to visit the mountain region where my dear cousins had resided. They
were dead—kind creatures—but their youngest child, a married daughter,
of whom I was fond, resided there with a lovely family of children. They
were such romping, blessed little ones, I envied her the possession of
these darlings. One lovely child, which bore the name of my mother and
hers—Mary—I quietly resolved to adopt and coax away from her parents,
when she should become sufficiently fond of me. The days passed
delightfully to me, although that lovely place was connected with the
most bitter recollections of my past life. Again I roamed through the
deep forests—along the mountain paths, and traced the course of the
stream as it dashed over its rocky bed as I had in girlish days with
Walter, and at last found myself recalling his beautiful face to my
memory. One day, on my return from my ramblings, I was told that
he—Walter—the long parted one—had arrived. He was, like myself, alone
in life—a childless widower. Clara was dead. How my heart sprung—and
then sunk; recollections of bitter agony came with his presence—and I
was chilled. We met—and days did we spend together. I knew that the
meeting and intercourse had been planned by my kindly meaning friends;
they thought we would renew our love—how little they knew of woman’s
heart. Again we visited our old haunts; again Walter addressed words of
passionate love to me, and for a while I fancied the influence of the
old dream hung over me. I returned abruptly to my home, and spent weeks
in its quiet, calm seclusion; severely and earnestly questioning my
heart, my first conclusion remained; the recollection of past love was
mingled too deeply with the remembrance of those bitter moments of
heart-breaking agony, when I had dared, in my sufficiency, to question
the justice of Providence. Walter’s desertion had taught me to still and
calm my feelings—to coldly reason on heart-throbbings; now he was the
sufferer by the lesson—and again we parted, never more to meet. I was
firm—he said, heartless—and it may be I was; if so, his early
faithlessness had caused that heartlessness.
Life passed quietly around. I succeeded in persuading the little Mary to
love me as she loved her mother—and her merry voice and light footstep
cheered my residence. I saw her married to one she loved; and my former
quiet, solitary home has rung with the joyous laughter of her children,
who troop around me daily. I have known great sorrow, but also much
happiness, and have contributed to lighten the griefs of many. I am now
old, but I am surrounded with dear, loving friends; and when I would
sigh over the past, I look on these happy faces around me, and raise my
heart in grateful thoughts to the Power that guided me through a painful
childhood—a bitter womanhood—and led me at last to the quiet waters of
peaceful prosperity, where I may lay down my spirit to rest.
* * * * *
DO I LOVE THEE?
BY RICHARD COE, JR.
Do I love thee? Ask the flower
If it love the pearly tear
That, at evening’s quiet hour,
Falleth soft and clear,
Its gentle form to bless?
If, perchance, it answer “yes!”
Answer thee sincerely—
Then I love with earnestness,
Then I love thee dearly!
Do I love thee? Ask the child,
If it love its mother dear?
If it love her accents mild?
Love her fond, sincere,
Tender and warm caress?
If, perchance, it answer “yes!”
Answer thee sincerely—
Then I love with earnestness,
Then I love thee dearly!
Do I love thee? Ay! I love thee
Better far than words can tell;
All around and all above me
Lives a charméd spell,
My spirit sad to bless!
Then I fondly answer “yes!”
Answer thee sincerely—
That I love with earnestness,
That I love thee dearly!
* * * * *
ODE TO SHELLEY.
BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.
Why art thou dead? Upon the hills once more
The golden mist of waning Autumn lies;
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore,
And phantom isles are floating in the skies.
They wait for thee: a spirit in the sand
Hushes, expectant, for thy lingering tread;
The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair;
Inward, the silent land
Lies with its mournful woods—why art thou dead,
When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair?
Why art thou dead? O, glorious Child of Song,
Whose brother-spirit ever dwells with mine,
Feeling, twin-doomed, the burning hate of Wrong,
And Beauty’s worship, deathless and divine!
Thou art afar—wilt thou not soon return,
To tell me that which thou hast never told?
To grasp my throbbing hand, and by the shore
Or dewy mountain-fern,
Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old,
Tearful with twilight sorrow? Nevermore.
Why art thou dead? My years are full of pain—
The pain sublime of thought that has no word;
And Truth and Beauty sing within my brain
Diviner songs than men have ever heard.
Wert thou but here, thine eye might read the strife—
The solemn burthen of immortal song—
And hear the music, that can find no lyre;
For thou hast known a life,
Lonely, amid the Poets’ mountain-throng—
Whose cloudy snows concealed eternal fire!
I could have told thee all the sylvan joy
Of trackless woods; the meadows, far apart,
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy,
I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart,
When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm
And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand:—
Oh, more than all, with low and sacred breath
And forehead flushing warm,
I would have led thee through the summer land
Of my young love, and past my dreams of Death!
In thee, immortal Brother! had I found
That voice of Earth for which my spirit pines;
The awful speech of Rome’s sepulchral ground,
The dusky hymn of Vallambrosa’s pines!
From thee the noise of ocean would have taken
A grand defiance round the moveless shores,
And vocal grown the mountain’s silent head.
Canst thou not still awaken
Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores
Thy presence for her son—why art thou dead?
I do but rave—for it is better thus:
Were once thy starry heart revealed to mine,
In the twin-life which would encircle us,
My soul would melt, my voice be lost in thine!
Better to mask the agony of thought
Which through weak human lips would make its way,
’Neath lone endurance, such as men must learn:
The Poet’s soul is fraught
With mightiest speech, when loneliest the day;
And fires are brightest, that in midnight burn.
* * * * *
MARION’S SONG IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
BY FRANCIS S. OSGOOD.
Away with you, ye musty tomes!
I’ll read no more this morning!
The wildwood rose unlessoned grows—
I’m off—your sermons scorning!
I found a problem, yester eve,
In wondering where the brook led,
More pleasant far for me to solve
Than any one in Euclid.
I heard a bird sing, sweet and low,
A truer lay than Tasso—
A lay of love—ah! let me go,
And fly from Learning’s lasso!
I saw a golden missal, too,
’Twas writ in ancient ages,
And stars—immortal words of light—
Illumined all its pages!
The hand of God unclasped the book,
And oped its leaves of glory;
I read, with awed and reverent look,
Creation’s wondrous story.
I will not waste these summer hours,
The gift that He has given;
I’ll find philosophy in flowers,
Astronomy in heaven!
Yon morning-glory shuts its leaves,
A worm creeps out from under;
Ye volumes, take the hint she gives,
And let the book-worm wander!
I’ll scan no more old Virgil’s verse,
I’d rather scan the heavens;
I’ll leave the puzzling Rule-of-Three
At sixes and at sevens;
The only sum I’ll cipher out
Shall be the “_summum bonum_;”
My only _lines_—shall fish for trout,
Till Virgil wouldn’t own ’em!
A costly cover has my book,
Rich blue, where light is winding;
How poor, beside its beauty, look
Your calf and cotton binding.
Away! the balmy air—the birds—
Can teach me music better
Than all your hard, high-sounding words,
That still my fancy fetter.
The waves will tell me how to play
That waltz of Weber’s rightly;
And I shall learn, from every spray,
To dance, with grace and lightly.
Hush! hark! I heard a far-off bird,
I’ll read no more this morning;
The jasmine glows—the woodbine blows!
I’m off—your sermons scorning!
* * * * *
ALL ABOUT “WHAT’S IN A NAME.”
BY CAROLINE C——.
’Tis folly to think of life’s troubles, yet they have the most
inconvenient faculty of forcing themselves on the minds of men!
_An. Phi._
Proprietor of the visual organs now scanning this page, which the
publisher, with the still but potent voice of print, proclaimeth
henceforth and forever mine, _do_ you love music? rejoice you in the
melody of singing voices? If you reply in the affirmative, then most
heartily do I wish that you occupied my place at this present moment;
for over the way—oh, most uncomfortable proximity!—there is a “Hall,”
where regularly meet a number of _vocalists_, whose chief object in
life, for all I can discover, seems to be to ascertain to a certainty
the exact power of their individual lungs—perhaps a secondary intent
may be to edify this usually calm neighborhood; in case this latter
should be at all an influential motive, I hereby proclaim that I, being
the neighbor most concerned, am fully satisfied, and far from following
the pernicious example of the world-renowned Oliver, I will not cry for
“more,” on the contrary, I would much rather stoop to compromise; and if
they will but cessate, I will henceforth and forever maintain a most
unbreakable silence on all musical subjects, though in doing so, you can
hardly conceive what a _sacrifice_ I would be making.
Oh, could you but hear them shout “I _will_ praise the Lord!” perhaps if
you are a good Christian you might put up with the nuisance, after
having given utterance to only a _partial_ sigh; but possessing as _I_
do so small a share of the Christian graces, I can only say in answer,
though with all reverence, “if you call _this_ praise, beseech you,
expedite your glorifyings, and have done.”
Perhaps I owe an apology, at least a reason, for opening this chapter in
such an exceedingly unamiable style: here it is then. I came into my
“_sanctum_” with the express purpose of thinking of one I would fain
tell you all about, but with thoughts so distracted as mine are at
present, I fear I shall hardly do justice to any body in giving them
utterance to night, and yet I feel constrained so to do; remember, in
mercy, how I have been outraged by the explosion in yonder “Hall,” and
so proceed.
My heroine lived and _lives_ in this most beautiful of all villages in
the Empire State, which, as perhaps you know, is _footed_ by the most
charming of lakes imaginable, and is, though a “sleeping beauty,” (the
village I mean,) when taken all together quite perfect in its way.
To avoid being convicted of speaking of _any body in particular_, I
shall treat of this lady as though she were one of the has beens;
perhaps afterward I may tell you what she _is_.
Well, then, in her _young_ days she _was_ a maiden very much like other
maidens, (American, of course,) pretty, graceful, intelligent, and
interesting. No one ever thought her a great beauty, but the expression
of her countenance was decidedly good. She was very fair, indeed, _so_
fair that her face seemed pale, in contrast with the glossy black hair
which was not usually arranged with very great regard for effect. Her
eyes also were black—not the detestable, twinkling, beady, black orb,
nor the very opposite, dull, heavy black; but a soft, spiritual eye,
filled with mild, cheerful light, quite pleasing to behold; and yet I
have seen them glowing actually with what might be called the _fire of
determination_, which was quite astonishing to see in one most every
body took to be the most placid, and amiable, and soft-hearted creature
in the world.
In a crowd of brilliants, or of ordinary fashionable people even, this
little lady would have been in her earlier days hopelessly lost to all
observation. It was amid the fire-side circle she was calculated
pre-eminently to shine. In her own home, among familiar friends, what an
affectionate child she was; the arms of her spirit seemed to be
continually out-stretched, seeking and asking for love and kindness and
sympathy; it was a craving of her nature, a necessity to her happiness,
that all should love and esteem her.
A pale-faced, quiet girl, whom, because of her goodness and gentleness,
every body liked—there, you have her. You have seen hundreds such, but
in all your promiscuous travels, I will guaranty, not many of you have
met with one of whom you have such a tale to tell as I am going to
unfold.
In order that I may continue this story with any degree of satisfaction
to you, patient(?) bearer with my many digressions, or with any comfort
or propriety to myself, it is absolutely necessary that I should give
this amiable and loveable maiden “a name,” as I have already given her a
“local habitation.” I have not delayed doing this for so long without
reason, so far from that, it is with inexpressible reluctance that I
proclaim to you the cognomen of _this_ friend of mine. I have tried to
get up a little interest in her on your part before mentioning her
title, the world is so cold-hearted, and possesses so little power of
_appreciation_, that I fear me it will imagine no manner of interest
could attach itself to the owner of _such_ a name.
Poor dear, (do not look at me so earnestly, my tongue falters while I
speak,) poor, dear Delleparetta Hogg, all honor to thee for bearing the
burden of _such_ a nomenclature so meekly and so well! Let me tell you
all about her, (for really I am coming to the point,) and you will see
what other burdens she bore nobly, beside that odious appendage to her
identity.
Her childhood passed much in the manner of the childhood of other
people. From the time when she was a little wee thing till she was
twelve years old, Delleparetta, or Delle, as we used to call her, went
with all the rest of the village children to the village-school; she
played with us, and rode, and walked, and went nutting with us, and was
in all respects as we, only a great deal better, and more obliging,
till, as I have said, she approached _’teen hood_. Then “trouble came
down upon” the young child.
One day the sun, which had always shone so cheerfully upon her, went
behind a dark and hateful cloud, and an evil genius passing by her home,
stamped upon the door the cross of poverty. From that day there was a
sad change in little Delle; her voice became more hushed than ever in
its tone, she rarely came to join us in our merry-makings—and there
spread a thoughtful, sad expression over the face of the gentle child,
which told she had heard unpleasant changes in the aforetime harmony of
her life.
The father of Delle had started in life with a purse alarmingly full of
nothingness, but by slow and patient toil and care, he had worked
himself into the possession of a comfortable living. Not content with
this, one ever-to-be-lamented day he entered into a wild speculation,
which, instead of at once doubling his fortune, left him in a far worse
predicament than he was placed in at the beginning of life forty years
before, when he had played a bare-footed boy in the streets, with
scarcely a home to boast of. Yes, he was a great deal worse off than he
was _then_, despite his present respectability, and his fine noble wife,
and five children; because _then_ he was but a boy, brimful of hope,
eager to enter into the contest of life, fearful of no failure, feeling
he had “little to lose, and all to win.” Now his habits of ease and
quiet had been so long fastening upon him, it really required no little
strength of mind and purpose to rouse and labor as he had done in the
days of his youth; his eagerness and hopefulness of spirit were
gone—his ambition was departed; and when he looked on his five helpless
little ones, the eldest but twelve years old, he felt as though the
weight of a mountain were on his hands.
Temptation comes well armed to such a mind, and not with unheard
footsteps, or disregarded smile drew she nigh to him. She held the
wine-cup to his lips—his eyes grew red with looking on the burning
poison, and he tasted, and was lost! Not a hand lifted he to avert the
dread calamity which he alone _could_ avert; not an effort did he make
to re-establish once more the happiness of that household, when smiles
and kind words were all the little group cared to have. About this time
Sickness passed on heavy wing by this home of our little friend; she saw
the cross her sister Poverty had marked upon the lintel, and she knew
where she might rest. The _poor_ have no power to shut out the dark
angel, when she pauseth before their open door.
The mother, who, during one of the longest and hardest of winters had
exerted herself daily and nightly far beyond her strength to provide for
the wants of her children, who had in reality no other support but her,
drooped when the “life-inspiring” spring came round again. The health
which was so shattered by the struggles and heart-sorrows of the winter,
was not restored again when the sunlight streamed so richly through her
cheerless home. With the blossoming trees, and the violets, her hope did
not strongly revive. The voices of the returning birds did not bring to
her the lightness and happiness of spirit she had known in other
days—for every day the brand of drunkenness was graven deeper and
deeper on the forehead of the lover of her youth. Long, long after all
her natural strength had failed, the mother’s love, and the wife’s
devotion sustained, supported her. Long after her voice was faltering
with weakness, did she supplicate that husband to rouse him to his
former manliness, to exert himself once more. Long after her hands were
trembling with disease, did she continue to ply the needle, whose labor
was to bring them their daily food.
And heavy debts hung over them. Then the creditors, who saw no
probability of these being ever satisfied, determined to liquidate them
by selling off the little farm and residence of Mr. Hogg. And so they
were sold. With the miserable remnant of their household goods which was
left them, they removed to a smaller and less comfortable home. Then, as
if evil days had not dawned on them already, one morning found the
toiling mother laid on the bed of sickness and of death. To leave those
helpless children _thus!_ oh, it had been hard to part with those little
ones, when around each one her heart-strings clung, even had their
future been very bright, but to leave them when darkness and dreariness
of life was before them, when a path so beset with sorrow and trial was
all that she could see in store for them! bitter, bitter it was, indeed!
Pass we over the sacredness of that hour, when the dying mother
breathing the few faint parting words in the ear of her eldest child,
left them to struggle on in their hard road alone. Words fail me to tell
her anguish, who, in the last moments of her life, was racked by the
thought of _all_ that _they_ might be called on to endure. No living
voice _should_ essay to speak of all that was in her heart, when she
clasped the youngest, a bright-eyed boy, to her bosom, while his gay
voice broke forth in laughter, and he flung his arms about her neck, and
hid his face, all radiant with smiles, in her bosom. I am powerless when
I attempt to tell you of the girl who stood shuddering with agony beside
that bed, while the shadows of the coming night were fast filling the
little room, when, after a long, and to her terrible silence, with
trembling hands she lifted the boy from his mother’s arms, and felt as
her fingers loosened the parent’s grasp, that the thin hands were icy
cold, when she fell almost lifeless to the floor with the little one in
her arms, feeling that those children had no mother or protector but
her. _I_ cannot tell you as should be told, if told, indeed, at all, of
the terrible sorrow that filled her soul, when the little one said to
her, “put me back with mamma, she is sleeping!”
From that day Delle went with us no more to the village school, neither
joined us in our hours of gayety. While she was so young, the cares and
anxieties of a woman had overtaken her, and trials which older heads and
hearts find it hard to bear, were thick in her path, all that delights
the young and excitable, did she most cheerfully forego; I never heard a
murmur from her lips. The living witnesses of her mother’s love and
life-devotion surrounded her; they forbade every expression, every
feeling of impatience, or envious regard of the happiness of others, no
worthier than herself.
It was a heart-cheering sight, the firmness and perseverance of that
strong-minded girl, when the first wildness of her sorrow was passed,
and she stood amid that family group, a support, and a counsellor, and
guide, plying her little hands on the coarse work with which the
neighbors had supplied her. All the counsel and advice of the dead
mother she kept most religiously. Never for a moment did she falter in
her duty, but no one knows how much of sadness there was in her heart.
At the time of his wife’s death, the father seemed to pause for a little
in his downward course, for he had loved her once, and remembered well
that happy time, and perhaps, but no, I cannot dignify the affection
with which still, in his sober hours, he thought of her, with the name
of _love_. No, he did not _love_ her in her better days, because love
would have prompted him to deeds commensurate with so ennobling and
exalting a faculty. Yet when she died, the husband sorrowed for her, and
conscience reproached him, too, when he looked for the last time on the
care-worn, faded countenance of his departed wife, who had always been
his good angel. Still it was not with such sorrow as he should have
sorrowed for her, that he followed her to the grave, and then led his
little ones back to his home; had it been, he would have sought then, in
a better life, to pay a fitting homage to her memory.
For a few weeks he did labor with what little skill was left him, at his
old trade; but his was not the will, nor the mind, nor the heart to
pursue the good because it was right, and just, and his duty. His recent
excesses had shattered his constitution—his hands trembled, and his
feet went tottering, and ere long these evil inclinations quite overcame
him again. Poor Delle! she had no more hope for him when she saw that
the death of her mother was a thing so feebly remembered and cared for
by him. How strange it seemed to her that he could _ever_ forget the
words of entreaty the dying woman addressed to him. To the mind of the
innocent child it was wonderful that he should ever seek to drown those
words of pleading and warning that _she_ had spoken to him in the
horrible forgetfulness that is bought by intoxication.
But aside from this great sorrow, there was another and a different kind
of care that weighed heavily on Delle’s mind. Her only sister was ten
years old at the time of her mother’s death. She had been always a puny,
sickly little thing—the object of that mother’s unceasing and peculiar
care. It is said that the heart of the parent is always filled with a
deeper and tenderer sympathy and love for an unfortunate child. Most
true was this in the case of Jane. She had never been much at school,
and rarely had left her mother’s side. A sober little creature she was,
always seeking to make herself useful, and quite unlike in all respects
the romping boys who filled the house with their noise. When Mrs. Hogg
died, Jane, to use Mrs. Jones’ expressive words, “wilted right down,
just like a cabbage-leaf;” and the scrofula, which had afflicted her for
many years, manifested itself in a fearful form. It seemed to Delle that
the cup of bitterness was running over when the village doctor, who was
called to the child’s aid, told her, for she _would_ know the truth,
that he could do nothing for her—that her spine would be inevitably
curved. It might be, he said, that constant care and watching would in a
measure restore her health, and her life _might_ be spared for years,
but she could never wholly recover.
All the tenderness and affection her mother had borne toward little
Jane, seemed to have centered itself in the bosom of Delle. A most
patient and untiring nurse was she, doing every thing so cheerfully,
sacrificing all her own wants that she might procure comforts for the
invalid, and never giving the child reason to suppose for a moment that
her, I mean Delle’s, constitution was not made of iron. Often and often,
after a day of exertion, would she sit for half the night by the side of
the little sufferer, who was writhing in agony, watching her and
supporting her with the fondest care; and to all poor Jane’s anxious
fears that she would weary out, the gentle voice of Delle assured her it
was not possible to weary in doing for _her_.
Three years from the spring when the weeping children had gathered
around their mother’s grave, they stood together in the church-yard
again, and saw the dust and the sod heaped over the dead body of their
father. I would not say that it was not with much sorrowing, with many
tears, that Delle had nursed him through his death-sickness; that it was
not with love and a martyr’s patient endurance she had ministered to his
numberless wants; but I should be _far_ wrong (and you will not impute
it to her sin) were I to say that it was the same great sorrow which had
bowed and well-nigh crushed her gentle spirit when her mother died, that
brought forth those tears when she stood by her father’s death-bed. He
was her father; she remembered with affectionate gratitude the days of
old, when he was to his children a parent indeed, when he had been the
tender and devoted husband of his wife; but even _that_ remembrance was
not strong enough to obliterate all recollection of the recent past; and
I say it was not in her nature, nor, indeed, in human nature at all, to
mourn _very_ deeply over _such_ a man. It was _not_ with such a dreadful
sense of bereavement that she followed him to the grave, as had once
before swept over her. The “cloud had spent its fury” upon her, the bolt
had fallen the day her worshiped mother died.