(_For the Mirror_.)
"Say, if such blandishments did ever greet
Thy charmed soul; hast thou not crav'd to die?
Hast not thine immaterial seem'd but air
Verging to sigh itself from thee, and share
Beatitude? hast thou not watch'd thy breath
In meek, faint hope, that soon 'twould sink in death?"
_MS. Poem._
Last Christmas Day! my heart leaps with joy at its very memory; it was a
mental _Noel_, a Christmas of the soul, (if I may thus express myself.)
That which I am about to relate of it is strictly true, and I do relate
it because that day is one of the very few in our brief existence which
form a moral epoch in, and influence subsequent, life. Last Christmas
Day, I well remember, my spirit revelled in an Eden blessedness--a bliss
which the unholy world did not, could not, give, and consequently could
not take away. Reader! I will hope, I will believe, that thou hast
experienced feelings and emotions, like those high and holy ones of
which I would endeavour now to preserve a faint transcript. Come then,
let us unite our ideas, let us speak together, but let us yet mention as
present, those beatific thoughts and imaginings which are indeed past.
Let us ever remember and cherish in our heart of hearts those golden
fore-tastes of future eternity, or (according to Platonism) those
rapturous reminiscences of past, which prove beyond logical
demonstration, the existence of some vital principle in man, godlike in
faculties, in essence immaterial, in duration, immortal! It is Christmas
Day, a deep, unearthly calm possesses our minds; all passions are
slumbering, save the beautiful and holy ones of adoring love, mingled
with overwhelming gratitude towards our maker, and philanthropic love,
universal benevolence, to man. It is winter, but one of those delicious
days in which closing our eyes, so that we behold not sad hosts of bare
stems and branches, we may well deem that summer reigns! And a summer
indeed reigns in our bosoms! Now nature seems new and fascinating, as it
did to Adam when he wakened into life. Now, as for the first time, we
discern with unspeakable emotions, that divine affection as well as
unlimited power, which actuates and supports creation. Now we comprehend
that the universe was designed to minister happiness to myriads of
intelligent beings; but that man, by sin, frustrates the gracious
intent, and produces misery. Now the glorious golden sun seems in its
gladdening lustre, like a smile from its creator; a smile beaming
ineffable love, and joy, and peace. Now the sky, the pale, delicate,
sapphire sky, the soft, tender, inviting, enfolding, and immeasurable
sky, appears to image the mercy of its maker. Let us yet gaze upon the
sky, for it also admonishes us of other delightful things; it is
silent--it is awful--it is holy; but its silence is beautiful, and with
wordless eloquence it speaks unto our enraptured bosoms of deep,
eternal, unimaginable repose! it infuses into our breasts undefinable
ideas and sensations; it appears to our enchanted imaginations an emblem
meet of the grand dream of eternity, and our spirits seem on the verge
of quitting earth, in thrilling contemplations on the islands of that
infinite abyss, and their immortal inhabitants! We gaze in hope,
adoration, and rapture on the blue expanse, varied by delicate vapours,
sailing calmly, wondrously through it; and then occur to our memories
spontaneously, the exquisite lines translated from a _morceau_, by
Gluck, (a German poet;) and our hearts respond as each of us sighs:
"There's peace and welcome in yon sea
Of endless blue tranquillity.
Those clouds are living things!
I trace their veins of liquid gold,
I see them solemnly unfold
Their soft and fleecy wings!
These be the angels that convey
Us weary children of a day
Life's tedious nothing o'er,
Where neither passions come, nor woes
To vex the genius of repose
On death's majestic shore!"
Then do our delighted eyes wander downward; then doth earth appear a
glorious, though but a temporary palace, the gift of a gracious God to
man! then do we feel an unaccountable assurance that angels visit the
beautiful domain; then that (though viewlessly) they rejoice with, they
sorrow for, (if angels can sorrow) and they minister unto "the heirs of
salvation," as they did in the days of old, and as they will do, to the
end of time. Were we not assured of this blessed fact in the book of
books, reason would assert, that for a thankless, graceless generation
alone, earth should not have been formed so divinely fair; but it is
heavenly, that the immortal servitors of man may even here find records
of the divinity, and themes for undying thanksgiving. Are we indeed
visited, watched, and ministered unto, by beatific essences? Oh, reason
and revelation, both loudly proclaim the fact; those beneficent beings
may be with us then, when we deem ourselves alone; they may be our
society in the solitude of our chambers; they may pass us in the breeze,
and they may wander beside us in our loneliest walks. Such meditations
are calculated to inspire our bosoms with new life; to brighten all
nature around us, and to unite us to the invisible world by ties, of the
existence of which we were never previously sensible; ties, at once so
sweet and so sacred, that we almost crave the blessing of death, in
order more surely to strengthen them! Then doth the beauty of "the vale
of tears" confound us; then doth it infuse into our bosoms such
unalterable fore-tastes; such mysterious and undefinable sensations of
the blessedness of "the isles of joy," that our very souls seem to have
become but one prayer, one fervent, wordless, agonizing prayer, for
divine repose, and unimaginable blessedness; and then doth the mere
suggestion of final reprobation amount to insufferable torture! Oh, that
such heavenly imaginings, such divine intimations of a transcendent
futurity, were more frequently vouchsafed to us, and were less
evanescent. They are glimpses of everlasting day, shining on wanderers
in "the valley of the shadow of death;" they are droppings from the
overflowing and ineffable cup of mercy; they are presciences of
eternity, inestimable, unutterable! and the pen that would describe
indescribable perceptions, droops in shame and sorrow at its own
imbecility. Such perceptions have visited, do visit us, on this most
rapturous of Christmas Days? Is it not a golden day? does it not remove
us for a little space from earth, into the society of the holiest
sentient beings, and to the beauty of a celestial, surpassing, world?
Does it not bestow on our souls their long-lost ethereal wings? and do
not the delighted strangers soar for a little while above the grossest
realms of matter? Alas! even but for a little while; now do they drop,
for now flag and droop those angelic pinions which are too humid and
heavy with that atmosphere, from whence they could not wholly disengage
themselves; the golden harps of heaven murmur in their entranced ears no
longer; the smiles of the Sons of Peace fade from their enchanted sight;
and the clouds of this nether world retain from their enamoured gaze,
the treasures of infinity!
Perhaps we have enjoyed a very enthusiastic, a very poetical, Christmas
Day! we pretend not to deny it, though steadfastly believing it was
neither an anti-Christian, nor an utterly unprofitable one; nay, we even
venture to hope, that the beatitude of spirit just feebly portrayed was
not unpleasing in His sight, unto whom, for His gift of immortal life,
we upon Christmas Day render our peculiar thanksgivings!