Chapter III (1)

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.

* * * * *

_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!