CHAPTER III.

Although Jeanie was a girl of strong mind, the sacrifice which she

contemplated was not to be effected without many inward struggles. But

having made up her mind to what she considered her duty, she allowed no

personal feelings to swerve her from the strict line she had laid down

for herself wherein to walk. Daily did she seek in prayer for aid; and

never did she allow her parent to hear a murmur from her lips. Yet, let

her strive as she would, the memory of her lover would constantly recur

to her mind. At the gloamin hour, in the still watches of the night—by

the ingle-side, abroad in the fields, or in the kirk of God—on Sabbath

or week day—when listening to her aged sire’s voice, or sitting all

alone in her little chamber, the image of him she had loved would rise

up before her, diffusing a gentle melancholy over her heart, and

seeming, for the moment, to raise an impassable barrier betwixt her and

the fulfilment of her new vows—for those vows had already been taken,

and the evening which was to make her another’s, was only postponed

until the intended bridegroom—a staid farmer of the border—could make

the necessary preparations in his homestead, necessary to fit it for a

new mistress, and she the sweetest flower of the district.

We are telling no romantic tale, drawn from the extravagant fancy of a

novelist, but a sober reality. There are hundreds, all over this broad

realm, who are even now sacrificing themselves like Jeanie. Aye! in many

a lowly cottage, unrecked of and uncared for by the world, wither away

in secret sorrow, beings who, had their lot been cast in happier places,

would have been the brightest and most joyous of creatures. How many has

want driven, unwilling brides, to the nuptial altar! Who can tell the

sacrifice woman will not make to affection, although that sacrifice may

tear her heart’s fibres asunder? And thus Jeanie acted. Although she

received the attentions of her future husband with a smile, there was a

strange unnatural meaning in its cold moonlight expression. Even while

he talked to her, her thoughts would wander away, and she would only be

awakened from her reverie by some sudden ejaculation of his at

perceiving her want of attention. He knew her history, but he had been

one of her earliest lovers, and he flattered himself that she had long

since forgotten the absent; and, although at times her demeanor would,

for a moment, make him suspect the truth, yet a conviction so little in

unison with his wishes, led him instantly to discard it. And Jeanie,

meanwhile, continued struggling with her old attachment, until her

health began to give way beneath the conflict. She scarcely seemed to

decline—at least to eyes that saw her daily—but yet her neighbors

marked the change. In the beautiful words of the ballad,

“her cheek it grew pale,

And she drooped like a lily broke down by the hail.”

The morning of her wedding-day saw her as beautiful as ever, but with

how touching, how sweet an expression of countenance! As she proceeded

to the kirk, her exquisite loveliness attracted every eye, and her air

of chastened sadness drew tears from more than one spectator acquainted

with her history. The bridegroom stood smiling to receive his lovely

prize, the minister had already begun the service, and Jeanie’s heart

beat faster and faster as the moment approached which was forever after

to make all thoughts of Willie sinful, when suddenly the rattling of

rapid wheels was heard without, and instantaneously a chaise stopped at

the kirk door, and a tall form leaping from the vehicle strode rapidly

up the aisle at the very moment that the minister asked the solemn

question, if any one knew aught why the ceremony should not be finished.

“Ay,” answered the voice of the intruder, and, as he spoke, he threw off

the military cloak he wore and disclosed to the astonished eyes of the

spectators the features—scarred and sun burnt, but still the

features—of the absent shepherd, “Ay! I stand here, by God’s good aid,

to claim the maiden by right of a prior betrothal. I am William

Sandford.”

Had a thunderbolt fallen from heaven, or a spirit risen from the dead,

the audience would not have been more astonished than by this

_dénouement_. All eagerly crowded around the intruder, gazing on his

face, as the Jews of old looked on the risen Lazarus. Doubt, wonder,

conviction, enthusiasm followed each other in quick succession through

the minds of the spectators. But the long absent lover, pushing aside

the friends who thronged around him, strode up to Jeanie’s side, and,

clasping her in his arms, asked, in a voice no longer firm, but husky

with emotion,

“Oh! Jeanie, Jeanie, hae ye too forgotten me?”

The bride had fainted on his bosom; but a score of eager tongues

answered for her, and in hurried words told him the truth.

What have we more to say? Nothing—except that the returned lover took

the place of the bridegroom, who was fain to resign his claim, and that

the minister united the now re-animated Jeanie and her long-remembered

lover, while the congregation looked on with tears of joy.

The returned Shepherd—for we shall still call him so—at length found

time to tell his tale. He had been shipwrecked as rumoured, but, instead

of being drowned, had escaped and reached India. There he entered the

service and was sent into the interior, where he rose rapidly in rank,

but was unavoidably detained beyond the appointed two years, while the

communications with Calcutta being difficult and uncertain, the letters

written home apprizing Jeanie of these facts had miscarried. At length,

he had succeeded in resigning his commission, full of honors and wealth.

He hastened to Scotland. He reached Jeanie’s home, learned that she was

even then becoming the bride of another, hurried wildly to the church,

and—our readers know the rest.

* * * * *

SONNET.[1]

BY THOMAS NOON TALFOURD.

How often have I fixed a stranger’s gaze

On yonder turrets clad in light as fair

As this soft sunset lends—pleas’d to drink air

Of learning that from calm of ancient days

Breathes ’round them ever:—now to me they wear

The tinge of dearer thought; the radiant haze

That crowns them thickens as, with fonder care,

And by its flickering sparkles, sense conveys

Of youth’s first triumphs:—for amid their seats

One little student’s heart impatient beats

With blood of mine. O God, vouchsafe him power

When I am dust to stand on this sweet place

And, through the vista of long years, embrace

Without a blush this first Etonian hour!

-----

[1] It is with high gratification that we present our readers, this

month, with this elegant _original_ poem from the pen of Sergeant Noon

Talfourd, of England, the author of “Ion,” and, perhaps, the first

living poet of his age. In the letter accompanying the verses he speaks

of them as “my last effusion on an occasion very dear to me—composed in

view of Eton college after leaving my eldest son there for the first

time.”

* * * * *

THE GOBLET OF LIFE.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim;—

And though my eyes with tears are dim,

I see its sparkling bubbles swim,

And chaunt this melancholy hymn,

With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers—no garlands green

Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen,

Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,

Like gleams of sunshine, flash between

The leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,

Is filled with waters that upstart,

When the deep fountains of the heart,

By strong convulsion rent apart,

Are running all to waste;

And, as it mantling passes round,

With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,

Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned,

Are in its waters steeped and drowned,

And give a bitter taste.

Above the humbler plants it towers,

The fennel, with its yellow flowers;

And in an earlier age than ours

Was gifted with the wondrous powers

Lost vision to restore:

It gave new strength and fearless mood,

And gladiators fierce and rude

Mingled it in their daily food;

And he who battled and subdued

A wreath of fennel wore.

Then in Life’s goblet freely press

The leaves that give it bitterness,

Nor prize the colored waters less,

For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give.

For he who has not learned to know

How false its sparkling bubbles show,

How bitter are the drops of woe

With which its brim may overflow,

He has not learned to live!

The prayer of Ajax was for light!

Through all the dark and desperate fight,

The blackness of that noon-day night,

He asked but the return of sight

To know his foeman’s face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer

Be, too, for light:—and strength to bear

Our portion of the weight of care,

That crushes into dumb despair

One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!

O ye afflicted ones, who lie

Steeped to the lips in misery,

Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Ye have been sorely tried!

I pledge you in your cup of grief

Where floats the fennel’s bitter leaf!

The battle of our life is brief,—

The alarm,—the struggle,—the relief,—

Then sleep we side by side.

* * * * *

[Illustration: E. T. Parris. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.

_Highland Beauty._

_Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine_]

HIGHLAND BEAUTY.

A STORY IN CAMP.

BY OLIVER OLDFELLOW.

“The fact is, Jeremy, I never liked the idea of writing love stories in

the presence of a pretty girl, as there is always something contagious

in love,—and do what I might—I have been a hard student that way—some

how or other I was always apt to leave off writing, and go to the

business of love-making in downright earnest,—studying from nature, you

see. It somehow puts a fellow’s hand out for writing, and inclines him

more to the use of his tongue, except when, by way of variation, he

cooly slips his arm around the dear, blushing, unwilling creature, and

drawing her gently to his bosom, as a mother would her child, smothers

the ‘bliss of talking,’ as Miss Landon called it, by a cousinly

introduction of lips. But,—by the prettiest houri that ever made

Mussulman’s heaven!—how do you think the thing is to be managed with

_two_ of the prettiest Scotch lassies that ever inspired the song of a

Burns, or the valor of a Wallace, looking you right in the eye, and one

of them with the most inviting lips, too, that ever set lover’s heart on

fire, and each with a pair of eyes that would send the blood tingling

through the veins of the veriest woman hater that ever breathed.”

“None of your nonsense, Oliver, but for once give over the lore of

talking of yourself, and let us have the story within three pages, if

you expect to be out before Christmas with the Magazine! There are a

host of better looking fellows than yourself have had their eyes upon

the girls, and—to tell you the honest truth,—the game is above your

reach.”

“By my faith in woman! Jeremy, you are as sharp this morning as a

nor’-wester—I expect you have had your _comb cut_ with one of them.

Talking of cutting combs, reminds me of a story. When I was in the

army!—”

“Ha! ha! ha! When you were in the army! By George! I like that part of

the story amazingly—if the rest is only as good I may feel inclined to

allow you half a page more!”

“Come, Jerry, none of that; I’ve known fellows talk about the army who

never even heard a gun, and chaps spin out most eternal sea-yarns, that

never smelt salt water, as any old tar would tell you before he had

listened five minutes to the story; but I am none of your green-horns—I

know what I am about when I mention war or beauty,—having seen some

service in my day. I therefore commence properly—as every story should

have a beginning, even if it has no end.”

“When I was in the army, you see, I became acquainted with a very

sentimental fellow, about your size,—though he _had_ rather a better

looking whisker for a soldier,—who was always full of romance, and all

that sort of thing,—and I _do_ believe the chap had an idea or two of

the right kind in his head, but they were so mixed up with the wrong

kind, that, like the funds of a good many bankers now-a-days, they were

not always ‘available.’ He had got it into his cranium, and there it

would stick, that he had a little better blood in him than any body

else, so that he was confoundedly careful not to have any of it spilt,

and nothing but the daughter of a lord came any way near the mark to

which he aspired. He used to tell a good many stories about himself, and

he would tell them pretty well too, but they somehow or other had a

smack of the marvellous. His stories about the doings among the

gentry—the fellow, you see, had been educated by a lord, or something

of that sort, and had seen a little of high life above stairs as well as

below—took amazingly in the camp, especially his sentimental ones, for

he had the knack of making a fool of himself—”

“But, for goodness sake, Oliver! the story!—the story!”

“The fact is, Jerry, I am pretty much in the predicament of the

knife-grinder!—Story of my own—I have none to tell. But here is one

of——confound the fellow’s name,—no matter.”

* * * * *

“Emily Melville—the only daughter of the proud Lord Melville, who was

well known in the time of the wars—as the representative of the long

line of illustrious Scottish nobles of that name, was the pride of the

Lowland nobility, and the belle of every assembly. She was as fair as a

white fawn, and scarcely less wild. Her mother being dead, few

restraints were placed upon the young beauty by the old house-keeper,

who, in the main, filled the place. Emily, therefore, held in proud

disdain the restraints which would have been imposed by the prudes of

her sex, and thought that the great art of living was to be happy.

Laughter was always on her lips, and sunlight forever on her brow. She

was beautiful, and you knew it, yet you could not tell the secret of it,

nor, for their restlessness and brilliancy, whether her eyes were blue

or gray, yet you knew that they were pretty, and felt that they were

bright. Her voice was like the warble of a bird in spring, its notes

were so full of joyousness; and her motion was like that of a fairy, so

light and graceful, that, had you seen her tripping over the smoothly

shaved lawn in front of the mansion—her auburn hair drooping in long

ringlets over her snowy and finely rounded shoulders—and heard her gay

glad voice, swelling out in song and happiness, you would have fancied

her an angel from the upper sphere.”

“I doubt that last part, my good fellow”—interrupted a bluff old

soldier—“until I had tried an arm around her, to see if she wasn’t

flesh and blood, I wouldn’t a’ trusted fancy.”

“An interruption, gentlemen. You see if the story is told right, a man

must _feel_ what he says, and you’ll find out before it’s done, that

I”—

“What, young man! You didn’t begin to make love to _her_ did you?”

“Gentlemen, I must persist”—

“Well, was _she_ in love—tell us that.”

“Love!—She laughed at it—and said, ‘she loved nothing but her pet

fawn—her canary—the flowers, both wild and tame—the blue sky—the

sunshine—the heather—the forest—the mountains—and it might be—she

did not know—she _might_ love her cousin Harry Hardwick, if he was as

pleasant as he was when her playmate a few years ago—but he was now at

his father’s castle on the mountain, and perhaps had grown coarse,

boorish, or ill-mannered. She did not know therefore whether she should

love him or not—rather thought she should not—but then she had her

father, and enough around her to love and cherish, and why should she

trouble herself about the matter.’

“You will not wonder, gentlemen, that such a creature should inspire me

with love—a deep, devoted, heart-absorbing, deathless passion. I loved

her as man never loved woman before. Every pulsation, every energy of my

being seemed for her”—

“Of course, _you’d_ love her!—never heard you tell of a pretty girl

that you didn’t love—but give us the pith and marrow of the matter; did

she return the compliment?”

“All in good time!—You see the thing might have been very handsomely

managed, if it had not been for one or two impediments”—

“What in the plague does the fellow mean by _impediment_?”

“Hush, can’t you! He means he didn’t get her, of course.”

“Well, you see, gentlemen, there was a shocking looking young fellow of

a lord, who lived upon the next estate, who got it into his head that he

must take a hand in the game. To give him his due, he was accomplished,

witty, had a title, and a splendid whisker, and from beginning to call

every few days to inquire after Lord Melville’s health—the old chap had

the best health in the world—about three times a-week, he soon managed

to call the other four days on his own account, so that I found the

prize in a fair way to be snatched from my grasp, and I resolved to

bring matters to a close pretty soon. So one morning, when Lord Melville

was out looking into parliamentary matters, inquiring into the affairs

of the nations, or his own, I thought I would open the question

genteely. Emily had sung for me most sweetly, without any apology or

affectation, and we were now sitting chatting very pleasantly together.

How easy, then, to turn the conversation in the proper channel. To

discourse of green fields—of murmuring brooks—of the delights of

solitude with one of congenial tastes—of the birds, the fawn, and the

attachment they showed their mistress. Then, of course, she would wonder

whether they really loved her, whether they knew what love was, or only

felt joy at her presence, because they knew her as their feeder. Then I

would say, of _course_ they loved her, how could they do

otherwise,—were not all things that approached her _fated_ to love her.

Then she blushes, gets up, and goes to the window opening on the

garden—to look at the flowers maybe—I must see them too, of course,

for they are _her_ flowers. I always loved flowers, and particularly

love these. Things, gentlemen, were thus progressing pretty smoothly,

you will see, considering that the lady was the daughter of a lord, and

of course heiress to his whole estate, when lo!—my unlucky genius as

usual—the housekeeper must poke in her head, and ask if ‘anybody

called.’ No! certainly not! What young lady ever called a housekeeper at

such a time! Pshaw! The thing was shocking to think of! How stupid in

her! The old thing had an eye in her head like a hawk, however, and saw

pretty clearly how matters stood, and whether she thought that there was

no chance for me in that quarter, or had some private preference of her

own, she maintained her ground until I deemed it prudent to withdraw.

“Days passed away, and no opportunity was afforded me of renewing my

suit. Whether the old housekeeper took the matter in hand or not, of

course I cannot say; but when days began to grow into weeks, I began to

feel the wretchedness of first love. Who has not felt its fears, its

doubts, the torture, whether you are beloved by the object of your

affection, and the uncertainty, even in your own mind, whether you are

worthy of that love?—who has not felt the dread of rivalry, the fears

of the effects of a moment’s absence, and the thousand untold pangs,

which none but a lover’s imagination can inflict—and he a lover for the

first time? It is strange, gentlemen, that I should, after this sweet

interview, which seemed destined to be the last that I should have with

the most angelic of beings, place myself upon the rack, and delight in

the torture, with the devotion to wretchedness of a heart inspired with

‘the gentle madness,’ for the first time, of passionate, deathless

love—”

“Hold up, comrade! and do give us the pith of the matter, without all

this flummery. I’ve known chaps talk all day in that strain, who never

had any story to tell, but would go on yarning it until roll-call, just

to hear themselves talk. Now, if you got the gal, say so—if you didn’t,

tell us why—and none of your rigmarole.”

“Of course, gentlemen, I did not get her, and that is the reason I am

here to tell the story. Misfortunes, you know, travel close upon each

other’s heels, and sure enough, in the midst of my misery, the carriage

of Lord Hardwick was announced, and who should it contain but Emily’s

cousin ‘Harry,’—her old playmate, and his sister. I heard the

announcement, but I heard no more, until an hour or two afterwards,

when, out of sheer melancholy, I had taken to the garden for

contemplation and meditation, I _accidentally_ overheard Harry

Hardwick’s declaration and his acceptance, and, after half an hour of

silence, a laugh by both parties at my expense.

“I had enough of the soldier’s blood in me, gentlemen, even then, to

_take no notice_ of this downright incivility and want of breeding,

though I do not of course suppose that the parties dreamed that they had

a listener, so I cast her off as unworthy of my love; and thus ended my

first love.”

“Very sensibly done, too, my boy! I applaud your spirit. It was worthy

of a soldier.”

“But, gentlemen, this was but the opening of difficulties, for I was no

sooner out of this scrape than my sensitive heart must betray me into

another. How all the dreams of even Emily’s beauty melted away as the

mist from the hills—perhaps assisted by the knowledge she was the prize

of another—when next morning my eyes beheld Arabella Hardwick. She was

leaning over the back of the sofa, at the very window from which the day

before I had praised the flowers with Emily. Passing beautiful was she

as she stood in her virgin loveliness before me, with her highland-cap

and its white plume over curls of jet, that seemed in mere wantonness to

fall from beneath, over her fine neck and swelling bosom, whose

treasures were scarcely concealed by the highland-mantle which so well

became her. Her brow was slightly shaded with curls, while from beneath,

her eyes, darker than heaven’s own blue, seemed to be melting before

your gaze. Her smile was sweetness itself, and came from lips of which

heaven and earth seemed to dispute ownership. Emily was seated at her

side, in the act of fixing a hawk’s feather in a highland-cap for her

own fair brow, yet in her eye mischief and cunning strove for mastery,

and her whole face was so full of meaning that I knew that I must have

been the subject of previous conversation, and I felt my face crimson

before the highland beauties. I verily believe that I made an

impression, gentlemen, which, had it been properly followed up, might

have been the making of me; I have always fancied somehow or other that

the highland beauty was rather smitten with me, for there was such a

coaxing expression in her whole face, and particularly in her

lips—which seemed to be begging a kiss—that I do believe that if it

had not been for the presence of my old flame, ‘my first love,’

gentlemen, I should have carried the fortress by storm! but you see, as

it was, I stood blushing and looking simple until, for very amusement

sake, both commenced laughing, and Emily broke the ice by asking me if I

had lost my tongue.

“‘On this hint I spoke.’—It is not necessary, gentlemen, to repeat all

the fine things I said—for fine things in a sentimental way, are not

relished in camp—but suffice it to say that the ground was so well

marked out in my first interview, that I deemed it expedient to pop the

question, ‘striking while the iron’s hot,’ you know—somewhat musty, but

very expressive—yet you will scarcely believe me, gentlemen—she

rejected me _flat_—‘_because I had no whiskers_.’”

“You don’t say that was the _main_ objection?”

“I say that was the only objection, and to prove its validity, she

married five months after, Lord Gordon, Emily’s former suitor—whose

only advantage was a fine pair of whiskers—with the addition of an

estate and a title.”

“But perhaps the latter had some weight.”

“None, I assure you, as I pressed the matter, and she averred, that love

in a cottage with a whisker, was in every way more congenial to her

taste, than the finest mansion in the land without that appendage. So

you see I took to cultivating whiskers with great assiduity; but for a

long time, the rascals defied all attempts to train them; the shoots

were tolerably advanced in less than six months; but they were too

late—for the lady was married.”

“Well, you are a cool sort of a fellow to talk of transferring your love

from one high-born lady to another, with the same ease as a soldier does

a feather from his cap. I suppose you finally courted the old

housekeeper out of sheer revenge.”

“None of that, I assure you, for she revenged my want of attention that

way, by giving Lord Melville a history of the whole matter—with

trimmings.—So the old codger said I was as crazy as a bed-bug, and

clapped me in the army, as a kind of lunatic asylum to recover my wits.

So that’s the _end of the story_.”

* * * * *

“There, Jerry, put that in your pipe, or your Magazine, just as you

like, for no story do I write for a fellow who comes to me with a piece

of tape to measure the length, as if a man spun like a spider, and if it

don’t fill your three pages—add a paragraph about the children.—What

do ye say?”

“It’s rather so-soish at best, Oliver!—But what regiment did you say

you were in?”

“Regiment—did I say anything about regiment? You must be mistaken,

Jerry! these confounded soldier terms are all mouldering in my brain,

these peaceable times.”

“Well, where was the army encamped?”

“At a—a place with a confounded French name—I never had any command of

the cursed language, and was glad enough when we got out of the place,

never to bother my brain with its name.”

“Well, the war!—In what war was it?—Let us have something to go upon.”

“As for dates and names, Jerry, I never for the soul of me, could make

any headway with them. A phrenologist once told me, that for names and

dates I had no development, and whenever I begin to try to think of my

exploits in battle, I think the fellow was right—as I am always out for

the want of names and dates. So I think it best first to tell the

_facts_, and let people fix dates to suit themselves. So, Jerry, hand

over the port—this is confounded dry business.”

“To tell you the truth, Oliver, the whole story has rather a squint, and

I have half a notion that for the most of it, we are indebted to the

good looks of the two bonnie Scotch lassies, and rather a marvellous

imagination.”

* * * * *

LINES.

WRITTEN ON A PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

BY MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

Hail pictured image! thine immortal art

Hath snatch’d a hero from the arms of death,

In whose broad bosom beat the noblest heart

That ever drew on earth a balmy breath;

For while amid the sons of men he trod,

That true nobility to him was given

Whose seal is stamp’d by an approving God,

Whose ever-blooming title comes from heaven.

The fire of genius glistened in his glance,

’Twas written on his calm majestic brow,

That men might look upon its clear expanse

And read that God and Nature made him so;

Yet that pale temple could not always keep

The soul imprisoned in its earthly bars,

Born for the skies, his god-like soul doth sweep

The boundless circle of the radiant stars.

How soft the placid smiles that seemed to bask

Round those pale features once the spirit’s shrine

And hover round those lips that only ask

A second impress from the hand divine!

And look upon that brow! a living light

Plays like a sun-beam o’er his silver hair,

As if the happy spirit in its flight

Had left a saint-like glory trembling there.

Yet tho’ some skilful hand may softly paint

The noble form and features we adore,

Such deeds as thine are left, Oh happy Saint!

Are left alone for Memory to restore.

And still thy virtues like a soft perfume

That rises from a bed of fading flowers,

Immortal as thyself, shall bud and bloom

Deep in these hearts, these grateful hearts of ours.

Sons of Columbia! ye whose spirits soar

Elate with joyous hopes and youthful fires,

Go, imitate the hero you deplore,

For this is all that God or man requires.

Oh! while you bend the pensive brow of grief,

Muse on the bright examples he has given,

And strive to follow your ascended chief

Whose radiant foot-prints lead to fame and heaven.

Oh guard his grave! it is a solemn trust,

Nor let a single foeman press the sod

Beneath whose verdure sleeps the sacred dust

Once hallowed by the quick’ning breath of God.

Thus in his lonely grandeur let him lie

Wrapt in his grave on fair Ohio’s shore,

His deeds, his virtues, all that could not die,

Remain with us, and shall for evermore.

* * * * *

TO A LAND BIRD AT SEA.

BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

Bird of the land! what dost thou here?

Lone wanderer o’er a trackless bound,—

With nought but frowning skies above,

And cold, unfathom’d seas around;

Among the shrouds, with heaving breast

And drooping head, I see thee stand,

And pleased the coarsest sailor climbs,

To grasp thee in his roughen’d hand.

And didst thou follow, league on league,

Our pointed mast, thine only guide,

When but a floating speck it seemed

On the broad bosom of the tide?

On far Newfoundland’s misty bank,

Hadst thou a nest, and nurslings fair?

Or ’mid New England’s forests hoar?

Speak! speak! what tidings dost thou bear?

What news from native shore and home,

Swift courier o’er the threatening tide?—

Hast thou no folded scroll of love

Prest closely to thy panting side?

A bird of genius art thou? say!

With impulse high thy spirit stirred—

Some region unexplored to gain,

And soar above the common herd?

Burns in thy breast some kindling spark

Like that which fired the glowing mind

Of the adventurous Genoese,

An undiscovered world to find?

Whate’er thou wert, how sad thy fate

With wasted strength the goal to spy,

Cling feebly to the flapping sail,

And at a stranger’s feet to die.

Yet, from thy thin and bloodless beak,

Methinks a warning sigh doth creep—

To those who leave their sheltering home,

And lightly dare the dangerous deep.

* * * * *

THE SNOW-STORM.

A MONOLOGUE BY JEREMY SHORT, ESQ.

It is almost twilight. How swiftly have the moments glided by since we

sat ourselves by this window—let us see—some two hours since, and

during all that time not a word have we spoken, although our soul has

been gushing over with its exceeding fulness. It is snowing. Look out

and you will see the downy flakes—there, there, and there—one chasing

another, millions on millions falling without intermission, coming down

noiselessly and mysteriously, as a dream of childhood, on the earth, and

covering field, and forest, and house-top, hill and vale, river, glade,

and meadow, with a robe that is whiter than an angel’s mantle. How

ceaseless the descent! What countless myriads—more countless than even

the stars of heaven—have fallen since we have been watching here! God

only could have ordered the falling of that flake which has just now

sunk to the earth like an infant on its young mother’s milk-white bosom.

Did you not see it? There—follow this one which has just emerged from

the skies—but at what spot even we cannot detect—see its slow, easy,

tremulous motion as it floats downwards; now how rapidly it intermingles

with the others, so that you can scarcely keep it in your eye; and

there! there! it shoots to the ground with a joyous leap—and, even as

we speak, another and another, aye! ten thousand thousand of them have

flitted past, like the gleaming of cherubic wings, such as we used to

see in our childhood’s dreams, glancing to and fro before a throne of

surpassing glory, far, far away, high up in the skies.

It is snowing. Faster, faster, faster come down the feathery flakes. See

how they disport themselves—giddy young creatures as they are—whirling

around; now up, and now down; dancing, leaping, flying; you can almost

hear their sportive laughter as they skim away across the landscape.

Almost, we say, for in truth there is not a sound to be heard in earth,

air, or sky. The ground, all robed in white, is hushed in silence—the

river sweeps its current along no longer with a hoarse chafing sound,

but flows onward with a dull, clogged, almost noiseless motion—not a

bird whistles in the wood, nor a beast lows from the barn-yard—while

the trees, lifting their bleached branches to the skies, shiver in the

keen air, and cower uncomplainingly beneath the falling flakes. But

hark! there is a voice beside us—’tis that of the beloved of our

soul—repeating Thomson’s Winter—Thomson! majestic at all times, but

oh! how much more so when gushing in silver music from the lips of the

white-armed one beside us. Hear her!

“The keener tempests rise: and fuming dun

From all the livid east, or piercing north,

Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb

A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal’d.

Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;

And the sky saddens with the gather’d storm.

_Through the hush’d air the whitening shower descends,_

_At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes_

_Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day,_

_With a continual flow._ The cherished fields

Put on their winter-robe of purest white.

’Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts

Along the mazy current. Low the woods

Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun

Faint from the west emits his evening ray

Earth’s universal face, deep hid, and chill,

Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide

The works of man. Drooping, the laborer ox

Stands covered o’er with snow——”

But let us away to the mountains! Far up in a gorge of the Alleghanies

we will stand, with the clouds whirling wildly around and beneath, and

the wind whistling shrilly far down in some ravine, which we may not

see; for all around us is, as it were, a shoreless ocean, buried in a

ghastly mist, from which the tall cliffs jut up like islands—and ever,

ever comes to our ears from this boiling vortex a sound as of many waves

chafing against the shore, like that which the priest of Apollo listened

to as he walked all disconsolate, bereft of his fair-haired daughter,

back from the tents of the stern Hellenes to the towers of Ilium. The

air is full of snow-flakes, driving hither and thither—thick, thick,

thicker they descend—you cannot see a fathom before you. Take care how

you tread, for a false step may plunge you into an abyss a thousand feet

plumb down. Not far from here is the very spot where an unwary

traveller, on a night like this, but a bare twelve-month since, slipped

from the edge of the precipice, and was never heard of again, until the

warm sunny breath of April, melting the snows from beneath the shadows

of the hills, disclosed him lying unburied, with his face turned up, as

if in mockery, to the bright heavens on which his eye might never look

again. In vain had loved ones watched for his coming until their eyes

grew weary, and their hearts turned to fountains of tears within

them—in vain had a wife or mother kindled the cheery fire, or smoothed

for him the bed of down, to welcome him after his absence—for

“——his sheets are more white,

And his canopy grander,

And sounder he sleeps

Where the hill-foxes wander.”

We are in the mountains, in the midst of a snow-storm, and, as we look

around, we feel that Jehovah, as when Moses heard the noise of a mighty

wind, is passing by. There is a vague emotion of mingled wonder, fear

and awe, overshadowing our soul as we stand here alone in the tempest.

See how the drift is spinning in the whirlwind; and now it streams out

like a pennant on the night. Hark! to the deep organ peal of the

hurricane as it thunders among the peaks high up above us—listen to the

wild shrieks rising, we know not whither, as if the spirits of the

mountain were writhing on beds of torture, as the olden legends say, all

unpardoned by their Creator. And now—louder and wilder than the

rest—sounding upwards from the gulf below, a voice of agony and

might—sublime even in its tribulation, awful in its expression of

gigantic suffering—like that of him whom the seer of the Apocalypse

beheld bound hand and foot and cast into the bottomless pit, despite an

unyielding conflict of twice ten thousand years. Ruin!—ruin!—all is

ruin around us. We see not the burying of hamlets, we hear not the

descent of avalanches, but the sky is lit up with a wan glare, the whole

air is full of mysterious sounds, and we feel, with a strange

all-pervading fear, that destruction will glut herself ere morning. God

help the traveller who is abroad to-night!

And now, with a sheer descent, full fifty fathoms down, let us plunge

like the eagle when he shoots before the burning thunderbolt. We are on

the wide ocean, and what a sight! Sea and air are commingled into one.

You seem buried alive in a whirling tempest of snow-flakes, and though,

as on the mountain, you hear on every side sounds of utter agony, yet,

as there, the keenest eye cannot penetrate the wan, dim prospect around;

but here, unlike on the hills, there is one voice superior to all the

rest—the deep, awful bass of the rolling surges. And then the

hurricane! How it whistles, roars and bellows through the rigging, now

piping shrill and clear, and now groaning awfully as if in its last

extremity. The snow is blocking up the decks, wet, spongy and bitterly

cold. There! how she thumped against that wave, quivering under it in

every timber, while the spray was dimly seen flying wild and high over

the fore-top. “Shall we—oh! shall we live till morning?” asks a weeping

girl. “We know not, sweet one, but we are in the Almighty’s hand, and

his fatherly care will be over us as well here as on the land.” There;

see—“hold on all,” thunders the Stentor voice of the skipper, sounding

now however fainter than the feeblest infant’s cry; and as he speaks,

the craft shivers with a convulsive throe, and a gigantic billow,

seething, hissing, flashing, whirls in over the bow, deluges the deck,

and roars away into the blackness of darkness astern. Was that a cry of

a man overboard? God in his infinite mercy, pardon the poor wretch’s

sins; for, alas! it were madness to attempt his rescue. Already he is

far astern. Another and another wave! Oh! for the light of morning. Yes!

young Jessie, thou would’st give worlds now for the breezes of the

far-off land—the hum of bees, the songs of birds, the scent of flowers

in the summer sunshine—the sight of thy home smiling amidst its

murmuring trees, with the clear brook hard by laughing over the stones,

and the voices of thy young sisters sounding gaily in thy ears. But ere

morning we may all be with our brother who has but just gone from our

midst. _Ora pro nobis!_

We were but dreaming when we thought ourselves among the mountains and

on the sea, and we were awoke by thy soft voice—oh! loved one of our

soul—and looking into thy blue eyes—moist, not with tears, but with

thine all-sensitive soul—we feel a calm come down upon us soothing, how

gently and sweetly, our agitated thoughts. Many and many a tale could we

tell thee of sorrow and peril on the seas, and our heart is even now

full of one which would bring the tears into other eyes than thine—but

no! you tell us we are all too agitated by our dream, and that another

time will do—well, well! Sing us, then, one of thine own sweet

songs—Melanie!—for is not thy voice like the warbler of our woods, he

of the hundred notes, the silvery, the melting, the unrivalled? That was

sweetly done—ever could we sit and listen to thee thus.

“Thy voice is like a fountain

Leaping up in sunshine bright,

And _we_ never weary counting

Its clear droppings, lone and single,

Or when in one full gush they mingle,

Shooting in melodious light!”

That is Lowell’s—a noble soul is his, and all on fire with poetry. We

tender to him, though we have never met in the flesh, our good right

hand, joining his herewith in cordial fellowship, the hearts of both

being in our eyes the while:—we tender him our hand—he far away in his

student’s room at Boston and we here in old Philadelphia—and we tell

sneering worldlings and critics who are born only to be damned, that,

for one so young, Lowell has written grandly; that he is full, even to

overflowing, of purity, enthusiasm, imagination, and love for all God’s

creatures; and being this, why should not we—aye! and all honest men

beside—grasp him cheerily by the hand, and if need be, stand to our

arms in his defence?

But the clock has struck six, and we will walk to the door to see if the

tempest still rages. What a glorious night! The moon is out, sailing

high up in heaven, with a calm mystic majesty that fills the soul with

untold peace. Far away on the horizon floats a misty veil—while here

and there, in the sky, a cloud still lingers, its dark body seeming like

velvet on an azure ground, and its edges turned up with silver. There

are a thousand stars on the frosty snow; for every tiny crystal that

shoots out into the moonshine glistens all diamond-like; and, as you

walk, ten thousand new crystals open to the light, until the whole

landscape seems alive with millions of gems. Hark! how the hard crust

crackles under the tread. If you put your ear to the ground you will

hear a multitude of almost inarticulate sounds as if the sharp

moon-beams were splintering the snow—but it is only the shooting of

myriads of crystals. There have been icicles forming all day from yonder

twig, and now as we shake the tree, you may hear them tinkling, one by

one, to the ground, with a clear silvery tone, like the ringing of a

bell miles off among the hills. Early in the afternoon, the snow melted

on the river, but towards nightfall the stream became clogged, and now

the frost is “breathing a blue film” from shore to shore—and to-morrow

the whole surface will be smooth as glass, and the steel of the skater

will be ringing sharp along the ice. How keen was that gust!—you may

hear its dying cadence moaning away in the distance, like the wail of a

lost child in a forest. Hush! was that a whistle down in the wood?

And now again all is still. Let us pause a moment and look around. The

well-known landmarks of the scene have disappeared, giving place to an

unbroken prospect of the purest white. We seem to have entered into a

new world, and to have lost by the transition all our old and more

selfish feelings, so that now, every emotion of our heart is softened

down to a gentle calm, in unison with the beauty and repose around us.

There is a dreaminess in the landscape, thus half seen by the light of

the moon, giving full play to the imagination. The spirit spurns this

mortal tenement of clay, and soars upwards to a brighter world, holding

fancied communion with the myriads of beatified spirits, which it would

fain believe, hover in the air and whisper unseen into our souls.

Glorious thought, that God hath appointed such guardian watchers over a

lost and sinful race! We would not surrender this belief—wild and

visionary as it may seem to some—for all that sectarians have asserted

or atheists denied. We love, in the still watches of the night, to think

that the “loved and lost” are communing with our hearts—that though

dead they yet live, and watch, as of old, over our erring path—that

they soothe us in sorrow, hover around our beds of sickness, are the

first to bear the parted soul upwards to the gates of Paradise—and that

the angelic sounds we hear upon the midnight air, coming we know not

whither, but seeming to pervade the whole firmament as with a celestial

harmony, are but their songs of praise. Or may not these heavenly

strains be the cadences which faintly float, far down from the

battlements of heaven?

“Oft in bands

While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,

With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds

In full harmonic numbers joined, their songs

Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven.”

The dream grows dim, the illusion is fading, our rhapsody dies upon our

lips. We hear again thy voice—Hebe of our heart!—and we may not longer

tarry in the night air. And so farewell!

* * * * *

APOSTROPHE.

BY ALBERT PIKE.

Oh Liberty! thou child of many hopes,

Nursed in the cradle of the human heart!

While Europe in her glimmering darkness gropes,

Do not from us, thy chosen ones, depart!

Still be to us, as thou hast been, and art,

The Spirit which we breathe! Oh, teach us still

Thy arrowy truths unquailingly to dart,

Until the Tyrant and Oppressor reel,

And Despotism trembles at thy thunder-peal.

Methinks thy sun-rise now is lighting up

The far horizon of yon hemisphere

With golden lightning. O’er the hoary top

Of the blue mountain see I not appear

Thy lovely dawn; while Pain, and crouching Fear,

And Slavery perish under tottering thrones?

How long, oh Liberty! until we hear

Instead of an insulted people’s moans,

The crushed and writhing tyrants uttering their groans?

Is not thy Spirit living still in France?

Will it not waken soon in storm and fire?

Will Earthquake not ’mid thrones and cities dance,

And Freedom’s altar be the funeral pyre

Of Tyranny and all his offspring dire?

In England, Germany, Italia, Spain,

And Switzerland thy Spirit doth inspire

The multitude—and though too long, in vain,

They struggle in deep gloom, yet Slavery’s night shall wane!

And shall _we_ sleep while all the earth awakes?

Shall _we_ turn slaves while on the Alpine cones

And vine-clad hills of Europe brightly breaks

The morning light of liberty?—What thrones

Can equal those which on our fathers’ bones

The demagogue would build? What chains so gall

As those the self-made Helot scarcely owns

Till they eat deeply—till the live pains crawl

Into his soul who caused _himself_ to fall!

Men’s freedom may be wrested from their hands,

And they may mourn; but not like those who throw

Their heritage away—who clasp the bands

On their own limbs, and crawl and blindly go

Like timorous fawns to their own overthrow.

Shall we thus fall? Is it so difficult

To think that we are free, yet be not so—

To shatter down by one brief hour of guilt

The holy fane of Freedom that our fathers built.

* * * * *

AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.

IN THREE CHIMERAS.

BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.

Chimera I.

An anthem of a sister choristry!

And like a windward murmur of the sea

O’er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!

A dying music, shrouded in deep walls,

That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,

Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,

Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,

Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,

Do minister unto her sickly trance,

Fanning the life into her countenance.

And there are pale stars sparkling, far and few,

In the deep chasms of everlasting blue,

Unmarshall’d and ungather’d, one and one,

Like outposts of the lunar garrison.

A train of holy fathers windeth by

The arches of an aged sanctuary,

With cowl, and scapular, and rosary,

On to the sainted oriel, where stood,

By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood—

A weeping group of virgins!—one or two

Bent forward to a bier of solemn hue,

Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,

With its black pall flung over:—Agathè

Was on the lid—a name. And who? No more!

’Twas only Agathè.

’Tis o’er, ’tis o’er—

Her burial!—and, under the arcades,

Torch after torch into the moonlight fades,

And there is heard the music, a brief while,

Over the roofings of the imaged aisle,

From the deep organ, panting out its last,

Like the slow dying of an autumn blast.

A lonely monk is loitering within

The dusky area, at the altar seen,

Like a pale spirit, kneeling in the light

Of the cold moon, that looketh wan and white

Through the deviced oriel; and he lays

His hands upon his bosom, with a gaze

To the chill earth. He had the youthful look

Which heartfelt woe had wasted, and he shook

At every gust of the unholy breeze

That entered through the time-worn crevices.

A score of summers only o’er his brow

Had passed—and it was summer, even now

The one-and-twentieth—from a birth of tears,

Over a waste of melancholy years!

And _that_ brow was as wan as if it were

Of snowy marble, and the raven hair,

That would have clustered over, was all shorn,

And his fine features stricken pale as morn.

He kiss’d a golden crucifix, that hung

Around his neck, and, in a transport, flung

Himself upon the earth, and said, and said

Wild, raving words, about the blessed dead;

And then he rose, and in the moon-shade stood,

Gazing upon its light in solitude,

And smote his brow, at some idea wild

That came across; then, weeping like a child,

He faltered out the name of Agathè,

And look’d unto the heaven inquiringly,

And the pure stars.

“Oh, shame! that ye are met

To mock me, like old memories, that yet

Break in upon the golden dream I knew

While she—_she_ lived; and I have said adieu

To that fair one, and to her sister, Peace,

That lieth in her grave. When wilt thou cease

To feed upon my quiet, thou Despair,

That art the mad usurper, and the heir

Of this heart’s heritage? Go, go—return,

And bring me back oblivion and an urn!

And ye, pale stars, may look, and only find

The wreck of a proud tree, that lets the wind

Count o’er its blighted boughs: for such was he

That loved, and loves, the silent Agathè.”

And he hath left the sanctuary, like one

That knew not his own purpose—the red sun

Rose early over incense of bright mist,

That girded a pure sky of amethyst.

And who was he? A monk. And those who knew,

Yclept him Julio; but they were few.

And others named him as a nameless one,—

A dark, sad-hearted being, who had none

But bitter feelings, and a cast of sadness,

That fed the wildest of all curses—madness!

But he was, what none knew, of lordly line,

That fought in the far land of Palestine,

Where, under banners of the Cross, they fell,

Smote by the armies of the infidel.

And Julio was the last; alone, alone,

A sad, unfriended orphan, that had gone

Into the world to murmur and to die,

Like the cold breezes that are passing by!

And few they were that bade him to their board;

His fortunes now were over, and the sword

Of his proud ancestry dishonor’d—left

To moulder in its sheath—a hated gift!

Ay! it was so; and Julio would fain

Have been a warrior; but his very brain

Grew fever’d at the sickly thought of death.

And to be stricken with a want of breath!—

To be the food of worms—inanimate,

And cold as winter—and as desolate!

And then to waste away, and be no more

Than the dark dust!—the thought was like a sore

That gather’d in his heart; and he would say,

“A curse be on their laurels,” and decay

Came over them; the deeds that they had done

Had fallen with their fortunes; and anon

Was Julio forgotten, and his line—

No wonder for this frenzied tale of mine!

Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene!

But loved not death; his purpose was between

Life and the grave; and it would vibrate there

Like a wild bird, that floated far and fair

Betwixt the sun and sea.

He went, and came—

And thought, and slept, and still awoke the same—

A strange, strange youth; and he would look all night

Upon the moon and stars, and count the flight

Of the sea waves, and let the evening wind

Play with his raven tresses, or would bind

Grottos of birch, wherein to sit and sing;

And peasant girls would find him sauntering,

To gaze upon their features, as they met,

In laughter, under some green arboret.

At last he became a monk, and, on his knees,

Said holy prayers, and with wild penances

Made sad atonement; and the solemn whim

That, like a shadow, loiter’d over him,

Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursed

With none of the mad thoughts that were at first

The poison of his quiet; but he grew

To love the world and its wild laughter too,

As he had known before: and wish’d again

To join the very mirth he hated then.

He durst not break the vow—he durst not be

The one he would—and his heart’s harmony

Became a tide of sorrow. Even so,

He felt hope die—in madness and in wo!

But there came one—and a most lovely one

As ever to the warm light of the sun

Threw back her tresses—a fair sister girl,

With a brow changing between snow and pearl;

And the blue eyes of sadness, filled with dew

Of tears—like Heaven’s own melancholy blue—

So beautiful, so tender; and her form

Was graceful as a rainbow in a storm:

Scattering gladness on the face of sorrow—

Oh! I had fancied of the hues that borrow

Their brightness from the sun; but she was bright

In her own self—a mystery of light!

With feelings tender as a star’s own hue,

Pure as the morning star! as true, as true:

For it will glitter in each early sky,

And her first love be love that lasteth aye!

And this was Agathè—young Agathè—

A motherless, fair girl: and many a day

She wept for her lost parent. It was sad

To see her infant sorrow; how she bade

The flow of her wild spirits fall away

To grief, like bright clouds in a summer day

Melting into a shower; and it was sad

Almost to think she might again be glad—

Her beauty was so chaste, amid the fall

Of her bright tears. Yet in her father’s hall

She had lived almost sorrowless her days;

But he felt no affection for the gaze

Of his fair girl; and when she fondly smiled,

He bade no father’s welcome to the child,

But even told his wish, and will’d it done,

For her to be sad-hearted—and a nun!

And so it was. She took the dreary veil,

A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew pale

Upon her cheek; she felt, as summer feels

The winds of autumn, and the winter chills

That darken his fair suns—it was away,

Feeding on dreams, the heart of Agathè!

The vesper prayers were said, and the last hymn

Sung to the Holy Virgin. In the dim,

Gray aisle, was heard a solitary tread,

As of one musing sadly on the dead—

’Twas Julio. It was his wont to be

Often alone within the sanctuary;

But now, not so—another: it was she!

Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint

Before a crucifix; but sad and faint

The tone of her devotion, as the trill

Of a moss-burden’d melancholy rill.

And Julio stood before her;—’twas as yet

The hour of the pale twilight—and they met

Each other’s gaze, till either seem’d the hue

Of deepest crimson; but the ladye threw

Her veil above her features, and stole by

Like a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh!

Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,

A dreamer!——“is the sister ladye gone?”

He started at the silence of the air

That slumber’d over him—she is not there.

And either slept not through the live-long night,

Or slept in fitful trances, with a bright,

Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they rose

In sorrow from the pallet of repose:

For the dark thought of their sad destiny

Came o’er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,

That was to rend their fortunes; and at eve

They met again, but, silent, took their leave,

As they did yesterday: another night,

And neither spoke awhile—a pure delight,

Had chasten’d love’s first blushes: silently

Gazed Julio on the gentle Agathè—

At length, “Fair Nun!” she started, and held fast

Her bright hand on her lips—“the past, the past,

And the pale future! there be some that lie

Under those marble urns—I know not why,

But I were better in that holy calm,

Than be as I have been, perhaps, and am.

The past!—ay! it hath perish’d; never, never,

Would I recall it to be blest for ever;

The future it must come—I have a vow”—

And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow,

“True, true, I have a vow; is not the moon

Abroad, fair nun?”—“indeed! so very soon?”

Said Agathè, and “I must then away.”

“Stay, love! ’tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!”

But she was gone:—yet they met many a time

In the lone chapel, after vesper chime—

They met in love and fear.

One weary day,

And Julio saw not his loved Agathè;

She was not in the choir of sisterhood

That sang the evening anthem; and he stood

Like one that listen’d breathlessly awhile;

But stranger voices chanted through the aisle.

She was not there; and after all were gone,

He linger’d: the stars came—he linger’d on,

Like a dark fun’ral image on the tomb

Of a lost hope. He felt a world of gloom

Upon his heart—a solitude—a chill.

The pale moon rose, and still he linger’d still.

And the next vesper toll’d; nor yet, nor yet—

“Can Agathè be faithless and forget?”

It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,

“Poor Julio! thy Agathè is dead;”

And started. He had loiter’d in the train

That bore her to the grave: he saw her lain

In the cold earth, and heard a requiem

Sung over her. To him it was a dream:

A marble stone stood by the sepulchre;

He look’d, and saw, and started—she was there!

And Agathè had died: she that was bright—

She that was in her beauty! a cold blight

Fell over the young blossom of her brow,

And the life’s blood grew chill—she is not now.

She died like Zephyr falling amid flowers!

Like to a star within the twilight hours

Of morning—and she was not! Some have thought

The Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught

That stole into her heart, and sadly rent

The fine chords of that holy instrument,

Until its music falter’d fast away,

And she—she died—the lovely Agathè!

Again, and through the arras of the gloom

Are the pale breezes moaning: by her tomb

Bends Julio, like a phantom, and his eye

Is fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lie

At ebb within the sea. Oh! he is wan,

As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,

And stars unseen for paleness; it is cast,

As foliage in the raving of the blast,

All his fair bloom of thoughts. Is the moon chill,

That in the dark clouds she is mantled still?

And over its proud arch hath Heaven flung

A scarf of darkness. Agathè was young!

And there should be the virgin silver there,

The snow-white fringes delicately fair!

He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,

And over him a lonely lanthorn stands

On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall

Of light upon a marble pedestal,

Whereon is chisel’d rudely, the essay

Of untaught tool, “_Hic jacet Agathè_,”

And Julio hath bent him down in speed,

like one that doeth an unholy deed.

There is a flagstone lieth heavily

Over the ladye’s grave; I wist of three

That bore it of a blessed verity!

But he hath lifted it in his pure madness

As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,

And from the carved niche hath ta’en the lamp

And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.

And he is flinging the dark, chilly mould

Over the gorgeous pavement: ’tis a cold,

Sad grave; and there is many a relic there

Of chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,

Fell mouldering away: and he would dash

His mattock through them with a cursed clash

That made the lone aisle echo. But anon

He fell upon a skull—a haggard one,

With its teeth set, and the great orbless eye

Revolving darkness, like eternity.

And in his hand he held it till it grew

To have the fleshy features and the hue

Of life. He gazed, and gazed, and it became

Like to his Agathè—all, all the same!

He drew it nearer,—the cold, bony thing!—

To kiss the worm-wet lips. “Aye! let me cling—

Cling to thee now forever!”—but a breath

Of rank corruption, from its jaws of death,

Went to his nostrils, and he madly laugh’d,

And dash’d it over on the altar shaft,

Which the new-risen moon, in her gray light,

Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!

Again he went

To his world work beside the monument.

“Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath been

In sorrow amid heaven! there is sin

Under thy shadow, lying like a dew;

So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue,

Where thou art ever as a silver throne

For some pale spectre-king! come thou alone,

Or bring a solitary orphan star

Under thy wings! afar, afar, afar,

To gaze upon this girl of radiancy,

In her deep slumbers—wake thee, Agathè!”

And Julio hath stolen the dark chest

Where the fair nun lay coffin’d, in the rest

That wakes not up at morning; she is there

An image of cold calm! One tress of hair

Lingereth lonely on her snowy brow;

But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;

And their long lashes delicately rest

On the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,

That fall upon a colorless sad cloud.

Humility lies rudely on the proud,

But she was never proud; and there she is,

A yet unwither’d flower the autumn breeze

Hath blown from its green stem! ’Tis pale, ’Tis pale,

But still unfaded, like the twilight veil

That falleth after sunset; like a stream

That bears the burden of a silver gleam

Upon its waters; and is even so,—

Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!

Beauty in death! a tenderness upon

The rude and silent relics, where alone

Sat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!

The look of being where the breath is fled!

The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!

A time—a time without a day or night!

Death cradled upon beauty, like a bee

Upon a flower, that looketh lovingly!

Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,

Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!

And there she is; and Julio bends o’er

The sleeping girl—a willow on the shore

Of a Dead Sea! that steepeth its fair bough

Into the bitter waters,—even now

Taking a foretaste of the awful trance

That was to pass on his own countenance!

Yes! yes! and he is holding his pale lips

Over her brow; the shade of an eclipse

Is passing to his heart, and to his eye

That is not tearful; but the light will die

Leaving it like a moon within a mist,—

The vision of a spell-bound visionist!

He breathed a cold kiss on her ashy cheek,

That left no trace—no flush—no crimson streak

But was as bloodless as a marble stone,

Susceptible of silent waste alone.

And on her brow a crucifix he laid,—

A jewel’d crucifix, the virgin maid

Had given him before she died,—the moon

Shed light upon her visage—clouded soon,

Then briefly breaking from its airy veil,

Like warrior lifting up his aventayle.

But Julio gazed on, and never lifted

Himself to see the broken clouds, that drifted

One after one, like infant elves at play,

Amid the night winds, in their lonely way—

Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,

And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deep

Over their couches of green moss and flowers,

And solitary fern, and heather bowers.

The heavy bell toll’d two, and, as it toll’d,

Julio started, and the fresh-turn’d mould

He flung into the empty chasm with speed,

And o’er it dropt the flagstone.—One could read

That Agathè lay there; but still the girl

Lay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,

That from the deep sea-waters had been rent—

Like a star fallen from the firmament!

He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,

To westward of the solitary church:

And he hath clasp’d around the melting waist,

The beautiful, dead girl: his cheek is pressed

To hers—life warming the cold chill of death!

And over his pale palsy breathing breath

His eye is sunk upon her—“Thou must leave

The worm to waste for love of thee, and grieve

Without thee, as I may not.—Thou must go,

My sweet betrothed, with me—but not below,

Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,

But where is light, and life, and one to brood

Above thee till thou wakest.—Ha? I fear

Thou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,

Where there are none but winds to visit thee,

And convent fathers, and a choristry

Of sisters, saying, ‘Hush!’—But I will sing

Rare songs to thy pure spirit, wandering

Down on the dews to heaven: I will tune

The instrument of the ethereal noon,

And all the choir of stars, to rise and fall

In harmony and beauty musical.”

He is away—and still the sickly lamp

Is burning next the altar; there’s a damp,

Thin mould upon the pavement, and, at morn,

The monks do cross them in their blessed scorn,

And mutter deep anathemas, because

Of the unholy sacrilege, that was

Within the sainted chapel,—for they guess’d,

By many a vestige sad, how the dark rest

Of Agathè was broken,—and anon

They sought for Julio. The summer sun

Arose and set, with his imperial disc

Toward the ocean-waters, heaving brisk

Before the winds,—but Julio came never:

He that was frantic as a foaming river—

Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tide

Of a great tempest, that hath fought and died

Along the forest ramparts, and doth still

In its death-struggle desperately reel

Round with the fallen foliage—he was gone,

And none knew whither—still were chanted on

Sad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,

And holy requiem sung for Agathè!

(End of the first Chimera.)

* * * * *

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

Like flights of singing-birds went by

The rosy hours of girlhood’s day;

When in my native bowers,

Of simple buds and flowers,

They wove a crown and hailed me Queen of May!

Like airy nymphs the lasses came

Spring’s offerings at my feet to lay;

The crystal from the fountains,

The green boughs from the mountains,

They brought to cheer and shade the Queen of May!

Around the May-pole on the green,

A fairy ring, they tript away!—

All merriment and pleasure,

To chords of tuneful measure,

They bounded by the happy Queen of May!

Though years have past, and time has strewn

My raven locks with flakes of gray,

Fond memory brings the hours

Of birds and blossom-showers,

When in girlhood I was crowned the Queen of May!

* * * * *

DREAMS OF THE LAND AND SEA.

BY DR. REYNELL COATES.

INTRODUCTORY.

“’Tis all but a dream at the best!”

Dreams of the Land and Sea! Why should I style them dreams? They are

pictures of actual scenes, though some of them relate to events removed

far back in the dimness of years, and the touches of the brush have felt

the mellowing influence of time.

While striving to avoid whatever is irrelevant or out of keeping, I have

not endeavored to confine myself, in these sketches, within the limits

of simple narrative, but have ventured occasionally to mingle facts with

speculations on their causes, or to follow their consequences to

probable results: nor have I totally discarded the imagination—although

the scenes are invariably drawn from nature, and the principal

personages are real characters—the accessory actors only are sometimes

creatures of the brain. In many of the descriptions, the reader will

perceive the evidences of a desire to place in prominent relief the

works of nature and her God, while art, and all its vanities, is made to

play a subordinate part; for nothing can be more impertinently obtrusive

than the pigmy efforts of the ambitious, struggling for distinction by

attempting either to mar or to perfect the plans of the Great Architect

of Creation, or carve _a name_ upon the columns of his temple.

Yet such is the social disposition of man, that no scene, however grand

or beautiful, can awaken pleasurable emotion unless it is linked

directly with humanity. There is deep oppression in the sense of total

loneliness,—and few can bear the burden calmly, even for an hour! A

solitary foot-print in the desert,—a broken oar upon the shelterless

beach,—the tinkling of a cow-bell in the depth of the forest,—the

crowing of the cock heard far off in the valley as we sink exhausted on

the mountain side when the gloom of night settles heavily down upon our

path-way,—who that has been a wanderer has not felt the heart-cheering

effect of accidents like these! They tell us that, though our solitude

be profound, there is sympathy near us, _or there has been recently_.

In deference, then, to this universal feeling, I have selected for these

articles such sketches only as are interwoven with enough of human life

to awaken social interest, even while grappling with the tempest—riding

the ocean wave, or watching the moon-beams as they struggle through the

foliage of scarce trodden forests, and fall half quenched, upon the

withered leaves below.

But why should I style them dreams? There are many valid reasons. To the

writer, the past is all a dream! But of this the world knows nothing,

nor would it care to know. The scenes described are distant, and

distance itself is dreamy! What can be more like the color of a dream

than yon long range of mountains fading into the sky behind its veil of

mist!

Let us ascend this lofty peak! ’Tis sunset! Cast your glance westward,

where

“——Parting day

Dies like the Dolphin——.”

The sun slowly retires behind the far off hills. Inch after inch, the

shadows climb the summit where you stand. He is gone!—yet you are not

in darkness! His beams, which reach you not, still gild the motionless

clouds, and these emblems of obscurity reflect on you the memory of his

glory:—and, oh! how exquisitely pencilled in the clear obscure stands

forth yon range, clad with towering trees, where each particular branch,

and almost every leaf, seems separately portrayed against the paling

sky,—_miraculously near_!

This is a vision of the _past_. Its strength is owing to the depth of

shade,—not to the intensity of light:—for, when the sun at noon-day,

poured its full tide of rays upon the scene, the sky was brighter, and

rock and river glinted back the flashing beams until the eye was

pained:—but where were then those lines of beauty? The details were

distinct. Then you might gaze on the forest in its reality, and could

almost penetrate its secret paths, despite their dark green canopy!—but

where were the broad effect, the bold, sweeping outlines that now give

unity and grandeur to the fading scene? The _soul_ of creation is before

you—more palpable than _its mere_ corporeal elements are hid from

sight. It resembles the master-piece of some great artist whose pencil

portrays, in simple light and shade, a noble picture. All there is

_life_! Those countenances!—those various attitudes are _speaking_! The

shrubbery waves in the wind, and over the tremulous waters of that

lovely lake, the very song of yonder mountain maid seems floating _upon

the canvass_. Do you not hear the music? ’Tis but a dream of boyhood!

Approach the painting! There is no _real_ outline there! The brush has

been rudely dashed athwart the piece surcharged with heavy colors.

Masses of many hues roughen the surface, and all is meaningless

confusion.

Stand back a-pace! Again the cottage, lake and mountain start from the

surface, _truer than truth itself_.

Panting with sighs and toil, man reaches by painful steps, the mid-land

height of life, as we have climbed this summit, and when fainting by the

way, it has been _his_ resource, as _ours_, to cast himself upon the

bosom of his “mother,” earth[2]—look back and _dream_! We have no other

mother now! But when you nestled to a parent’s breast, and felt the

present impress of her love, knew you its breadth and depth as this

vision shows it?

Memory is like the painter or the sun-set—its images appear more real

than the substantial things they picture, and glow the richer as the

gloom of oblivion gathers around them.

Turn your eyes eastward! Night sits upon the landscape. No ray of the

past illuminates it. The very elevation on which you stand increases the

darkness with its shadow, while it widens your distance from every

object vaguely and fearfully looming through the evening mist.

This is a vision of the _future_. That height of land which seems to

reach the clouds, upon whose dusky flank the overawed imagination

figures cave and precipice, torrent and cataract, is but a gentle slope,

with just enough of rudeness to render still more beautiful by contrast,

the village spire, the moss-roofed mill, the waving grain that crowns

its very top. Such it is seen by day.

Thus, when, in middle life, man peers into the future, what frightful

shadows haunt him. Coming events magnified to giants by the obscurity

around, stalk menacingly forward. Danger threatens him at every step,

and there is naught beyond but that black back-ground—_Death_! The

heavens shed no light upon the future. He is descending the hill of

life, and their glories are fading behind him. He strives to borrow from

the past a gleam to guide him onward, but in vain! Too often his own

ambition has prompted him to choose the lofty path that now condemns him

to redoubled darkness. Yet, although these spectres of the gloom are

most frequently mere creatures of the brain, which day-light would

dispel, they govern his career and cover him with dread. The _dream_ is

_truth_ to him—and it is only _truth itself_ that he esteems a _dream_!

Why can he not wait for sun-rise! Then should he see even the grave

overhung with the verdure of spring, and death arrayed in all the glory

of a morn of promise!

There is reality in dreams!—Come, then, and let us dream together!—our

visions may be dark sometimes, but we will not forget that the sun will

rise on the morrow.

-----

[2] When the celebrated Indian Chief, Tecumseh entered a Council Chamber

of the whites, where the officers, already seated, thoughtlessly allowed

him to remain standing, his countenance in gathering gloom, betrayed the

consciousness of the slight, which _savage_ courtesy would not have

suffered to occur. The look aroused attention, and a chair was handed

him—but his proud lip curled. He threw himself upon the ground,

exclaiming—“Tecumseh will repose on the bosom of his mother!”

A SERMON BY A MARMOT—OR THE EXILE OF CONNECTICUT.

“But come thy ways!—we’ll go along together;

And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,

We’ll light upon some settled, low content.”

_As You Like It._

Every subject of observation presents itself under a variety of aspects,

regulated, not only by the situation of the observer, but by his moral

peculiarities also. The little animal whose name dignifies the caption

of this article, though it may be better known to many of my readers by

the title of ground-hog, or wood-chuck, is usually regarded as a terror,

or a pest, to the farmer. Contributing in no appreciable degree to the

comfort or advantage of man, and seemingly created solely for the

purpose of digging unsightly holes in the ground, eating corn, and

diffusing an odour by no means agreeable; it is commonly hated or

despised, according to the profession of those who honor it with notice.

But nothing that springs from creative wisdom is a proper subject for

contempt, and good may be derived, in many instances, from the most

unpromising sources, by those who devote themselves to the study of

nature. Among the tribes of animals that seem to have least connection

with man and his interests, there are many whose habits may teach us

more effective lessons than we often derive from the homilies of more

pretending instructors.

The individual wood-chuck, here introduced to the reader, was more

fortunate than most of his species, for he had succeeded in winning the

affections of a worthy agriculturalist, in whose family he was regularly

domiciliated during the months of his activity, (for the Marmot is a

hybernating animal,) and he reciprocated the attachment of his human

protectors with a gratitude apparently as warm as that of any other

quadruped familiar of the kitchen.

The late distinguished philanthropist, Mr. Anthony Benezette, extended

his benevolence to every thing possessing life that came within the

sphere of his influence, and he regularly fed the rats in his cellar,

until he attracted a colony of these predatory vermin, by no means

agreeable to the taste or interest of his next-door neighbor. When the

latter at last endeavored to eradicate the nuisance by regularly

shooting every adventurous member of the murine fraternity that ventured

upon his premises, Mr. B., with tears in his eyes, protested against

this murderous proceeding. “Don’t shoot the poor innocent creatures!” he

said. “If thou wilt only feed them regularly every day, as I do, they’ll

never do thee any harm.” Whether a similar policy had been the origin of

the kindness shown our little friend, the Marmot, I know not, but he had

the felicity to be born in a land where corn is cheap, and society

difficult of access, and he probably owed his protection to a masculine

edition of the feeling that so frequently promotes the happiness of a

poodle or a parrot.

His guardian moved in a humble sphere, and most travellers might have

passed the brute and his human associates alike unnoticed: but I propose

to employ him as a hook, on which to hang the observations and

reflections of a day in the woods, and a night in the log-cabin. It is a

slender theme at best, and if discretion be the test of wisdom, I know

not but our Marmot displays as high a grade of intellectual endowment as

any of the other actors in the tale.

One of these was an eastern merchant, who had purchased some thousands

of acres of land—wild, lonely, and far removed from practicable roads

or navigable streams.—He had purchased it in utter ignorance of its

resources, and was then upon his way to give it an inspection.

The next was the narrator—recently appointed to a chair in a Collegiate

Institution, almost embosomed in the wilderness. He had accepted the

station in a moment of depression, all uninformed of the condition of

the country where _it flourished_, and had just arrived to _blush_

beneath the honors of the professional gown in halls that rejoiced in a

faculty—_lucus a non lucendo_!—of three persons, and wanted but a

library, an apparatus, influence, and a class, to render it an honor to

the state that chartered it!

The third was a thriving specimen of the sturdy woodsman and

pains-taking farmer of the border—the intermediate step between the

adventurous pioneer and the established settler. He had emigrated from

the beautiful valley of the Connecticut—a valley where nature has done

so much and man so little! to seek a more promising asylum west of the

Alleghany Mountains, and he carried all his fortune with him. A young

and lovely wife followed his footsteps from town to town—from

wilderness to wilderness.—An axe was on his shoulder, two hundred

dollars in his pocket, and he possessed much of that shrewdness which

ordinarily passes current for talent.

He was moderate in his desires, _and only took up three hundred acres to

begin with_; choosing a location where a rude and cellarless hut of logs

graced one angle of the plot of ground,—its site selected because a

spring and streamlet there supplied the most important necessary of

life—good water.

Four acres of unfenced clearing marked the progress of his less

prosperous predecessor in taming the primeval forest. Alas! The want of

capital!—Two years of bootless labor on the part of that predecessor,

left the ground encumbered still with girdled timber. The long and naked

limbs of many a stately tree—all sapless now—stood pale and inflexible

in the summer gale—a monument of desolation. Some rough, irregular

furrows,—ploughed with borrowed oxen, and ornamented with the vine of

an occasional refuse potato creeping through the starting briars and

brush-wood,—alone gave evidence of human industry; for the wilderness

was rapidly reclaiming its own.

There was a half-burnt brand on the deserted hearth within the hovel;

but the blasts that entered freely through the intervals between the

logs,—from which, mass by mass, the clay was falling;—had scattered

the ashes widely over the room. A rusty tin basin on the floor, and a

broken axe-helve lying athwart the doorless lintel, completed the

household inventory. The ground had reverted to the noble and wealthy

company from whom it was originally purchased—their funds enriched by

the payment of the first instalment, and the value of the _improvements_

added to their property.—But where is the former owner? Probably

renewing the same improvident game in the wilds of Michigan or

Wisconsin.

Such was the home to which our adventurous representative of the land of

steady habits had introduced his amiable and delicate wife, four years

before the time of our journey.

The station enjoyed many advantages. Civilization was slowly tending

thitherward, and every year enhanced the nominal, if not the real value

of the land. Moreover, there were many neighbors to break the tedium of

life in the wilds. Nine miles to the westward—that being the direction

of the older settlements,—there lived a veteran of two wars, whose

pension made him rich in a country where a dollar is a rarity, and trade

is carried on exclusively by barter. He was the most important man

within the circuit of twenty miles; for he owned the only forge. Not

even the influence of Squire Tomkins, whose aristocratical residence,

five miles deeper in the forest, was furnished with the luxury of

weather-boarding, and flanked by a regular barn and stables, could

outweigh, _in public opinion_, the claims of one whose labors

contributed so essentially to the every-day comfort of life, if not to

its preservation, in the rude contest between the settler and nature.

Public opinion did I say?—Why! besides these three high personages and

their families, a migratory trapper and bee-hunter on the one hand, and

a half-cast Indian basket-maker on the other, _there was no public_; yet

here was found not only public opinion, but party feeling also—politics

and sectarianism!—And where did ever society exist without them? But it

is time to commence our journey.