more:
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set,
About the parlor window, and the box of mignonette.
Good night, sweet mother! call me when it begins to dawn:
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn:
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New year,
So, if you're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear!
And it is wholesome that the mournful reflections which the period
suggests _should_ be indulged, but not to the neglect of its more
cheerful influences. The New Year's Eve is in all quarters looked upon
as a time of rejoicing; and perhaps no night of this merry season is
more universally dedicated to festivity. Men are for the most part met
in groups to hail the coming year with propitiatory honors; and copious
libations are poured to its honor, as if to determine it to look upon us
with a benignant aspect. We generally spend _our_ New Year's Eve in some
such group; but, we confess, it is not every class of wassailers that
will suit us for the occasion. The fact is, after all our resolves to
work up our minds to the pitch of gladness, aye, and notwithstanding our
_success_, too, there are _other_ feelings that _will_ intrude in spite
of us; and we like to find ourselves in a party where their presence is
not looked upon as a marrer of the revels. When fitly associated for
such a night, we find the very feelings in question for the most part to
harmonize very delightfully with the predominant spirit of the time,
producing a sort of mixed sensation which is full of luxury and
tenderness. Bye the by, we have no great wish to have for our companions
at any time those precisians who insist greatly on the _external_
solemnities. "Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise," says Burns. But
for ourselves, gentlemen, our sympathies lie with those who can be made
to understand that the garb of even folly may by possibility be at times
worn by those who conceal beneath it more sickness of the heart, as well
as more wisdom, than shall ever be dreamt of in _your_ philosophy,--who
know, in fact, that that same folly is sometimes the very saddest thing
in the world; that the jingle of the cap and bells is too often but a
vain device, like that of the ancient Corybantes, to drown the "still
small" sounds whose wailing is yet heard over all.
And on the night before us, of all nights in the year, the smile and the
laugh go freely round, but ever and anon there is, as it were, the echo
of a far sigh. A birth in which we have a mighty interest is about to
take place, but every now and then comes to the heart the impression of
low whispering and soft treading in the back-ground, as of those who
wait about a death-bed. We are in a state of divided feelings, somewhat
resembling his whose joy at the falling of a rich inheritance is dashed
by tender recollections of the friend by whose departure it came. Let
Mr. Tennyson explain for us why this is so:--
"Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die.
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.
"He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go.
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go!
"He frothed his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me!
Old year, you shall not die.
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you _must_ die.
"He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er,
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before!
Every one for his own!
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year, blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.
"How hard he breathes!--over the snow,
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro;
The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
'Tis nearly one[4] o'clock.
Shake hands before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you.
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die!
"His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone!
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let _him_ in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door!"
Occasionally, too, there will come a thought across us, in these hours,
which _cannot_ be made to harmonize with the feelings we are seeking to
encourage, and has the unpleasing effect of a discord. It is felt at
times, for instance, to be a sort of indecency that we should be looking
out merrily for the New Year, when the old one is perishing by our side,
and, for an instant, the heart's joyous issues are thrown back upon it.
And then, again, the looker forward to hail the "coming guest" will
suddenly fix his eyes upon the veil which shrouds that face; and the
chill of a moment will creep over his heart, as he speculates on what it
may conceal, or, gazing on the sealed book which the New Year carries in
his hand, asks himself how many of those who sit with him on this night
about the social table, may have their names written in its last page!
Thoughts like these, however, are instantly treated like informers, and
ducked, as they deserve to be, in the wassail-bowl.
[Illustration: SEEING-IN THE NEW YEAR.--_Page 331._]
But, in any case, we have never failed to observe that, as the midnight
hour draws near, a hush falls upon these assemblies; and when men rise
to usher in the new comer, it is for the most part in silence. We do not
believe _that_ moment is ever a merry one. The blithe spirits of the
night stand still. The glasses are full,--but so is the heart, and the
eye is strained upon the finger of the dial whose notes are to sound the
arrival, as if held there by a spell. We do not think that any man, of
all that group whom our artist has represented, could turn his face away
from the dial, even by an effort; and he who could, would be out of
place in any assembly of which we made one, unless we were out of place
ourselves. The instant the solemn sounds of the midnight chime have
ceased, the bells from a thousand steeples lift up their merry voices,
but they never, at that moment, found a true echo in _our_ hearts; and
the shout which rises from the wassail table, in answer, has ever seemed
to us to want much of the mirth to which it makes such boisterous
pretension.
But this oppressive sensation soon passes away; and the glad bells of
the spirit, like those of the steeples, ring freely out. When the old
year is fairly withdrawn, when we have ceased to hear the sound of the
falling earth upon its coffin-lid, when the heir stands absolutely in
our presence, and the curtain which hides his features has begun slowly
to rise (while the gazer on that curtain can discover, as yet, nothing
of the dark things that lie behind, and the hopes which the New Year
brings are seen through it, by their own light),--then does the heart
shake off all that interfered with its hearty enjoyment, and then "comes
in the sweet o' the night!" We are, ourselves, of that party in the
plate; and it will be late, we promise you, before we separate. One song
to the past! and then, "shall we set about some revels?"--as our old
friend, Sir Andrew, hath it.
"Here's to the year that's awa!
We'll drink it, in strong and in sma';
And to each bonny lassie that we dearly loo'd,
In the days o' the year that's awa!
"Here's to the soldier who bled!
To the sailor who bravely did fa'!
Oh, their fame shall remain, though their spirits are fled,
On the wings o' the year that's awa!
"Here's to the friend we can trust,
When the storms of adversity blaw;
Who can join in our song, and be nearest our heart,
Nor depart,--like the year that's awa!"
And now are we in the humor, this New Year's morning, for keeping such
vigils as they did in Illyria; for "were we" too "not born under
Taurus?" No advocates do we mean to be for those whose zeal in symposiac
matters, like that of Bardolph, "burns in their noses;" but occasions
there are, and this is one, when we hold it lawful to sound the
wassail-bowl to some considerable depth. Like honest Isaak Walton, we
love to keep within the bounds of "such mirth as does not make friends
ashamed to look on one another, next morning;" but we feel that we may
venture to be a little intemperate, in the present instance, and yet
hold our heads up, even if we should chance to meet one of those gentry
whom Burns presumes to be wise, because they "are sae grave." What says
Innocentius?--and he was a Father of the Church; "_Fecundi calices, quem
non fecere disertum?_" "Carry Master Silence to bed!" therefore, for we
are about to be talkative, and expect to be answered. No man need sit
with us longer than he likes: but it is the opening of another year, and
_we_ must see more of it. We find much virtue in Sir Toby's excellent
reasoning, that "not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes;" and
have no sympathy for those who would insist, to-day, with the stolid Sir
Andrew, that "to be up late is to be up late." "A false conclusion!"
says Sir Toby; and so say we. So fill the glasses, once more, from the
wassail-bowl, and let us "rouse the night-owl" in another "catch!"
But alas! it is later than we thought, and the owl is gone to bed; for
we hear the cry of that other bird whom Herrick calls "the Bellman of
the night:"--
"Hark! the cock crows, and yon bright star
Tells us the day himself's not far;
And see! where, breaking from the night,
He gilds the eastern hills with light!"
Honest Master Cotton had evidently been sitting up all night, himself,
when he wrote these lines; and being therefore a boon companion, and a
true observer of Christmas proprieties, we will take his warning, and to
bed ourselves. So "a good New Year to you, my masters! and many of
them!" as the bellman (not Herrick's) says, on this morning.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] (Twelve?)
NEW YEAR'S DAY.
1ST JANUARY.
THE first of January, forming the accomplishment of the eight days after
the birth of Christ, has been sometimes called the octave of Christmas;
and is celebrated in our church services as the day of the Circumcision.
Of this day we have little left to say; almost all that belongs to it
having been of necessity anticipated in the progress of those remarks
which have brought us up to it. It is a day of universal congratulation;
and one on which, so far as we may judge from external signs, a general
expansion of the heart takes place. Even they who have no hearts to
open, or hearts which are not opened by such ordinary occasions, adopt
the phraseology of those whom _all_ genial hints call into sympathy with
their fellow-creatures; and the gracious compliments of the season may
be heard falling from lips on which they must surely wither in the very
act of passing. To have your morning's salutation from a worthy like our
friend with the umbrella in the plate, must be much the same thing as
riding out into the highway, and getting your New Year's greeting from a
raven by the roadside. Mathews's undertaker, who used to sing the song
of "Merry I have been, and merry could I be," at his club, to a tune
considerably below a dirge in point of liveliness, was a brother of the
same family.
Of New Year's gifts, which are the distinguishing feature of this day,
we have already said enough, in pointing out the distinction betwixt
them and Christmas-boxes. They still pass generally from friend to
friend, and between the different members of a family; and are in such
cases, very pleasant remembrancers; but the practice in ancient times
had some very objectionable features. It was formerly customary for the
nobles and those about the court to make presents on this day to the
sovereign; who, if he were a prince with anything like a princely mind,
took care that the returns which he made in kind should at least balance
the cost to the subject. The custom, however, became a serious tax when
the nobles had to do with a sovereign of another character; and in
Elizabeth's day it was an affair of no trifling expense to maintain
ground as a courtier. The lists of the _kind_ of gifts which she exacted
from all who approached her (for the necessity of giving, the
consequences of not giving, amounted to an exaction), and the accounts
of the childish eagerness with which she turned over the wardrobe
finery, furnished in great abundance as the sort of gift most suited to
her capacity of appreciation, furnish admirable illustrations of her
mind. She is said to have taken good care that her returns should leave
a very substantial balance in her own favor. The practice is stated to
have been extinguished in the reign of George III.
A worse custom still, however, was that of presenting gifts to the
Chancellor by suitors in his court, for the purpose of influencing his
judgments. The abuses of the New-Year's-gift practice have, however,
been cleared away, and have left it what it now is,--a beautiful form
for the interchanges of affection and the expression of friendship.
In Paris, where this day is called the "Jour d'Etrennes," the practice
is of still more universal observance than with us, and the streets are
brilliant with the displays made in every window of the articles which
are to furnish these tokens of kindness, and with the gay equipages and
well-dressed pedestrians passing in all directions, to be the bearers of
them, and offer the compliments which are appropriate to the season. The
thousand bells of the city are pealing from its hundred belfries,
filling the air with an indescribable sense of festival, and would alone
set the whole capital in motion if they were a people that ever sat
still. This singing of a thousand bells is likewise a striking feature
of the day in London; and no one who has not heard the mingling voices
of these high choristers in a metropolis, can form any notion of the
wild and stirring effects produced by the racing and crossing and
mingling of their myriad notes. It is as if the glad voices of the earth
had a chorus of echoes in the sky; as if the spirit of its rejoicing
were caught up by "airy tongues," and flung in a cloud of incense-like
music to the gates of heaven.
We need scarcely mention that most of the other forms in which the mirth
of the season exhibits itself, are in demand for this occasion; and that
among the merry evenings of the Christmas-tide, not the least merry is
that which closes New Year's Day. To the youngsters of society, that day
and eve have probably been the most trying of all; and the strong
excitements of a happy spirit drive the weary head to an earlier pillow
than the young heart of this season at all approves. But his is the
weariness that the sweet sleep of youth so surely recruits; and
to-morrow shall see him early afoot, once more engaged in those winter
amusements which are to form his resource till the novelties of
Twelfth-day arrive.
"There will come an eve to a longer day,
That will find thee tired--but not of play;
And thou wilt lean as thou leanest now,
With drooping limbs and an aching brow;
And wish the shadows would faster creep,
And long to go to thy quiet sleep!--
Well were it then if thine aching brow
Were as free from sin and shame as now!"
[Illustration: Twelfth Night King.
Let not a man be seen here,
Who unurged will not drink
To the base from the brink,
A health to the King!
_Herrick._
]
TWELFTH DAY AND TWELFTH NIGHT.
6TH JANUARY.
TWELFTH-DAY (so called from its being the twelfth after Christmas Day)
is that on which the festival of the Epiphany is held. This feast of the
Christian Church was instituted, according to Picart, in the fourth
century, to commemorate the manifestation of our Saviour to the
Gentiles; and the name Epiphany (Επιφανεια), which signifies an
appearance from above, was given to it in allusion to the star described
in Holy writ, as the guide of the Magi or Wise Men to the cradle of the
Blessed Infant. "In Italy," says Mr. Leigh Hunt, "the word has been
corrupted into Beffania or Beffana, as in England it used to be called
Piffany; and Beffana in some parts of that country has come to mean an
old fairy or Mother Bunch, whose figure is carried about the streets,
and who rewards or punishes children at night, by putting sweetmeats or
stones and dirt into a stocking hung up for the purpose, near the bed's
head. The word 'Beffa,' taken from this, familiarly means a trick or
mockery put upon any one; to such base uses may come the most splendid
terms!" But what is quite as extraordinary as that the primitive
signification of a word not familiarly understood should, amid the
revolutions of centuries, be lost in a different or distorted into an
inferior meaning, is the preservation in popular rites of trivial
details, which, as we have before stated, conclusively identify many of
the practices of our modern Christian festivals as echoes of ancient
pagan observances. Of this, Twelfth-day presents a remarkable instance.
The more we examine the Saturnalia of the Romans and compare those
revels with the proceedings of our Twelfth-night, the more satisfied do
we feel of the correctness of Selden's view. "Christmas," he says, in
his "Table Talk," "succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same
number of holy-days. Then the master waited upon the servants, like the
Lord of Misrule." There is here a general likeness to the season of
which we treat; but, as Mr. Brand further states, the Greeks and Romans
at this period also "drew lots for kingdoms, and like kings exercised
their temporary authority;" and Mr. Fosbroke mentions that "the king of
Saturnalia was elected by beans," which identifies our Twelfth-night
characters, as well as our mode of selecting them, with those of the
ancients. Through so many centuries has chance decided who should wear a
crown! By the French Twelfth-day was distinguished as "La Fête des
Rois," a name of course obnoxious to the revolutionary fraternity of
1792, who caused such feast to be declared anti-civic, and replaced it
by "La Fête des Sans-Culottes."
However, before entering upon the important discussion of the "absolute
monarchy" of "the king of cakes and characters," in which, without any
reference to profane ceremonies, there was sufficient found to offend
puritanical ideas, we must be allowed to mention some customs observed
on the vigil or eve of the feast of the Epiphany. Amongst these was the
practice of wassailing the trees to ensure their future fruitfulness,
mentioned by Herrick:--
"Wassail the trees, that they may beare
You many a plum, and many a peare;
For more or lesse fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing."
The merry bowl which, notwithstanding that it had been so often drained,
was still kept brimming throughout all the Christmas holidays, was now
when they were drawing to a close actually flowing over; and the warm
heart and jovial spirit of the season, not content with pledging all
those who could drink in return, proceeded to an excess of
boon-companionship, and after quaffing a wassail-draft to the health and
abundant bearing of some favorite fruit-tree, poured what remained in
the cup upon the root, as a libation to its strength and vitality. Here,
also, we cannot fail to recognize the rites of classical times lurking
in the superstitions used in the cider districts of England. A pleasant
custom of this kind is mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1791,
as existing in certain parts of Devonshire. It is there stated that "the
farmer, attended by his workmen with a large pitcher of cider, goes to
the orchard on this evening; and there, encircling one of the best
bearing trees, they drink the following toast three times:--
"Here's to thee, old apple-tree!
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow!
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full! caps full!
Bushel, bushel-sacks full!
And my pockets full too!--Huzza!"
This done they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to
find bolted by the females, who, be the weather what it may, are
inexorable to all entreatries to open them till some one has guessed at
what is on the spit, which is generally some nice little thing difficult
to be hit on, and is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are
then thrown open; and the lucky clodpole receives the titbit as a
recompense. Some, it is added, "are so superstitious as to believe that
if they neglect this custom the trees will bear no apples that year."
"Health to thee, good apple-tree!
Well to bear, pockets full, hats full,
Pecks full, bushel-bags full,"--
is another version of the address used on these occasions, preserved by
Brand. We find recorded in one quarter or another a variety of analogous
and other customs observed in different parts of England on this vigil;
but our diminishing space will not permit us to enter upon a description
of them.
[Illustration: TWELFTH NIGHT IN LONDON STREETS.--_Page 343._]
To illustrate "Twelfth-night," our artist has made two studies of the
scenes it presents in London,--abroad and at home; and these involve our
consideration of the subject, accordingly.
During the entire twelve months there is no such illumination of
pastry-cooks' shops, as on Twelfth-night. Each sends forth a blaze of
light; and is filled with glorious cakes, "decorated," to use the words
of Mr. Hone, "with all imaginable images of thing animate and inanimate.
Stars, castles, kings, cottages, dragons, trees, fish, palaces, cats,
dogs, churches, lions, milkmaids, knights, serpents, and innumerable
other forms, in snow-white confectionery, painted with variegated
colors." "This 'paradise of dainty devices,'" he continues, "is crowded
by successive, and successful, desirers of the seasonable delicacies;
while alternate tappings of hammers and peals of laughter, from the
throng surrounding the house, excite smiles from the inmates." This last
observation requires explanation, for our country readers.