Still lingering on the wave that bore it home,
At that bright hour sigh'd o'er the dying swell,
And thought on years of absence yet to come.
'T was moonlight on Venetia's sea,
And every fragrant bower and tree
Smiled in the golden light;
The thousand eyes that clustered there
Ne'er in their life looked half so fair
As on that happy night.
A thousand sparkling lights were set
On every dome and minaret;
While through the marble halls,
The gush of cooling fountains came,
And crystal lamps sent far their flame
Upon the high-arched walls.
But sweeter far on Adria's sea,
The gondolier's wild minstrelsy
In accents low began;
While sounding harp and martial zel
Their music joined, until the swell
Seemed heaven's broad arch to span.
Then faintly ceasing--one by one,
That plaintive voice sung on alone
Its wild, heart-soothing lay;
And then again that moonlight band
Started, as if by magic wand,
In one bold burst away.
The joyous laugh came on the breeze,
And, 'mid the bright o'erhanging trees,
The mazy dance went round;
And as in joyous ring they flew,
The smiling nymphs the wild flowers threw
That clustered on the ground.
Soft as a summer evening's sigh,
From each o'erhanging balcony
Low fervent whisperings fell;
And many a heart upon that night
On fancy's pinion sped its flight,
Where holier beings dwell.
Each lovely form the eye might see,
The dark-browed maid of Italy
With love's own sparkling eyes;
The fairy Swiss--all, all that night,
Smiled in the moonbeam's silvery light,
Fair as their native skies.
The moon went down, and o'er that glowing sea,
With darkness, Silence spread abroad her wing,
Nor dash of oars, nor harp's wild minstrelsy
Came o'er the waters in that mighty ring.
All nature slept--and, save the far-off moan
Of ocean surges, Silence reigned alone.
BALLOONING.
By I. McLellan, Jr.
The clear sun of a fine September day, was glittering on roof and
steeple, and the cheerful breeze of early autumn breathing its harp-like
melody over woods and waters. A vast multitude stood around me,
attentively watching the expanding folds of my balloon, as it swayed to
and fro in the unsteady air. As I prepared to take my place in its car,
I noticed an involuntary shudder run through the assemblage, and anxious
glances pass from face to face. At length, the process of inflation was
completed, the music sounded, the gun was discharged, the ropes were
loosened, and the beautiful machine arose in the air, amid the
resounding cheers of thousands. As it ascended, I cast a hasty look on
the sea of upturned heads, and thought I read one general expression of
anxiety, in the faces of the multitudinous throng, and my heart warmed
with the consciousness, that many kind wishes and secret hopes were
wafted with me on my heavenward flight. But very soon, mine eye ceased
to distinguish features and forms, and the collected throng became
blended in one confused mass, and the green common itself had dwindled
into a mere garden-plat, and the magnificent old Elm in its centre to a
stunted bush, waving on the hill-side.
Upward, upward! my flying car mounted and mounted, into the yet
untraversed highways of the air, swifter than pinion-borne bird, or
canvas-borne vessel, yet all without sound of revolving wheel, or
clatter of thundering hoof or straining of bellying sail, or rustle of
flapping wing. I felt that I was indeed alone, in the upper wastes of
the liquid element, a solitary voyager of the sky, careering onward like
the spectral "Ship of the Sea," with no murmur of bubbling billow under
the prow, and no gush of whirling ripple beneath the keel. But how can
my pen describe the sublimity of the scene above, below and around! At
one moment, my car would plunge into silvery seas of vapor and rolling
billows of mist, through which the dim-seen sun did but feebly glimmer,
like the struggling flame of the torch cast in the dungeon's gloom. But
soon that shadowy veil dissolved away, and again I would emerge into the
blaze of the golden sun, and the effulgence of the blue heavens. How
then did I covet the painter's art, to be able to imprint on the eternal
canvas, those gorgeous clouds piled up around me, like hills and
mountains, from whose sides hoary cataracts seemed to be falling, and
foamy streams leaping into the vallies, that rested in lovely repose at
their base. Never did the dull world below present on its diversified
bosom, such grand or such enchanting objects, as those beautiful and
evanescent creatures of the air, shining and shifting in the levelled
sunbeams around. At times, my whole horizon would be bounded by those
mountainous regions of cloud-land, cliff lifting over cliff, pinnacle
above pinnacle, Alps above Alps. On their sides and tops, the reflected
light painted all the hues of the rainbow, in commingled azure and
crimson, purple and gold. In those stupendous masses of vapor, mine eye,
with little aid of fancy, could trace out resemblances of wild and
desolate forests, of sombre fir and yew, the lordly oak and the
melancholy pine, whispering in the breeze. Anon, a green, happy valley,
would smile out from some hollow of the hills, and the white
church-spire would peep from the embosoming grove, and the rustic
parsonage, the rural farm-house, and the village-inn, with its swinging
sign, and the chestnut waiving its twinkling foliage at the door would
appear. Anon, the shifting vapor would assume the shape of an old
baronial fortress, green with the mosses of centuries, and overspread
with the flexile creeper, the gadding vine, and the glossy ivy, and
wearing many a dull-weather stain, imprinted by wintry gale and autumnal
rain. On its grey towers would seem to float the broad standard, around
which the knights and vassals had mustered so often, when the armies
thundered beneath the leagured walls, or its brave folds were displayed
in distant lands, on the tented fields of war.
Onward, onward! I looked forth, and saw that I was again wafted along
the lower currents of air, and could easily distinguish the sights and
sounds of earth. I passed over green pastures, where the brindled cattle
and snowy sheep were feeding, and, under a spreading oak, that towered
aloft like a verdant hill, reclined a young girl, watching her father's
flocks, attended by a pet lamb, cropping the fair flowers at her feet.
As I gazed, I thought of "the fair Una with her milk-white lamb," and of
all the happiness of the shepherd's life, who, sitting upon the grassy
hill-side beneath the sacred locust, and piping entrancing melodies in
praise of his love, on the mellow oaten reed, is all unmindful of the
cankering care and the poisonous hatred, that embitter human life. Great
was the surprise that agitated that lonesome spot, as mine air-borne
pageant fluttered over it, with its silken fold and colored streamer.
The cattle cast upward their wondering eyes, and galloped away to the
forests, and I could long hear the tinkling bell on the horn of the bull
and heifer, sounding in the inner sanctuary of the wood, where, on a
twisted root or a moss-covered stone, by the brink of the gushing brook,
reclined that grey-beard recluse, Solitude, and his nun-like sister,
Silence, revolving their lonely meditations.
Onward, still onward! Beneath me I beheld a solemn spot, where the
linden, the ash, the sycamore, the cypress, the cedar, the beech, the
church-yard yew and hemlock, were clustered together in one mournful
company. I knew by the stone altars, by the sculptured urn, the graceful
obelisk, the foam-white pyramid, the funereal cenotaph, the marble
mausoleum, which glimmered amid the groves and bowers, that I looked
upon a sanctuary, consecrated by the living to the repose of the dead. A
sweet sabbath-like calm seemed to hover about the place, and even the
very birds that were flitting from branch to branch, and the breeze that
was sighing its hollow dirge along the wood-tops, appeared to know that
the spot was holy. As I looked, I beheld a slow procession winding along
this highway of the departed, and bearing a new tenant to the narrow
house. Some sweet infant, perhaps, was there cut down in the dewy bloom
of its innocence,--some beautiful bud of beauty severed from its stem,
and torn away from its blossoming mates, in the garden of youth,--or,
haply, some silver-haired sire, gathered like the shock of corn, fully
ripe, into the vast granary of death.
As I passed from this interesting spot, I was attracted by a merry train
of riders, whose loud and cheerful voices resounded along the road,
seeming to mock the sacred silence of the place I had so lately left. As
the gay array of youth and beauty dashed away from my sight, with foamy
bridle and gory spur, I could not but be reminded of the close
juxta-position on earth, of joy and sorrow, life and death.
Onward, onward! over winding streams, that glittered like twisting
serpents on the green surface of the earth, over the broad bay, that
rested in smooth and glassy repose in the arms of the far-extending
shore, and over the dashing billows of the ocean, my route continued.
Birds of the briny sea, whose strong wings had borne them safely and
surely from the frosty atmosphere that sparkles around the pole, or the
ice-cold waters of some far-away lagoon, now darted around me with
discordant cry and affrighted pinion. In those hovering flocks I
discerned the duck, the goose, the coot, the loon, the curlew, the
green-winged teal, the dusky duck, the sooty tern, the yellow-winged
gadwale, the golden eye, and the gaudy mallard, proudly vain of that
lovely plumage, whose intense hues rival the glory of the breaking dawn,
the autumnal sunset, or the intermingled dyes which tinge the stripes of
the showery bow. On an iron-bound promontory, whose jutting crags waved
an eternal strife with the rolling billows, I saw the thick-scattered
cottages of wealth and taste, seeming no bigger than the nest, which the
tropical bird constructs in the sands of the desert, while around, on
the tumbling expanse of waters, were glancing a thousand receding and
approaching sails, bearing the riches of the orient or the occident,
from shore to shore.
Downward, downward! A thrill of horror shot through my veins, as I felt
that the rough ocean breeze had shivered my silken vessel to shreds and
tatters, and that I was falling with the speed of lightning, through the
hollow abyss of the air, into the sea. The jaws of the fretting ocean,
gnashing their white teeth in anger, seemed to gape open to devour me,
and the black rocks uplifted their jagged spears, to impale my devoted
body! But my time had not yet come. A gentle tap on the shoulder aroused
me from the profound reverie in which I had been plunged, and I was very
glad to recognize, in the visitor who had broken the spell, my good
friend Durant, who called to invite me to attend his grand ascension,
the following day.
ODE,
ON OCCASION OF JUDGE STORY'S EULOGY ON CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL AT THE
ODEON.
By Grenville Mellen.
Again--the voice of God!
How breaks it round!
O'er consecrated sod,
With locks unbound,
Grief in her marble brow appears
And bows amid her veil--in tears!
That mandate from on high--
The clarion call,
That rung through earth and sky
His rayless fall,
In accents, "thou shalt die," again
Proclaims man's dream of years--how vain!
We veil not in its grave
Ambition's brow--
It is not o'er the brave
We gather now!
But one who reach'd man's loftier fate.
_Good_ without fault--and nobly _great_.
A sceptre was his own,
Drawn from the sky--
He fill'd a holier throne
Than royalty:
He sat with deathless Justice crown'd,
While Truth, like sunlight, flash'd around!
His _life_ to all the earth
Proud record bore,
Man yet might spring to birth,
With angel power!
His _death_, that as the "grass," to-day
Robes him in glory--and decay!
Oh! well, with spirit bow'd,
Above his bier
May a broad empire crowd,
With prayer and tear!
--His be its requiem--deep and far--
A nation's heart his sepulchre!
THE BOY'S MOUNTAIN SONG.
FROM THE GERMAN.
By I. McLellan, Jr.
I am the mountain boy!
Forth o'er an hundred halls I gaze.
Here morn his earliest light displays,
Here linger his declining rays,--
I am the mountain boy!
Here is the mountain-source,
Of the cold water-course--
And at sultry noon I dip,
In its wave my glowing lip.
I am the mountain boy!
When the awful lightnings glare,
Flashes on the midnight air,
On the rocking cliff I kneel,
Answering back each thunder-peal.
I am the mountain boy!
When the quickly-pealing bell,
Calls to arms in every dell,
In the mustered ranks I stand,
Swinging wide my mountain-brand
And sing my mountain-song!
THE UNCHANGEABLE JEW.
By John Neal.
'_Who_ views with equal eye as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall?
Atoms and systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world?'
A great multitude were gathered together: on the right a huge fortress
thundering to the sky--on the left a scaffold--a white fog--the open
sea--and a mighty ship tumbling to the swell. The flat roofs and
gorgeous balconies were covered with scarlet cloth, and thronged with
women of all ages--their lips writhing and their eyes flashing.
Underneath were a mute soldiery, with banners that moved not, and spears
that glimmered not--a vast, rich and motionless pageant. Not a leaf
stirred--not a finger was lifted--all eyes were fixed upon something
afar off. The Grave alone had a voice, and the footstep of approaching
Death grew audible, with the everlasting beat of the Ocean. The stagnant
atmosphere burned with a lustreless, unchangeable and smouldering
warmth. As the impatient and sluggish breathing of the Destroyer drew
near, with a sound as of Earthquake and Pestilence laboring afar off,
there appeared upon the outermost verge of the scaffold, near the
fortress, a man of a simple and majestic presence, wearing no symbol of
power, no badge of authority, before whom the multitude gave way with
headlong precipitation, as though but to touch the hem of his garment
were death itself, or something yet worse than death.
After communicating with those about him in a low whisper, too low to be
understood by others almost within his reach, one of the soldiers lifted
a spear, at the point of which fluttered a blood-red banner, tufted and
fringed with snow-white feathers, and pointed in silence toward a large
opening, which appeared to command a view of the whole interior. The
stranger drew near, and grasping one of the bars with a powerful hand,
lifted himself up, and after looking awhile, turned away with a sick
impatient shudder, and wiped his eyes; and then lifting himself up
again, he made a signal to somebody within, and straightway a large
tent-like awning was quietly withdrawn, so as to reveal the interior of
a court-yard, with cells opening into it--in the nearest of which sat a
princely-looking middle-aged man, half-buried and apparently half asleep
or lost in thought, in a large, heavy, old-fashioned chair, with a
curiously carved table before him, on which there lay, side by side with
writing materials, a lamp and a letter evidently unfinished, two or
three illuminated manuscripts, a dagger and a map; a massive goblet
richly chased, the rough gold tinged and sweltering with the hot blood
of the southern grape, a variety of strange mathematical instruments--a
copy of Zoroaster--and a Hebrew Bible, with clasps of the costliest
workmanship, and a cover of black velvet frosted with seed pearls--a
crushed and trampled coronet--and a lighted pipe, ornamented with
precious stones, the shaft a twisted serpent and the bowl a burning
carbuncle--a live coal--from the core of which, as out of the midst of a
perpetual, unextinguishable fire, issued a delicate perfume, filling the
whole neighborhood, as with the smoke of a censer; and leaving the eye
to make out--by little and little--through the fragrant vapor, first a
pair of embroidered Persian slippers, then a magnificent robe, flowered
all over as with the sunshine of the sea, and weltering in the
changeable light of the open window, then a prodigious quantity of
lustrous black hair flowing down over the shoulders, from underneath a
crimson velvet cap with a diamond buckle and clasp, and a tassel of spun
gold, strung with sapphire, ruby, amethyst and pearl--and a pomp of
black feathers overshadowing an ample forehead of surpassing power, and
eyes of untroubled splendor; and then, after a long while, a heap of
black shadow lying coiled up underneath the table, from the midst of
which an occasional flash, as of a serpent's tongue, or an angry
sparkle--as of a serpent's eye, would appear--and at last the whole
proportions of a superb-looking personage, who had been trying, hour
after hour, with a compressed lip and a thoughtful determined eye--to
snap what appeared to be a handful of seed pearl, one by one, through
the grated window before him, without touching the bars--hour after
hour--and always in vain! The passage way was too narrow--the bars too
near together.
Behold! murmured he at last, while the shadow of another--and yet
another stranger, shot along the lighted floor, as he stole about the
room a-tiptoe, and gathering up the pearls, if pearls they were, that
lay in heaps underneath the window, and flinging aside the magnificent
robe he wore, prepared himself anew and with more determination than
ever, for the work he had evidently set his heart upon, if not his life,
by measuring the elevation with a steadier eye, and poising every pearl
with a more delicate touch, before he projected it toward the window.
Behold! how the Ancient of Days delighteth in counteracting the purposes
of Man?
The other started back and threw up his arms with a look of horror and
amazement, and all who were about him began whispering together and
shaking their heads.
At this moment the slow jarring vibration of a great bell was heard from
the topmost tower--the cannon of the fortress thundered forth, and were
answered, peal after peal, from the lighted mountains--a volume of white
smoke rolled heavily toward the earth and covered the people--the
sea-fog trembled--parted--and slowly drifted away in patches and
fragments, through which the blue sky appeared, and the hot sunshine
flashed with an arrowy brightness, while the mighty ship swung round
with her broadside to the shore, and lighted matches were seen moving
about hither and thither, like wandering meteors, through the damp hazy
atmosphere; and instantly there went up a slow half-smothered wail from
the multitude, with a weight and volume like the unutterable and growing
earnestness of the Great Deep, when it begins to heave with a
pre-appointed and irresistible change; and all eyes were upturned, and
all arms outstretched with a troubled expression toward the stranger,
who walked forward a few steps to the verge of the scaffold--and looking
about him, on every side, called out with a loud voice,--Of such are the
Gods of the Unconverted! and of such their followers!
The answering roar of the multitude reached the prisoner, who lifting
his head and listening for a moment with a placid smile, asked what more
they would have?--and whether they were not yet satisfied?--and then
straightway began balancing another of the glittering seeds and eyeing
the window--
Most pitiable! cried the other, covering his face with his hands, moving
afar off, and appearing to be entirely overcome by what he saw.
And why _pitiable_, I pray thee! shouted the former, with a voice like a
trumpet, lifting his calm forehead to the sky and gathering his
magnificent robe about him as he spoke.
Art thou of a truth Adonijah the Jew--the unconverted Jew?
Of a truth am I--the unconverted, the _unconvertable_ Jew; and thou! art
thou not he that was my brother according to the flesh--even Zorobabel,
the _converted_ Jew and the preacher of a new faith?
Yea; of a new faith to such as thou; but a faith older than the Hebrew
prophets to them that believe, Adonijah.
But why _pitiable_ I pray thee?
How are the mighty fallen! For three whole months have I journied afoot
and alone, by night and by day, through the deep of the wilderness, and
along by the sea-shore--afoot and alone, my brother!--after hearing of
thy great overthrow--the wreck of thy vast possessions about me
whithersoever I went--thy magnificent household scattered, thy princes
banished from their high places, and wandering over all the earth and
hiding themselves in the holes of the rocks--with no city of refuge in
their path--even thy youngest and fairest a bondwoman, toiling for that
which sustaineth not; and thy own fast-approaching death, a theme with
every people and kindred and tongue--and not a theme of sorrow! And all
this, O my brother and my prince! only that I might be near thee in thy
unutterable bereavement and humiliation, only that I might look upon
thee once more alive, and see thee unchangeable as ever, though stripped
of power and trampled under the hoofs of the multitude--only that I
might reason with thee, face to face, before a great people, who, after
watching and worshipping thee for many years, have come up together as
with one heart, to see thee--_thee!_ their idol and their
benefactor--perish upon a scaffold, as only the fool or the scoffer
perisheth!--to cry out upon thee as the unconquerable Jew, that having
once abjured the faith of his fathers and gone back to it anew, cannot
be reached but by the law, nor purified but with fire!
Say on.
Alas, my brother! Alas that it should fall upon me to afflict thy proud
spirit with reproaches at a time like this! But there is no other hope.
Awake, therefore! awake! and gird up thy loins like a man. I will demand
of thee, saith the Lord of Hosts, and thou shalt answer me, even as my
servant Job answered me of yore. Awake, therefore, and stand up, that I
may reason with thee for the last time touching the faith of our mighty
fathers, the consolations of philosophy, and the splendor and power of
earthly Wisdom--of Death and Judgment--while thou art on thy way to the
grave in the fulness of thy strength and majesty; and _not_ with the
clangor of trumpets, the neigh of steeds, the flow of drapery, and the
uproar of battle!--No!--not as the High Priest, or the champion of a
lofty and venerable faith, standing up like a pillar of fire in a cloudy
sky, and pointing to Jerusalem as to the great gathering place of buried
nations, about to reappear, with all eyes fixed upon thee and all hearts
heaving with exultation! To thy grave, my brother! and not as a martyr!
but as a wretch abandoned of all the earth--a twofold apostate!--a
rebel and a traitor! Hark! hearest thou not a faint stirring afar off,
along the shore of that multitude--a living wilderness of threatening
eyes and parched lips--and ah! another moan from that huge, heavy,
disheartening bell, which never stops till the sacrifice of a fiery
death is over, and the object of its boding prophecy gone to the world
of spirits.
But the prisoner heeded not his adjuration--he never lifted his eyes,
and the same quiet smile rested forever upon his countenance; and he
still gathered up the pearls and continued aiming them at the window.
Awake, Adonijah! awake, I say! Thy pearls are counted to thee. Thy
pulses are about to stand still forever--thy proud heart to stop
forever! A moment, and the headsman will be here--already do I see him
afar off, stealing with a noiseless movement along the skirts of the
affrighted people, like smouldering fire through the blackness of a
thunder-cloud. Awake, thou MAN of sorrow and acquainted with grief,
awake that I may pray with thee!
With me!
Yea, my brother--even with thee.
And wherefore shouldst thou pray with me? and wherefore should I pray?
Wherefore! Have I not heard thee, purified by that old peculiar faith,
charge even thy Creator, the Ancient of Days, the Lord God of Heaven and
Earth, _Jehovah!_ with diverting thy pearls from their appointed path!