gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a
thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there
hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which
Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity. This mist,
or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of
the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom—but the yell that
went up to the Heavens from out of that mist, I will not attempt to
describe.
“Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had
carried us a great distance down the slope; but our farther descent was
by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept—not with any
uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and jerks, that sent us
sometimes only a few hundred yards—sometimes nearly the complete
circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at each revolution, was
very perceptible, but slow.
“Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were
thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the
embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of
vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many
smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes,
barrels and staves. I have already described the unnatural curiosity
which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow
upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to
watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our
company. I _must_ have been delirious—for I even sought _amusement_ in
speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents
toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found myself at one time
saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge
and disappears,’—and then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of
a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after
making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all—this
fact—the fact of my invariable miscalculation—set me upon a train of
reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily
once more.
“It was not a new terror that thus affected me—but the dawn of a more
exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from
present observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant
matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then
thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström. By far the greater number of the
articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way—so chafed and
roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of
splinters—but then I distinctly recollected that there were _some_ of
them which were not disfigured at all. Now I could not account for this
difference except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the
only ones which had been _completely absorbed_—that the others had
entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some reason,
had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the
bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the ebb, as the case
might be. I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might
thus be whirled up again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing
the fate of those which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more
rapidly. I made, also, three important observations. The first was,
that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid
their descent—the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the
one spherical, and the other _of any other shape_, the superiority in
speed was with the sphere—the third, that, between two masses of equal
size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the
cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have had
several conversations on this subject with an old school-master of the
district; and it was from him that I learned the use of the words
‘cylinder’ and ‘sphere.’ He explained to me—although I have forgotten
the explanation—how what I observed was, in fact, the natural
consequence of the forms of the floating fragments—and showed me how it
happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance
to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally
bulky body, of any form whatever.
“There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in
enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to
account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed something
like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel, while many of
these things, which had been on our level when I first opened my eyes
upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed
to have moved but little from their original station. I no longer
hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to the
water-cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and
to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother’s
attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us,
and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about
to do. I thought at length that he comprehended my design—but, whether
this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to
move from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him;
the emergency admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I
resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the
lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with
it into the sea, without another moment’s hesitation.
“The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself
who now tell you this tale—as you see that I _did_ escape—and as you
are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected,
and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther to say—I will
bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have been an hour, or
thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a
vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid
succession, and bearing, my loved brother with it, plunged headlong, at
once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to which I
was attached sunk very little farther than half the distance between the
bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a
great change took place in the character of the whirlpool. The froth and
the rainbow disappeared. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel
became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew
feeble and fluctuating—then ceased altogether—then finally reversed
themselves with a gradually accelerating motion. And then the bottom of
the gulf uprose—and its turgid aspect had in great measure departed.
The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was
setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the
ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where
the pool of the Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was the hour of the
slack—but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of
the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Ström, and
in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the ‘grounds’ of the
fishermen. A boat picked me up—exhausted from fatigue—and (now that
the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. Those
who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions—but they
knew me no more than they would have known a traveller from the
spirit-land. My hair had been raven-black the day before, and now it is
white as you see. They say too that the whole expression of my
countenance had changed. I told them my story—they did not believe it.
I now tell it to _you_—and you will put no more faith in it than did
the merry fishermen of Lofoden.”
* * * * *
SOLILOQUY OF AN OCTOGENARIAN.
BY PLINY EARLE, M. D.
’Tis nearly past—this fitful dream,
Whose phantoms dazzle to deceive,
Like glittering bubbles on the stream,
Or meteors in a summer eve;
And now, half-opening to my sight,
I see the realms of lasting Light.
These feeble pulses speak of death;
This clouded vision bids me look,
With the undaunted eye of faith,
To climes for which Elijah took
From Carmel’s cliffs his joyous way—
Translated to eternal day.
The blood which, in my childhood, rushed
Like mountain torrents in the isles
Where earth with constant life is flushed,
And everlasting summer smiles,
Now struggles in its sluggish flow,
Like streams through Greenland’s bank of snow;
Yet not all frozen,—if a beam
Of light return from earlier years,
If, from the spell of childhood’s dream,
Triumphant over grief and tears,
One bright, enchanting moment come,
Like a lost, loved one welcomed home,
The loosened current, warmed anew,
Hurries along these frigid veins,
As the hot Geyser rushes through
The frozen banks on Iceland’s plains;
And, all forgetful of my years,
I yield again to child-like tears.
Go, tell me not of loving earth;
Tell me not life is fraught with joy;
Say not this world has given birth
To happiness without alloy;
Too subtle is the spirit’s bliss
To stay in atmosphere like this.
There’s not a pang that rends the heart,
In the long catalogue of woe,
Of which I have not shared a part,
In this, my pilgrimage below;
I’ve quaffed at sorrow’s bitter cup,
And drank its turbid waters up.
And now I wish to lay me down,
My mother, Earth, upon thy breast,
When the green turf, with flowers o’ergrown,
Shall flourish o’er my couch of rest;
Gladly would I resign this trust,
And dust consign to native dust.
Why should I not? my former friends
Have fallen round me, one by one,
As fall the leaves when autumn sends
His breezes through the forests dun.
The grave has garnered all my love,
Why, why remain its walls above?—
Here do I stand alone—alone—
As stands the stern and sturdy oak,
When all its forest-frères are gone,
Before the woodman’s fatal stroke,
Or wintry tempest sweeping by,
With the leagued legions of the sky.
Then speed thou home, my wearied soul,
On angel-pinions; bend thine eye,
Unmoved, upon the glorious goal
That waits thy coming in the sky.
Ho, for the waters which arise
At Zion’s foot, in Paradise!
There shall thou lift thy spirit-tongue,
In praises, that thy bonds are riven,
As, by the fountain, Miriam sung
Hosannahs to the God of Heaven,
When Israel, freed from Pharoah’s hand,
Departed for the promised land.
* * * * *
MAY-DAY.
A RHAPSODY BY JEREMY SHORT, ESQ.
It is April, and the rain is pattering against our window as we write,
with a low monotonous tinkle like the far-off music of an evening bell.
How every thing has changed since yesterday! The sunlight no longer
floods the hill-side—the birds sing not their jocund lays—the brooklet
by our window no more goes frolicking onward in its glittering sheen.
The sky is dun, spongy, and covered with flitting clouds. The fields are
drenched by last night’s rain, and the cattle cower under the sheds in
the barn-yard. Yet the south wind has a warmth and freshness in its
touch delicious to the fevered brow of a student, and as it breathes
through the casement the blood dances more merrily along our veins and
we feel a new life within us.
It is April, fickle fooling April, but already one begins to dream of
May. And soon it will be here. Oh! how we long for its bright sunshine,
its budding flowers, its delicious perfumes, its breezy mornings and its
starry nights, reminding us of that better country where the streams
sing on forever, where the spring-time never fades, and where all the
sainted ones we have loved on earth, purified and made more glorious
than ever, await us with their seraphic smiles. May!—bright, beautiful
May!—what is like to thy loveliness? The Summer may be full of maturer
beauty, the Autumn more like a matron in her queenliness, but thou art
as a young and innocent bride, all blushing and trembling in thy tearful
gladness. And of all days in May give us the first—the vesperus of her
sky—the proudest gem in her coronal.
Is there any thing so exquisite in the older poets as their habit of
constantly alluding to the merry sports with which our English ancestors
were accustomed to celebrate the first of May? Is there any thing more
captivating to the lover of green and sunshiny fields and antique
customs, than the dance around the flower-decked pole of the village,
with the rosy-cheeked maidens for partners, and the hobby-horse, the
morrice-crew, and the combatants of the ring around? Alas! the day for
these spectacles has gone forever. Even in merry England the first of
May has lost its popularity, and it is only in some quiet dell, secluded
among the hills, far away from the metropolis, that the Maypole is
wreathed with garlands on the eventful morning, and the blushing beauty
is crowned with flowers as queen of May. How many kindly feelings, how
many happy hours, how many holy associations have been lost to us by the
neglect of this simple rural custom! Far away from home and friends, in
lands remote even from his native continent, the sight of a pole decked
out with flowers for some pagan festival, has recalled to the wanderer’s
mind the happy days of his youth, when he sported with his gay
companions on the village lawn, or slily kissed some blushing little
beauty who had been his partner on the first of May.
We wish this good old custom could be revived among us, not with its
grotesque maskers, but as a day for greenwood sports. We sing “Io Pæn”
at the few celebrations which are vouchsafed to us in these degenerate
days. Your crabbed utilitarians may talk of its uselessness, and sneer
at it as a childish pastime, but who that has a soul for the beautiful
in nature can fail to love this merry-making on the greensward? Give us
the pure canopy of heaven for our ball-room ceiling—let us dance where
the birds may carol around us and the balmy breath of flowers kiss our
cheeks. Let us welcome in the blushing month with the young, and
beautiful, and gay, feeling as we partake in their sports, as if old
Spenser had dreamed of the fair ones around us, when he drew that
immortal picture of May:
“Then came faire May, the fayrest mayd on ground,
Deckt all with dainties of her season’s pryde,
And throwing flow’res out of her lap around:
Upon two bretheren’s shoulders she did ride,
The twinnes of Leda; which on either side
Supported her, like to their Soveraine Queene.
Lord! how all creatures laught, when her they spide,
And leapt and daunc’t as they had ravisht beene!
And Cupid selfe about her fluttered all in green.”
Exquisite! “The fayrest mayd on ground!” Have you ever been on a May
party? Then do you not remember that blue-eyed one, with the golden
tresses, and that small fair hand, whom your eyes followed throughout
the whole bright day, and whom you could have gone on your knees and
sworn to be not only the loveliest flower of the group, but of the
county, aye! for that matter, of the world? You were just nineteen then,
and she was in her sixteenth spring, by our faith! You had never met
before, but long ere nightfall,—what with wandering through the wood
together, or plucking flowers for each other, or lifting her over the
pebbly little brook clear and musical as her own pure heart—you have
come to feel as if you had known each other for years. And that night
you cannot sleep for thinking of her, or if toward morning you drop into
a doze, you dream—oh! how sweetly—of your little partner; so sweetly
that when you awake, you sigh, and close your eyes, and would give the
world if you could only sleep and dream thus of her forever. And you get
up and feel even melancholy, wishing all the while that every day was
the first of May, and that—for why not?—your golden-haired darling was
your constant partner. And that very morning you chance, mind! only
chance—to have some business that takes you down the street where she
resides, and you happen _so_ accidentally to meet her as she comes
forth, looking to your eyes, with her snowy virgin robe, and her
blooming cheek, and her neat chip bonnet wreathed around with flowers,
more beautiful than ever—aye! more beautiful than you had imagined
aught earthly could be, even though “Deckt all with dainties of the
season’s pryde.” And so you can but address her—and she happens to be
going your way too—and nothing can be more natural than that you should
talk about yesterday—and thus you go on smiling and chatting and
feeling so joyous withal, that in the very gladness of your heart you
can almost carol aloud with the happy birds, or “leap and daunce as you
had ravisht beene!” Ah! verily young May-goer thou hast lost thy heart.
And so it proceeds. And you call upon her—as _of course_ you must—to
ask her whether she over-fatigued herself on May-day, you having
forgotten altogether in your _casual_ meeting to propound to her that
question. And when thus calling you find she has a harp or a piano, and
as you play on the flute, it is the most natural thing in the world to
practise duetts together. Or perhaps you are both learning French, or
reading Goethe in the original, or doing something else—no matter
what!—which can be better done in company. And by and bye you get so
used to these visits, that not an evening passes without beholding you
together; and gradually you forget your studies and care less for them,
though all the while perhaps you are learning a sweeter lesson; and your
golden-haired partner will sigh now—most singular!—so very often; and
you yourself will begin to feel your heart flutter when her soft blue
eye meets your own by chance, for of late you do not look into each
other’s faces as you used to; and so by and bye—heaven only knows
how—you will find yourselves sitting side by side on the sofa; a few
smothered words will be whispered; you will draw her with a holy embrace
toward you; her head will sink upon your bosom; and thus for—it may be
five minutes, it may be longer—you will sit in silence, a deep sacred
silence, with your hearts quick beating against each other in a rapture
no words can tell. And at length you will whisper her name: and with a
happy sigh she will look up “smiling tearfully,” as the blind old Sciote
has it; and again you will press her to your bosom, breathing your deep,
deep love in every word; and she will murmur back your vows, at length,
with maidenly whispers, blushing to her bosom the while, and speaking
lower than an angel might be thought to sigh. And so—and so—years
after, when she sits beside you at your household hearth, with that
fair-haired little one smiling on her knee, you will bless God that ever
you went a-Maying. Ah! give us the love which comes in the freshness and
innocence of youth.
But May-Day is not all that charms us in the blushing month. All through
its sunny days there is the song of birds, and the odor of flowers, and
the waving of green grass, the more beautiful because we have just
emerged, from the snows of Winter, the blustering winds of March, and
the fickle skies of April. Everything is budding and breaking into life.
If you go out into the fields you can almost hear the grass growing. The
garden has a thousand colors, and they all mingle in harmony. The birds
greet you at morning beneath your window, and your favorite steed
gambols at your approach in wanton joy. The winds murmur low like rushes
by the river side, the hills are covered once more with verdure, and the
delicious greenness of the meadow land is past the poet’s pen. And most
of all, the ONE whom for years you have loved, seems to grow more
beautiful daily, smiling and carolling around you, to your eyes more
lovely than when you first won her for your bride. May! bright beautiful
May, why tarry the wheels of thy chariot?
J. S.
April, 1841.
* * * * *
LIFE.
Oh! life is but a dream,
A sunbeam’s play,
A flower on a stream
Passing away.
A song upon the air,
A festal gay,
A something wondrous fair
Passing away.
A prison-house of woe,
A wintry day,
A dark gulf’s ceaseless flow
Passing away.
A bird upon the wing,
A meteor ray,
A wild mysterious thing
Passing away.
R. E. J.
* * * * *
THE SWEET BIRDS ARE SINGING:
A MUCH ADMIRED DUETT;
ARRANGED FOR THE PIANO FORTE,
BY
J. MOSCHELLES.
Philadelphia, John F. Nunns, 184 Chesnut Street.
[Illustration: musical score]
First and Second Voice:
The sweet birds are winging
From arbour to spray, from arbour to spray, And
[Illustration: musical score]
First and Second Voice:
cheerily singing Of spring time and May, merry May, merry May. Sing,
shepherds
sing with me, Cheerily, cheerily, Sing, shepherds sing with me, Merry,
Merry May
2
Our dear girls to meet us,
Are now on their way,
With garlands to greet us,
And songs of the May.
Sing shepherds, &c. &c.
3
The cattle are lowing,
Come! up from your hay,
Lads! let us be going,
The morning is May.
Sing shepherds, &c. &c.
* * * * *
SPORTS AND PASTIMES.
DOG BREAKING.
To ensure good sport, the shooter must be provided with good dogs.
However _abundant_ game may be, there can be no real sport _without_
good; and however _scarce_ game may be, a good day’s sport is attainable
_with_ good dogs, by a person who feels what sport is, and who does not
look upon filling the game-bag and loading the keepers with game, as the
sole end and aim of the sportsman’s occupation. The mere act of killing
game no more constitutes sport, than the jingling of rhyme constitutes
poetry. Since, then, good dogs contribute to good sport, the shooter
should be careful to whom he entrusts the breaking of them. Bad habits,
by dogs, as well as by bipeds, are sooner acquired than got rid of. If
it suit his convenience, the shooter should frequently accompany the
breakers when practising his dogs: he should direct them to make use of
few words, and those words should be the same that _he_ is in the habit
of using. A multiplicity of directions only serves to puzzle a dog, as a
person’s speaking Irish, Scotch, and Welsh alternately would perplex a
Spaniard!
In common with other sports, shooting has a vocabulary of its own. We
subjoin a list of some of the words made use of by breakers and
sportsmen to dogs, many of them being anything but euphonious to the
unaccustomed ear. _To-ho_ spoken in an under tone, when the dog is
ranging, is a warning to him that he is close upon game, and is a
direction to him to stand. There is no necessity for using it to a dog
that knows his business. Spoken in a peremptory manner, it is used to
make the dog crouch when he has run up game, or been otherwise in fault.
_Down-charge_, or _down-to-charge_, is to make the dog crouch while the
shooter charges. _Take-heed_, and _be-careful_, are used when the dog
ranges over ground where it is customary to find birds. _Take-heed_, is
a word of correction; _be-careful_, of encouragement. The former is used
by way of caution or notice to prevent the dog putting up birds by
running over the ground too fast; the latter is likewise a caution, but
used when the dog beats slowly or carelessly. _Back_, is used to make a
dog follow at heel. _’Ware fence_, is used to prevent dogs passing a
fence before the gun. The dog should never, on any account, leave an
enclosure until its master has left it. _’Ware_ or _beware_, is used to
rate a dog for giving chase to a hare, birds, or cattle, or for pointing
larks, or approaching too near the heels of a horse. _Seek_, is a
direction to the dog to look for a dead or wounded bird, hare, or
rabbit. _Dead_, is to make a dog relinquish his hold of dead or wounded
game. The dog should not touch a dead bird, but should retain possession
of wounded game until it is taken from him; for should he suffer a bird
that is only slightly wounded to disengage himself from his grasp,
another _seek_ becomes necessary, and the bird is either lost, or
despoiled of its plumage by the catching and re-catching.