Twine ye the wreath for her gladsome brow,
Gather the buds, ay, the buds that keep
Such trembling dreams in their breasts, asleep,
Beauteous types of her heart are they;
Cull them from streamlet and glen away!
Here, here, when the sun is low,
We shall sit again, when the shadows throw
Their dusky wings o’er mount and sea,
And speak of the past, and the time to be!
Counting the links that have broken away
From each chain at the fount, where the heart-streams play!
Hist! hist! did you hear her pass,
The ringing laugh on her lip? Alas!
Say ye again that she slumbers low?
Mourner, why art thou shaken so?
Death is the veil that the spirit takes,
When the light of God on its sorrowing breaks!
Then, then, thou’lt murmur _no more_!
Peace to the weary who travel before!
Blesséd are they He hath chosen and tried,
Blesséd are they in His love that have died;
Heart! let thy throbbings be constant to prayer,
So thou wouldst dwell where thy cherished ones are!
Turn! turn, look down through the vale
Stretching before thee, where, saddened and pale,
Sorrow is beck’ning thee—sorrow and wrong—
Weak though thine arm may be, feeble thy song,
God smileth aye, on the small “precious seed,”
Making the harvest-time golden indeed!
Thou hast been sleeping; wake from thy dreams!
Wo for that waking till God o’er it gleams!
Better the sleeper were locked in his rest,
Better the sun had gone down in his west!
Yet if thy path windeth up through thy fears,
Hope’s resurrection shall dawn on thy tears!
Hope! Hope! transfigured and bright,
Walking with Faith on the mountains of light!
Bidding thee weep the departed no more,
_Angels_ await at the sepulchre door!
Bidding thee take up thy cross, for the day
Soon from thy vision will vanish away!
* * * * *
THE HOMESTEAD OF BEAUTY.
BY S. D. ANDERSON.
There’s a homestead of beauty by Delaware’s stream,
And the sweet tones of children are ringing all day,
While the voice of the mother is blithesome and glad,
As the notes of the song-bird that warbles in May.
The Angel of Peace to the hearth-stone has come,
With a message of mercy to brighten each dream,
And as glad to the heart, as ’tis pure to the eye,
Is that homestead of beauty by Delaware’s stream.
The woodbine has curtained the threshold with flowers,
And the half-shaded sunbeams fall soft on the floor;
While the white-sanded streamlet is singing as sweet
As the echoes of music, when music is o’er.
The dew on each snow-drop is gem-like and bright,
And the lily is bathed in morn’s earliest beam,
While the zephyrs are whispering their matins of praise,
Round that homestead of beauty by Delaware’s stream.
The wings of the evening come loaded with bliss,
When the toil and the trouble of daylight is past,
And the coolness and calm of the star-lighted hours,
O’er the dwellers in hall and in cottage is cast,
The sun-browned cheek of the father is kissed;
With tears the full eye of the parent will gleam
As he presses those loved ones more near to his heart,
In that homestead of beauty by Delaware’s stream.
And then from that cottage the hymn and the prayer
Uprose, when the hour of reposing had come;
And each sent an offering of thanksgiving up
To _Him_ who had blessed them with quiet at home.
Oh! who has not wished, when the cold world has chilled
Each flow’ret that blossomed in life’s morning dream.
To find out some refuge from sorrow and care,
Like that homestead of beauty by Delaware’s stream.
* * * * *
GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.
* * * * *
BY G. P. R. JAMES.
We always fail when we judge of the fate of others. Life is double—an
internal and an external life; the latter often open to the eyes of all,
the former only seen by the eye of God. Nor is it alone those material
things which we conceal from the eyes of others, which often make the
apparently splendid lot in reality a dark one, or that which seems sad
or solitary, cheerful and light within. Our characters, our spirits
operate upon all that fate or accident subjects to them. We transform
the events of life for our own uses, be those uses bitter or sweet; and
as a piece of gold loses its form and solidity when dropped into a
certain acid, so the hard things of life are resolved by the operations
of our own minds into things the least resembling themselves. True, a
life of study and of thought may seem to most men a calm and tranquil
state of existence. Such pursuits gently excite, and exercise softly and
peacefully the highest faculties of the intellectual soul; but age
brings with it indifference even to these enjoyments—nay, it does more,
it teaches us the vanity and emptiness of all man’s knowledge. We reach
the bounds and barriers which God has placed across our path in every
branch of science, and we find, with bitter disappointment, at life’s
extreme close, that when we know all, we know nothing. This I have
learned, and it is all that I have learned in eighty years, that the
only knowledge really worth pursuing is the knowledge of God in his word
and his works—the only practical application of that high science, to
do good to all God’s creatures.
* * * * *
The operation of man’s mind and of his heart are as yet mysteries. We
talk of eager love; we speak of the warm blood of the South; we name
certain classes of our fellow beings excitable, and others phlegmatic;
but we ourselves little understand what we mean when we apply such
terms, and never try to dive into the sources of the qualities or the
emotions we indicate. We ask not how much is due to education, how much
to nature; and never think of the immense sum of co-operating causes
which go to form that which is really education. Is man or woman merely
educated by the lessons of a master, or the instructions and
exhortations of a parent? Are not the acts we witness, the words we
hear, the scenes with which we are familiar, parts of our education? Is
not the Swiss, or the Highlander, of every land, educated in part by his
mountains, his valleys, his lakes, his torrents? Is not the inhabitant
of cities subjected to certain permanent impressions, by the constant
presence of crowds, and the everlasting pressure of his fellow men? Does
not the burning sun, the arid desert, the hot blast, teach lessons never
forgotten, and which become part of nature to one class of men; and
frozen plains, and lengthened winters, and long nights, other lessons to
the natives of a different region? Give man what instruction you will,
by spoken words or written signs, there is another education going on
forever, not only for individuals but for nations, in the works of God
around them, and in the circumstances with which his will has
encompassed their destiny.
* * * * *
BY J. G. WHITTIER.
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE.
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
As ’twere a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given
In ceaseless worshiping.
They kneel upon the sloping sand,
As bends the human knee;
A beautiful and tireless band—
The priesthood of the sea.
They pour the glittering treasures out
Which in the deep have birth;
And chant their awful hymns about
The watching hills of earth.
The green earth sends its incense up
From every mountain shrine—
From every flower and dewy cup
That greeteth the sun-shine.
The mists are lifted from the rills,
Like the white wing of prayer
They lean above the ancient hills,
As doing homage there.
The forest tops are lowly cast
O’er breezy hill and glen,
As in a prayerful spirit passed
On nature as on men.
The clouds weep o’er the fallen world,
E’en as repentant love;
Ere, to the blessed breeze unfurled,
They fade in light above.
The sky it is a temple’s arch—
The blue and wavy air
Is glorious with the spirit-march
Of messengers at prayer.
The gentle moon, the kindling sun,
The many stars are given,
As shrines to burn earth’s incense on—
The altar-fires of Heaven!
* * * * *
BY MISS PARDOE.
There is always something sad, if not revolting, in the visit of those
unsympathizing servitors of dissolution who first break upon the
stillness of the house of death. The very nature of their errand is
fearful—they come to claim all that is left of what was once life, and
will, and action—to tread heavily over the floor where others have
previously moved with a noiseless step—to talk in hoarse, although
suppressed voices, where the dull echoes have latterly been hushed—and
coldly to pursue their avocation in the very presence of eternity.
Perhaps it is well that there is no possibility of delaying this first
trial, for where the ties of love have been rent asunder, who would have
courage to sanction so unhallowed an intrusion? Who could summon to the
bedside, so lately the scene of agony and prayer, the unsympathizing
eyes and hands of mercenary strangers? Human nature is ever prone to
resist where resistance is possible, and suffering certain; happy is it,
therefore, that it is taught, in so solemn a moment, to feel its own
impotence, and to submit.
* * * * *
The tiger gives no warning before he springs—it is for the traveler to
be wary. The serpent utters no threatening before he stings—the
intended victim must defend himself against the venomed tongue. And
thus, in like manner, the woman who sees only the gorgeous skin or the
gleaming scales of vice, and wilfully closes her eyes against the poison
to which they lend a mocking and a worthless charm, finds little pity,
and excites no sympathy.
* * * * *
EDITOR’S TABLE.
A HAPPY NEW-YEAR.—Holding continual intercourse through the press with
so many thousands scattered over this country, and other countries, we
feel an enlarged sympathy with our fellow beings, and use suitable
occasions to give utterance to hopes and wishes in another form than
that of the essays, stories and poetry of the stated columns of this
Magazine. We set forth our humble “table,” and while we invite all to a
seat, we bid all welcome to the viands; nay, we make the little festival
with a particular and special view—to express to our readers our hearty
wishes for “a happy New-Year.” May they all be happy, all enjoy the year
upon which we now enter, all be freed from care and troublesome anxiety,
and all have enough for their own enjoyment and the gratification of
liberal feelings.
Now we are as sensible as any can be that the above wish is extended to
the readers of Graham—“And so we are selfish, sordid, can only wish
well to those who _do_ well to us.” That is the charge which will be
made by some good-natured body that has not had her feelings refined by
a constant perusal of this Magazine. She curls her thin lip in scorn at
our narrow feeling, and quotes scripture and poetry against the
contracted philanthropy which does good in such a limited circle. We
shall not quote scripture back to her, but content ourselves with a
simple remark that we adhere to our form of expression, and shall prove
it to be sufficiently inclusive for all the New-Year wishes which we are
bound to entertain and utter.
In the first place, we wish the readers of Graham a happy
New-Year—health, peace, comforts—rational enjoyment and pleasures that
will please on reflection.
Can peace, comfort and enjoyment be had by the readers of this Magazine,
when those who are related with them are deprived of such
gratifications? Should we not offend by gross injustice if we should
imagine the readers of Graham capable of high enjoyments when others
were in distress? How numerous and extensive are the ramifications of
social life! Not a blow is struck on the remote verge of society but
some sympathetic nerve carries it to the
heart—friend—relative—associate—give interest to events; and such
links in the chain of social existence bind man to man, and make of
human society one common body. We wish you happy! then wealth, health,
peace and quiet to all with whom you stand related. Can you be happy and
your brother, your friend, your relative miserable? It is not possible.
And when we wish a happy New Year to the thirty or forty thousand who
take, and the four hundred thousand who read Graham, we wish a general
happiness.
_We_ enter upon a new year with the fullness of hopes that are only
enlarged by the fruition of former hopes. Our hopes are not hopeless.
Our desires to be rewarded have kept pace with our desires and efforts
to please. We believe the latter desires have contributed to the
gratification of the former; and it is therefore in a spirit of hopeful
gratitude that we wish _our_ friends and _their_ friends a happy
New-Year.
To the old we wish the ease which belongs to the dignity of years, and
that degree of health which makes the twilight of life delightful.
To the middle-aged we wish the maturity of intellect which secures
wisdom to plans, and success to efforts.
To youth a consciousness that very many of the promises of life are so
deceptive, that they must learn to rely more upon their own exertions
than upon those promises. We wish to them well regulated minds, well
controlled passions—we do not expect, we do not wish for the stately
dignity of age in the lively and stimulated feelings of youth:
enjoyment—and enjoyment of something of which age calls the vanity of
life—is permitted to youth. So that in all their rejoicings, in all the
cheerfulness of their hearts, in all the wanderings which they make by
the light of their eyes, (alas! how much has the lustre of even one pair
of woman’s eyes led us astray,) and in the understanding of their
hearts, (and how much do we all suffer by overrating that
understanding!) all these things may be endured—may be encouraged
indeed—if indulged in with that kind of reflection which keeps in view
accountability for it all.
Some have desired that at the foot of Janus, who guards the closing
portal of the past and the opening door of the coming year, there might
flow a rill from the river of Lethe, that we might drink in oblivion to
the past. How narrow, how contracted must be the mould of such wishes.
Let us take with us into the new year a full remembrance of the past.
Let the events which have cast a gloom over a portion of our experience
be recollected, that we may feel for others, that we may have in view
that great fact, that we are born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.
The heartiness of our wishes for the good of the readers of this
Magazine will be found in our efforts to make its pages interesting and
instructive. We have adopted measures, and shall carry them out, to
maintain the pre-eminence of position which our Magazine has acquired.
And while we look to the increased patronage of the public, we shall
continue to hold at a proper elevation the standard of Literature,
Morals and Truth.
* * * * *
A NUT TO CRACK FOR ’49.—With, we think, a very just estimate of the
position of Graham’s Magazine, in the eye of the American public, we
_do_ flatter ourselves that the January number, will in no degree be
equaled by any cotemporary, or that we will in the least lesson our own
dignity, if we boast a little about it. There has been so much talking
on the part of our would-be rivals about their books, and an effort so
manifestly strained to catch our tone and look, that we shall let out a
link or two—or, as the horsemen say, “shake out a step faster, if the
mettle is in the other nag.”
The truth is, that there is a very great mistake made in efforts to
assimilate to Graham’s Magazine—for, in the first place, all
competition must be distanced by our superior facilities, derived from
circulation; and in the next, the effort ends in playing second fiddle,
to the great loss of reputation and time. There is—there _ought to be_
at least—some unexplored field in which these rivals of ours may try
their unfledged wing, where our own magnificent flight may not be seen
in humiliating contrast, by these gentlemen and their friends.
Suppose now, for instance—having tried a magazine _after_ Graham—they
confess the “_distance_,” and give us a touch at a magazine made up
exclusively of translations from the French, with such copies of the
illustrations as may be picked up in Paris, or can be done here. We
really think something could be done with this hint profitably, but this
blundering and dodging along after another magazine, which crowds every
avenue, and presents itself for contrast at every turn, must be most
humiliating and vexatious, and cannot but be a losing concern in
shoe-leather and temper. The stereotype promises of our friends, which
appear with the “snow-birds” every January, have lost their value, and
as a standing joke might be relished well enough, but it strikes us that
it is a sort of eccentricity in amusement, harmless _only_ because
nobody is deluded.
It is unfortunate that one half the world takes its notions of business,
as it does its opinions, from the other half, and vainly supposes that
the high road to success is a beaten track. Nothing can be more absurd;
and the history of the leading penny commercial and weekly papers in
large cities attests this. In magazines the world does not take
unfledged genius and untried promises _at par_. The magazine world—by
which we mean that part of the world that reads magazines—has grown
cautious, cute, shrewd, or whatever may happen to be the choicest phrase
to designate a careful squint into the “bag” before “buying the pig.” It
will not do, therefore, to attempt to _gull_ the good folks, with a
supposed rivalry between your buzzard and our hawk—they know the
difference, and although “_Hail to the chief who in triumph advances_,”
may charm the ear as Graham for January flutters its golden wings before
the bright eyes of _all_ the cherry-cheeked damsels, in _all_ the
post-towns, when on his annual visit—his New-Year’s call—to his fifty
thousand friends—the tatterdemalion who, _under cover_, attempts to
follow, will assuredly be greeted with the “Rogue’s March,” and achieve
disgrace if not the whipping-post. It _will_ not do, this sort of living
by wit—this throwing out of a magnificent prospectus like Graham’s, and
then following it up with a specimen number in the way of
“_inducement_,” as if the world were one vast fishpool, and people—who
are not gudgeons—were to be jerked out, dollars and all, with an adroit
fling of the fly, (going a _flyer_ with a prospectus.) The game has been
played to every variety of tune—we _think_—and the gamut—we had like
to have said _gammon_—is exhausted, and with it the public patience.
G.
* * * * *
“GRAHAM” TO “JEREMY SHORT.”
_My dear Jeremy_,—The coming of the year 1849 must present reflections
of a mixed character to “THE TRIO.” _Our_ memories do not stretch back
to “thirty years since,” but fifteen years ago at “BAMFORD’S,” how
vividly fresh in memory, to “YOU AND JOE AND I!” Those years of fun,
frolic, literature in the bud, (poetic,) _and_ extravagant expenditure
of sixpences. Which of us troubled our brains about _current rates_,
while we passed “_currant_” at “BAMFORD’S?” What cared we about the
opinion of the world? _Our_ “_mead_ of praise” was in bottles.
“_Imperial!_” did you say? You are right there. “Three bottles of it!”
_Did_ we ever reach that sublime of extravagant dissipation in those
_imperial days_? I think not. It would have been a sort of royal
expenditure, that must have drained the treasury, and rendered us unfit
for the grave studies of the afternoon.
Ah! there was a foam, a sparkle, a sort of frost-work fizzling upon
those mead-glasses, which we shall never see again, Jeremy!—NEVER!
Champagne, bubble it ever so brightly, pales in its ineffectual rivalry
with the memory of the snowy effervescence, which crowned the goblet at
“BAMFORD’S!” With the freshness of life’s morning, has “BAMFORD” and his
“_imperial_” melted away! and the place which knew them and us is known
no more. The old blue frame, with an attic in its _first_ story, and its
_window_ all awry, is gone!—as if to join those bright dreams which
have floated into the unattainable. The very dew of the heart of each of
_us_ has been exhaled, and with those laughing hours has gone, upward we
trust, to enjoy sunshine and smiles with the angels.
Do you know that I cannot look upon the staring brick edifice which
covers that hallowed ground, without thinking it a desecration? and
feeling a sort of unbidden wish for a circumscribed earthquake! Is it
not enough that the heart shrivels and grows cold in its calloused
casement, under the blighting influences of the god of this world—that
Mammon must bridge over and entomb the small spot that memory has
consecrated to truth; so that the scared conscience shall be watered no
more at the fountain at which in youth the heart’s secrets of each of us
were mirrored. Must even the green places which we remember in the past
be obliterated forever?—the points from which, with imprisoned impulses
and high hopes, we started into that untried and beckoning world, which,
as a prism to the young eye, varied its fanciful and attractive colors
as we advanced, forever changing, forever deceptive, until the heart,
jaded and wearied with the cheat, started from its dreams of bliss, to
dream—to hope—no more.
It _is_ enough that the heart changes—that all that we looked forward
to in youth, hopefully and trustfully, fades as we advance. That the
path which before us was verdant and full of flowers, is sterile and
strewn with ashes, as we tread it now; and instead of the songs of
birds, which filled the grove and made the air vocal, and the heart
happy, we have but the melancholy dirge—the funeral wail of
autumn—sweeping with moaning sound through the unleafed trees—a sad
sky above our heads—and withered leaves beneath our feet!
Ah! how _sadly_ have _we_ changed!—“WE THREE!” What bitter heart
experiences have we treasured up! How many of “the world’s” dark lessons
do we know! Would not either of us give all that we have learned for one
hour of the unshadowed happiness of those young days? Could we but go
back again to taste it—did you ever muse on this?—would we change as
we have, or remain as we were, think you? With but a slice of a year’s
experience—as years roll by us _now_—to start with as a capital, would
we be as wordly-wise—in any way as worldly—as we are? I think not. We
should quaff its knowledge more sparingly, believe me, in a
Bamford-reminiscence, vividly intermingled with that slight appreciation
of men as we know them! We should treasure those heart bubbles, which
the world has blown into air! _Should we not, Jeremy?_
G. R. G.
* * * * *
INDUSTRY AND PERSEVERANCE.—The power of these two qualities to overcome
almost every difficulty is well exemplified in the case of Bulwer, the
novelist. When he first commenced writing, he found it to be very hard
work. Bently says he worked his way to eminence through failure and
ridicule. His facility is only the result of practice and study. He
wrote at first very slowly, and with great difficulty; but he resolved
to master his stubborn instrument of thought, and mastered it. He has
practiced writing as an art, and has re-written some of his essays
(unpublished) nine or ten times over. Another habit will show the
advantage of continuous application. He only works about three hours a
day—from ten in the morning till one—seldom later. The evenings, when
alone, are devoted to reading, scarcely ever to writing. Yet what an
amount of good hard labor has resulted from these three hours! He writes
very rapidly, averaging 20 pages a day of novel print.
* * * * *
REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.
_Lays and Ballads. By Thomas Buchanan Read. Philadelphia: Geo.
S. Appleton. 12mo. pp. 140._
We confess that we have little sympathy with the mass of cream and
tea-colored books which have invaded our land, with the apparent
intention of benefitting none but printers. It is therefore with
heartfelt satisfaction that we now and then glean from amid this host of
versified rubbish a volume like the one before us.
To the numerous admirers of Mr. Read’s former collection the present
volume will afford peculiar pleasure, fulfilling as it does the
predicted progressive spirit which was everywhere manifest in his
earlier production, which is evident here, and which still points to
something better to come. We know of no surer test of true poetical
greatness than this evidence of a power of development, which has always
shown itself in the earlier verses of men possessing the highest order
of genius.