Chapter II (1)

In a splendid old cathedral, a solemn ceremonial was going forward on the morning of a holy festival. A bishop was to be consecrated.

A mighty crowd assembled in this edifice to witness the ceremony, and the mother of Duncan Melville was there, the happiest soul in all that great company, for it was her son on whom the high honor was to be laid!

How beautiful was the pale, holy countenance of the minister, who in the early strength of his manhood, was accounted worthy to fill that great office, for which he was about to be set apart! He was a man “acquainted with grief;” you had known it by that resigned, submissive expression of his face: you had known that the passions of mortals had been all subdued in him, by the holy light of his tranquil eyes. Duncan _had_ toiled—he _had_ borne a burden.

A thousand felt it, looking on the noble front, where religion undefiled, and peace, and holy love, and charity, had left for themselves unmistakable witnesses: and more than all, one being felt it, that had not looked upon that man for years. Not since the lines of care and grief had marked the face and form of Duncan Melville. There was a reason for the passionate sobs of one heart, crushed anew in this solemn hour—there was a pathos, such as no other voice could give, to the prayers that went up to God that day, from one woman’s heart in the great congregation, for _him_. Poor, loving, still-beloved Rosalie! she was there—there, her proud, magnificent figure, bent humbly from the very commencement till the close of the ceremonial—there, her beautiful eyes filled with tears of love, and grief, and despair, and pride—there, crushed as the humblest flower—that glorious beauty.

And the good man at the altar for whom the prayers and the praise ascended, thought of her in that hour! Yes, in that very hour, he remembered how one would have looked on him that day, could she have come, his wife, to witness how his brethren and the people loved and honored him. He thought of her, and as he knelt at the altar, even then he prayed for her. But, not as numbers thought upon the name of Rosalie Sherwood that day; for she also, was soon to appear before a throng, and there were a myriad hearts that throbbed with expectancy, and waited impatiently for the hour to come when they should look upon her!

Bishop Melville sat in his study at noonday, for a few moments, alone. He was glancing over the sermon that he was to deliver that afternoon, when his mother, his proud, happy mother came into the room quietly, laid a sealed note upon the table, and instantly withdrew, for she saw how he was occupied.

When he had finished his reading, the bishop opened the note and read—could it have been with careless eyes?

“DUNCAN,—I have knelt to-day in the house of the Lord, and
witnessed your triumph. Ten years ago when I went desolate and
wretched from your house, I might have prophesied your destiny.

“Come to-night and behold _my_ triumph—at—the Opera House!

“Your sister,

“ROSALIE.”

Do you think that as he read that summons he hesitated as to whether he should obey it? If his bishopric had been sacrificed therefor, he would have gone—if disgrace and danger had attended his footsteps, he would have sought her at the bidding!—The love which had been strengthening in ten long years of loneliness and bereavement, was not now to stop, to question, or to fear.

“Accompany me dear mother, this evening—I have made an engagement for you,” he said as he went, she hanging on his arm, to the cathedral for afternoon service.

“Willingly my son,” was the instant answer: and Duncan kept her to her word.

But it was with wondering, with surprise, that she did not attempt to conceal, and with questions which were satisfied with no definite reply, that Mrs. Melville found herself standing with her son in an obscure corner of the Opera-House, that night. Soon all her expressions of astonishment were hushed, but by another cause than the mysterious inattention of her son—a queenly woman appeared upon the stage, she lifted her voice and sobbed the mournful wail, which opens the first scene in —— ——. For years, there had not been such a sensation created among the frequenters of that place as now, by the appearance of this stranger. The wild, singular style of her beauty, made an impression, that was heightened by every movement of her graceful figure, every tone of her rich, melodious voice.—She seemed, for the time, the very embodiment of the sorrow, to which she gave expression, and the effect was a complete triumph.

Mary Melville and her son gazed upon the debutant, they had no look no word for each other; for they recognized in her voice, the tones of a grief, of which long ago they heard the prelude, and every note found its echo in the bishop’s inmost heart.

“Come away! let us go home! Duncan, this is no place for us, for _you_; it is disgrace to be here,” was the passionate plea of the mother, when at last, Rosalie disappeared, and other forms stood in her place.

“We will stay and save her,” was the answer spoken with tears and trembling, by the man for whom, in many a quiet home, prayers in that hour ascended. “She is mine _now_, and no earthly consideration or power shall divide us!”

And looking steadfastly for a moment in her son’s face, the lady turned away sighing and tearful, for she knew that she must yield then, and she had fears for the future.

A half hour passed, and the star of the night re-appeared—resplendent in beauty, and triumphing in hope—again her marvelous voice was raised, not with the wail of sorrow—not with the bitter cry of despair that was hopeless, but glad, and gay, angelic in its joy.

Again the mother’s eyes were turned on him beside her—and a light was on that pale forehead, a smile on that calm face, a gladness in those eyes, which she had not seen there for long years,—and though she could not wonder as she looked with a mother’s love upon the one, who stood the admiration of all eyes, crowned with the glory-crown of perfection in her art; she could not with Duncan, hope. For, alas! her woman heart knew too well, the ordeal through which the daughter of her care and love must have passed, before she came into _that_ presence, where she stood now—who could tell if still the mistress of herself, and of her destiny, pure and undefiled?

* * * * *

That night and the following day, there were many who sought admittance to the parlors of Rosalie Sherwood; they would lay the homage of their trifling hearts at her feet. But all these sought in vain—and why was this? Because such admiring tribute was not what the noble woman sought, and because, ere she had risen in the morning, a letter written in the solitude of night, was handed her, which barred and bolted her door against the curious world.

“Rosalie! Rosalie! look back through the ten years that are gone, I am answering your letter of long ago, with words—I have a thousand times answered them in my heart, till the thoughts which have been crowded there filled it almost to breaking. We have met, met at last, you and I. But, did you call that a triumph, when you stood in God’s house, and saw them lay their consecrating hands upon me? Heaven forgive me, I was thinking of _you_ then—and thinking too, that if this honor was in any way to be thought a reward, the needful part of it was wanting—you were not there! Yet, you _were_ there, you have written me—ah, but not _Rosalie my wife_, the woman I loved better than _all_ on earth, the _acknowledged_ woman, whose memory I had borne about with me till it was a needful part of my existence. You were by when the people came to see me consecrated:—and I obeyed _your_ call, I saw you, when the people anointed you with the tears of their admiration and praise. If you read my heart at all that day, you knew how I had suffered, that I had grown old in the sorrow; was I mistaken to-night, in the thought that you too were not unmindful of the past—that you were not _satisfied_ with the popular applause? that you also, have been lonely, and wept and sorrowed?

“There is but one barrier now in the wide world that shall interpose between us, Rosalie—your own will. If I was ever anything to you, I beseech you think calmly before you answer, and do not let your ‘triumph’ to-night, blind you to the fact, which you once recognized—which can make us happy _yet_.—I trust you as in our younger days; nothing, nothing but your own words, could convince me that you are not worthy to take the highest place among the ladies of this land:—give me only your heart—and let the remembrance that I have been faithful to you through all the past, plead for me, if your pride should rise up to condemn me. Let me come and plead _with_ you, for I know not what I write.”

The answer returned to this letter was as follows:

“I learned long ago the bar that prevented our union—it is in existence still, Duncan. Your mother only, shall decide, if it be insurmountable. I have never, for a moment, doubted your faithfulness, and it has been to me an unspeakable comfort, in the days when I was alone, and toiling for a support, to know that none had supplanted me in your affections. In the temptations, and struggles, and hardships I have known, it has kept me above and beyond the world—and if the last night’s triumph proves to be but the opening to a new life for me on earth, the recollection of what you are, and that you care for me, will prove a rock of defense, and a strong-hold of hope, always. Severed from, or united with you, I am yours forever.”

Seven days after, there was a marriage in the little church of that remote village, where Duncan Melville and Rosalie Sherwood, passed their childhood. Side by side they stood now, once again, where the baptismal service had long since been read for them, and the mother of the bishop gave the bride away!—“_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_”

* * * * *

THE DEATH OF WORDSWORTH.

BY WILLIAM SYDNEY THAYER.

When the beloved guide, with whom we oft
Have wandered over meadow, hill and dale,
Have had sweet converse, and who bore aloft
Our minds attentive to some pleasing tale,
Whose words of wisdom often could avail
To cheer us on our weariest pilgrimage,
Bending with years, passes beyond the pale
Of earthly life, what crowding thoughts engage
Our hearts, which seek in vain the staff-supported sage!

Wordsworth is dead! and yet not wholly sad
The feelings which our sorrowing bosoms thrill;
Death was his gain, for here his spirit had
Not space enough to wander at its will,
Filling its fruitful treasury until
Men might be blest with its rich overflow;
As when the sinking sun behind the hill,
Growing more broad as it doth westward go,
Scatters its golden dust upon the world below.

To him Creation all her stores unrolled,
To him unveiled the glories of her face;
To him ’twas given her mysteries to behold,
Her countless forms of grandeur and of grace—
The blue-eyed violet in its hiding-place,
The drowsy locust, singing at high noon,
From the elm-bough, her shrill, unvarying lays,
Till listening Nature seems almost to swoon—
The humblest sights and sounds chimed with his spirit’s tune.

Throughout the universe he ever saw
A mighty, interfusing Presence shine,
Controlling all things by its sovereign law;
He saw the secret bands, so strong and fine,
That link the insect to a source divine.
And gazing up, like one of those rapt seers,
Whose souls have visioned out God’s vast design,
Entranced in adorations, hopes and fears,
Yielded himself to thoughts that “lie too deep for tears.”

And o’er the human soul with quiet eye
He deeply brooded, and its wonders knew;
The subtle powers that underneath it lie,
From their unfathomed haunts his magic drew—
Displayed its tranquil beauty to our view,
Unstirred by passions blowing strong and wild,
And, in his thought, our marvelous being grew,
To a strange harmony, serene and mild,
Which blent in union sweet the old man and the child.

Blest be the Priest, whose consecrating hands
Wreathed a new glory round the true and right,
Baptized by whom, the humblest duty stands,
Appareled in a clear, celestial light;
Blest be the Prophet, who has turned our sight,
From the drear Present’s sinful turbulence,
To his ideal world, that island bright
In Time’s dim ocean, where men pitch their tents,
And walk before the Lord in fearless innocence.

I see the Poet in his peaceful home,
The home of mountain, forest, and of lake,
While closing round him Death’s cool shadows come,
And the calm hopes of Heaven within him wake,
Glowing with sunset, Grasmere’s waters take
To their still bosom, sky, and rock, and wood;
Nature stands trembling, grieved that she must break
Union with him, who shared her quietude,
The dearest worshiper that near her altar stood.

But thou diest not, O Wordsworth! who hast found,
And called from sleep our holier sympathies,
Strewing with deathless flowers Life’s barren ground,
And lighting up our pathway to the skies—
Translator of great Nature’s mysteries!
Linked with herself, thou livest evermore,
And we, united by thy teachings wise,
Shall tread a lovelier earth than heretofore,
Shall sail on smoother seas, along a sunnier shore.

* * * * *

THE COMUS OF MILTON.

BY REV. J. N. DANFORTH.

GENIUS, in whatever age of the world it has appeared, has commanded the respect and homage of mankind. MIND, in every stage of development, and in every altitude of attainment, must be an object of profound interest to mind. When, therefore, a mind of so high an order as that of JOHN MILTON, appears before men, the fact constitutes an era in the history of intellect and imagination, and all the productions of such a mind are scanned and studied with a diligence proportioned to the dignity and fame of the author. The principal monument or statue in honor of the departed, of course attracts the most profound contemplation, but around it the genius of the artist may have wrought some beautiful adjunct figures, worthy of their share of admiration. Thus, while the Paradise Lost stands in superior beauty and grandeur, a fitting monument of the transcendent mind of the author, there are minor productions of the same imagination, which are finely conceived, and exquisitely wrought. Among these may be mentioned COMUS, a “Mask,” or Dialogue composed in dramatic form with no particular attention to rules or probabilities, and therefore affording the imagination of the poet considerable freedom in the exercise of its pencil. This was one of the earliest productions of the muse of Milton, one in the progress of which he tried the strength of those pinions, which were destined to bear him beyond this ‘visible diurnal sphere,’ into those spiritual and sublime regions, till then unknown to the adventurous flight of the poet. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, declares this to be “the greatest of his juvenile performances, in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise Lost.” The characters are six only in number, the Attendant Spirit, Comus and his crew, a Virgin Lady, her two brothers, and Sabrina, a nymph.—The scene is a wild-wood, and the poem opens with a long soliloquy from the attendant spirit, followed by the entrance of the wizard Comus, and the strange, unearthly beings of monstrous forms, now encountered by the lady, who has lost her way in the woods, and who is subjected to the severe trial of their foul incantations. The two brothers set forth in pursuit of their lost sister, and succeed in finding her, happy that she has survived unharmed, all the arts of the wicked and the seductive.

Sabrina, the “goddess of the silver lake,” is invoked, and rises out of the “cool, translucent wave,” chiefly to confer a crowning grace upon the scene and afford further opportunity for the exercise of the imaginative powers of the poet. There can be said to be little plan, or intention of plan or plot about the piece. But whatever may be wanting in beauty or ingenuity of design, is amply compensated by the sterling value of the thoughts, the exquisite character of the imagery, the richness of the coloring, and the purity of the tone of sentiment. Many a “household word” is here recognized. Many a stem, from which we plucked flowers for our herbarium, grew here. Beautiful gems, that have been set here and there in the bosom of congenial prose, or, like current coin, from hand to hand, that have circulated from mouth to mouth, in elegant society, were formed in this mine. Those “thousand liveried angels” that lackey a pure and gentle spirit, the “airy tongues, that syllable men’s names,” that “charming, divine philosophy,” which is “musical as Apollo’s lute,” the vision of those serene and celestial regions, that glow “above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call earth,” the view of a sable cloud, turning its “silver lining on the night,” these, and many kindred images and sentiments of beauty, have their original expression in the Comus, as others do in other works of the immortal poet, who sought not merely to weave splendid visions of the imagination, but to embalm sublime truths for the nourishment of humanity in all ages, and to vindicate the ways of God to man.

Here, too, we find some of those sententious generics of history or geography, of fable or fancy; those classic touches; those suggestive single words, which instantly bring up before the mind, a train of ideas, or a treasure of knowledge connected with the past.

These habits of thought and composition are fully developed in Paradise Lost. “The poetry of Milton,” says an eminent critic, “differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt, differ from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only, to the initiated. Their value depends less on what they directly represent, than on what they remotely suggest.” Numerous instances of this might be adduced. It has been called electrifying the mind through a conductor. The mind of the reader must in some good measure co-operate with that of the author. We must be ready to fill up the outline which he sketches; to respond with our melody to the key-note, which he strikes. There must be some music in the soul that is to appreciate the genius of Milton. Addison never earned a purer glory, than when he set forth his merits as by a charmed pen. Those words of enchantment—those forms of beauty created by the imagination of the poet, deeply impressed a congenial mind.

The Comus is constructed on the plan of the Italian _masque_, and belongs to that class of poems, which do not depend for their interest on any complication of plot or conflicts of intense passion, on dramatic unities or strange developments; startling scenes and horrible catastrophes. The poem rather claims and commands our admiration for the Doric simplicity of its structure, than for any gay and glittering forms of poetic architecture. Though dramatic in its plan, the Mask—while it has the simplest form of the drama—is essentially lyric, especially in the carol of the Water Nymph and the song of the attendant spirit, which constitutes a kind of delicious epilogue to the piece, and concludes with a beautiful moral lesson:

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Indeed, the whole design and execution of the poem is evidential of that purity of mind, that chasteness of the imagination, so nobly distinguishing all the productions of this first of poets.

There is no reason why Shakspeare should not have maintained the same elevated tone of morality and purity in his immortal works, but that he was destitute of those religious principles, which purify the heart, and, indeed, clarify all the powers of the mind. The polluting habits of his early life, so closely connected with the stage, when it was in its deepest debasement, contributed to this malformation of his moral character. Let it not be said it was rather the “fault of the age” than of the individual. Milton was of that age. There was little more than a generation between them. But the poet was not ensnared either with the conspicuous examples of vice before him or around him. In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, he shone as a light of superior brilliancy, entering upon the responsibilities and trials of life, with a heart full of love for freedom, and of hatred of tyrants, just at that illustrious period of the world, when the genius of Liberty had set her foot on these North American shores.

All republicans have a special interest in studying the genius and character of Milton. He took no pleasure as did the great dramatic poet, in exalting the prerogatives, or setting forth the splendors of royalty. For this he was calumniated by his enemies, and even Johnson, the inveterate old tory, joins in the censure of the politician and civilian, while he praises the poet in such language as this: “He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that nature had bestowed upon him, more bountifully than upon others; the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful.” He could not stoop to trifle among kings and queens, or attempt to make them conspicuous by his eulogies or representations. He rose to the sublimities of supernal worlds. “He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.”

His communion with the pure, the spiritual, the invisible, strengthened the principles of conduct he had adopted in his anticipation of the judgment of posterity, and especially in his consciousness of being “in his great Taskmaster’s eye.”

In Comus, his youthful imagination luxuriates amid the freshness of its own beautiful creations, amid the wealth which was destined to enrich the world. Upon the ground of a pure moral sentiment the flowers of poesy are distributed in the most free and graceful manner. There is no pandering to the baser passions of the human heart; no prostitution of the charms of his muse to the purposes of a secret, sinful gratification on the part of his readers; no seductive attempt to “impair the strength of better thoughts,” or to weaken the sanctions of that immutable law, which binds together virtue and happiness, vice and misery. His amaranthine wreath maybe wet with the “dew of heaven,” such as descended on his own Paradise, but is never stained with tears such as innocence weeps, when corrupted by guilt. “His diadem of beauty,” is set with gems of the purest water, and most sparkling colors. The “Lady,” who is wandering in the recesses of the forest, apprehensive perhaps, of being assailed by prowling foes, appeals in fervent language:

Oh welcome, pure-eyed Faith; whitehanded Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
And thou, unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly——

The high lesson breathed through many a glowing line of this exquisite poem, is the dignity of virtue, the conservative power of innocence, the majesty of woman, even in her weakness, that weakness itself becoming strength, when blended with a purity, before which the eye of profligacy quails with very shame at the suggestions of a guilty heart. In the picture of Comus, the fabled son of Bacchus and Circe, and the assailant of the virtuous lady, drawn by the attendant spirit, there is a powerful argument for temperance, a virtue so warmly applauded and so little practiced among men. Comus,

—To every thirsty wanderer
By sly enticement gives his baneful cup,
With many murmurs mixed, whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likeness of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reason’s mintage
Charactered in the face.—

The imagination of Milton delighted to portray the moral virtues, often grouping them in fine proportions and expressive relations. They appear in the midst of exquisite poetry, gorgeous imagery, and all manner of glowing thoughts, like beautiful forms of statuary revealing themselves amidst the luxuriant vines and verdant foliage of a summer garden.

The scene in the palace between the Virgin Lady and Comus affords occasion for the utterance of noble sentiments in language worthy of them. She is supposed to sit in the enchanted chair, her eye resting upon the dainties of a delicious feast, her ear greeted with strains of the softest music, all the senses, in fine, addressed in the most tempting manner, when the Enchanter with his wand appears before her, and proffers his glass—the true “Circean cup,” which, being tasted, first intoxicates, then ruins. It is the intoxication of pleasure in all its forms and fascinations. This may be called a fable, but it stands for truth and reality too sadly and fatally experienced by the children of humanity.

The Enchanter opens his assault: “If I but wave this wand, your nerves are all chained up in alabaster.” The lady nobly replies:

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind
With all thy charms, although this corporeal rind
Thou hast immanacled, while Heaven sees good.

The contest proceeds, and it is one between Truth and Falsehood, Light and Darkness, Principle and Profligacy, the Powers Supreme, and the Infernal Crew. The germ of one portion of Paradise Lost is here. Those conflicts between mighty opposing Powers, which constitute so much of the sublime interest of that great EPIC, are here typified and foreshadowed. Some poets would have invested this incantation of virgin purity with the “armor of tears,” the resistless eloquence of entreaty, disarming the sturdiest foe. But no such tender, melting scenes seem to have been embraced within the design of the poet. His heroine belongs to a severer order of the chaste sisterhood. There is a sternness in her purity, before which even the Enchanter with his wand is compelled to cower. He plies her with his enchantments, presses her with arguments worthy of the father of lies, with sophistry becoming the most subtle and accomplished deceiver, with flattery that would turn an ordinary brain. To all this she replies with all the energy of indignant virtue: “False traitor,” and charges home the guilt of his incantations, spurning the offer of all his delicacies and luxuries:

—None
But such as are good men can give good things,
And that which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-governed and wise appetite.

Comus affects to despise the philosophy that is taught from the cynic tub of Diogenes, and ranges over all Nature for proof that men were intended to revel on her bounties, to “live while they live;” in fact to do what those Epicurean philosophers taught, who said, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Nay, he dares to asperse the purity, and insult the majesty of Beauty itself:

Beauty is nature’s coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current; and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss—

Now does the Lady rebuke him with all the true natural authority of virtue for obtruding his false rules “pranked in reason’s garb,” and in the true spirit of Satan bolting out his practical heresies with a fluency quite beyond the capabilities of the tongue of Virtue. It is true that in this interview there appears to be, so far as the Virgin Lady is concerned, a singular union of the romantic and the sensible, indeed such a preponderance of the latter as would have been quite inconsistent with the style and spirit of the drama, as authenticated by the masters of the histrionic art. Nevertheless, so great a genius as Milton had a right to choose in what form he would embody—through what channel he would pour the exalted sentiments and burning thoughts which it is the prerogative of genius to supply. If it pleased him to set before us naked creations of loveliness, or solitary symbols of vice and deformity, rather in the style of the statuary than of the painter of scenes, then let us be thankful for the gift, and honor the memory of the giver. Comus is rebuked by the Lady in such language as this:

Nature
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her sober laws,
And holy dictate of spare temperance:
If every just man that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pampered luxury
Now heaps upon some face with vast excess,
Nature’s full blessings would be well dispensed
In unsuperfluous even proportion,
And she no whit encumbered with her store.

That strain continues until the guilty wizard stands abashed, like Satan before the immaculate angel of the covenant, feeling how awful virtue is: Comus confesses his fears of self-condemnation. He felt “her words set off by some superior power,” and in spite of his professed exemption from mortal ills, acknowledges “a cold shuddering dew dips me all o’er.” Still he resolves to dissemble, and as he is proceeding with his speech, in rush the brothers of the lady to the rescue, and scatter all things around them.

The attendant Spirit again appears on the stage, to exercise her guardian offices, and speaks at length. All the speakers are imbued with classical knowledge, and abound in classical allusions. This is just Miltonic. They are learned in Latin and Greek. And why should Milton consult the verisimilitudes of the stage? In the compass of thirteen lines of a song by the attendant Spirit, there are several classical or fabulous names, among them Neptune, Nereus, Triton, Glaucus, Thetis, Parthenope. How finely does he interweave them with the thread of his song, even, by his poetic art, imparting to them a portion of the melody that is vocal in his verse. He seems capable of setting to music the whole catalogue of the Pantheon, the Stoa, the Academy, and the Temples, whose sublime and impressive architecture itself suggests an analogy to poetry of a high order. Then the Nereids, the Dryads, the Fauns will always be poetical in an humbler sense, so long as the woods and the waters shall be grateful to the senses or pleasing to the imagination. Even the horrid Satyrs are welcomed among his guests.

This poem is full of MUSIC, reminding us as well of the beautiful bond—_the indissoluble vinculum_—that unites the sister arts, as of the author’s passion for the science and the symphonies of sweet sounds. A good recitation of his Ode on the Nativity is equal to a grand overture on the organ. HE was an EPIC all over. To quote from this very Comus, he could originate “strains that might create a soul under the ribs of death.” If he did not absolutely invent the exquisite epithet “rosy bosomed hours,” (it being derived from the _Rododatetylos Eos_, “rosy-fingered Aurora” of Homer,) he interwove it most gracefully in his song, as he did all thoughts, images, and words which he deemed worthy of adaptation into the magic structure of his works. They were so many living, many-colored stones in that glorious temple of poesy, (be it reverentially spoken,) “not made with hands,” but elaborated and elevated to its towering height by those marvelous intellectual powers which are as much the gift of God as inspiration itself, and far more identified with the MAN than inspiration possibly could be. Oh, how solemn the spectacle, to contemplate such a genius with his eye fixed, like that of an ancient prophet, in a vision of spiritual worlds, peopled, not with the ordinary phantoms of an earthly imagination, but with beings of immortal mould and unmeasured power; his ear open to catch the “ninefold harmony” of the celestial orders, as they sing and praise the glorious Creator; his march above the ordinary walks of humanity; his very soul taking wings, and like the eagle soaring “with no middle flight,” but passing “the flaming bounds of time and space,” and ascending from sphere to sphere until he reaches the throne of the Eternal, there to hold high communion with the Invisible God, and the august and awful associations that surround him, whom “No eye hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting.”

* * * * *

THE GRAVE’S PALE ROSES.

BY C. F. ORNE.

On the couch of her suffering, meekly,
Like a lily so wan and pale,
She lay in her trance-like slumber,
A slumber for bliss or bale.

_He_ sat and watched beside her,
To whom her young life was dear,
From his eyes the sad dew of sorrow
Fell silently, tear by tear.

The hours passed unseen and unheeded
Till the dawning grew bright in the skies,
Then her white lids, with languid unclosing,
Revealed the soft light of her eyes.

She pressed the last kiss on his forehead,
And murmured in music so low,
“On my grave plant the pale blooming roses
That only a summer-life know.”

She slept: and they laid her with weeping,
In the greenwood so solemn and still:
He placed on her grave the pale roses
Whose life bears no winter wind’s chill.

As he knelt there what bathed his wan forehead,
So gently the rose-petals moved?
The sigh of the breeze that swept o’er them,
Or the spirit of her he had loved?

When spring came again to the greenwood,
Ah—a flowerless sod was there!—
The _new wife_ wore the pale blooming roses
In the wreaths of her raven hair.

* * * * *

ON SAN FRANCISCO’S SPLENDID BAY.

BY THOMAS G. SPEAR.

On San Francisco’s splendid bay
The weary hours I while away,
And think me of the days, no more,
I passed upon a dearer shore.
When time began to stretch the chain
Of which a few worn links remain,
To tell me that at fate’s command,
While years on years are rolling by,
They, too, must strew life’s desert strand,
Like leaves when Autumn’s blast is nigh.

Where azure hills o’erlook the seas,
I sit me down and feel the breeze
Fresh from the billows, wild and nigh,
Borne through a bright and boundless sky,
And musing gaze the landscape o’er
From rolling height to sandy shore,
And hail the beautiful and grand,
Blent with the softest light and shade,
In Freedom’s gold-encumbered land,
The seat of empire and of trade.

O’er Yerba Buena’s lonely isle
I watch the morning’s rosy smile;
And while it gilds the wave and mast,
From Contia Costa’s summit cast,
I think of those it woke before
It touched this mountain-sloping shore.
In that far off and hallowed home
Beyond the Allegheny’s sky,
Where breaks the white Atlantic foam,
And all life’s dear affections lie!

Ah me! what of these mountain scenes,
O’er which the blue sky sweetly beams!
This land of wild romantic charms
That man’s imperial wish embalms;
This clime of gold, whose sound to greet,
Swift hither rush the world’s life-fleet.
What of these treasures wrung by toil,
Their might, their magic, and their lure,
Without one sweet domestic smile,
In which the heart may feel secure.

* * * * *

THE QUIET ARBOR.

BY W. H. C. HOSMER.

“Hence let me haste into the midwood shade,
And on the dark green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o’er the rocky channel, lie at large.”

When study pales my visage, and I feel
Oppressive languor chaining heart and brain,
Away from toil and books I often steal,
Exploring haunts where Quiet holdeth reign.
I love the wild, the picturesque—and when
Her nest of moss the roving linnet weaves,
And the low thorn is beautiful with flowers,
I seek my favorite glen,
While warm winds wanton with the twinkling leaves,
And pass in pleasant idleness the hours.

Where a dark arbor, by the mingling boughs
Of two gigantic hemlock-trees, is made,
I rest my limbs, and with wild shout arouse
The ruffed-grouse from her cover in the shade;
The tapping flicker does not keep aloof,
But plies his noisy bill above my head,
To greet my coming, while the summer heat
Falls on the verdant roof
That canopies my green, luxurious bed,
With the fresh odors of the forest sweet.

I lie and listen to the lulling tones
Of the clear brook that works its winding way,
Far down through brush, and over mossy stones,
The green marge wetting with its silver spray;
The path is steep and perilous that leads
To the cold flushing waters—and few dare
Descend to quaff refreshment from their flow;
For thick, entangling weeds,
In the loose soil seem matted to ensnare
The foot of him who ventureth below.

In the rich bottom of the dale, a grove
Of sylvan giants woos the roving eye;
The topmost limbs wave not their leaves above
The shrubby brow of the declivity.
Sometimes in musing indolence I stand,
And drink in rapture from the peaceful scene,
Or call up old rememberings from sleep;
Then pluck with careless hand
The ripe, red berries of the winter-green,
That blush like rubies on the verdant steep.

I watch the wild bees from my cool retreat
Hum tunefully around the blue harebell,
Before they enter to extract the sweet
That lieth hidden in each fragrant cell.
The small ground-squirrels leave their dwellings dark
In the black, slaty soil, and gambol oft
On an old oak with star-moss overgrown,
And reft of branch and bark;
While the fierce hawk forsakes his realm aloft,
And settles on the blasted pine, his throne.

Where the broad banks slope gently downward, grow
The sassafras and other fragrant trees;
And the bright lilies of the wave below,
Give nods of recognition to the breeze.
In mild accordance with the quiet scene,
Beat tranquilly the pulses of my heart;
While Fancy populates the place with fays,
In robes of dazzling sheen,
Who dance to merry music, and depart,
While other fairy visions cheat the gaze.

Around the sapling, like a verdant belt,
The claspers of the honeysuckle twine;
The Dryades of Argos never dwelt
Within a bower more beautiful than mine.
The humming-bird is near me on the wing,
And the warm breeze with dulcet tone is stealing
Through the green plumage of the hemlocks old—
A spiritual thing;
While butterflies round marshy spots are wheeling,
Clad in their dazzling liveries of gold.

The dusky lord of knife and hatchet roves
Near my wild haunt of loveliness no more;
He saw, amid his old ancestral groves,
Throng pale invaders from a foreign shore—
Then heard the sylvan monarchs, one by one,
With all their leafy diadems laid low,
And sought an undiscoverable lair
Toward the dim, setting sun,
With empty quiver and a broken bow,
And gloomy brow contorted by despair.

The game he hunted craftily is gone,
And meadow-grass conceals his ancient trail;
The flock is feeding where his camp-fire shone,
And rang his whoop of triumph on the gale.
His implements of battle and the chase,
Are often found near my romantic bower,
For the rich scene about it is allied
To legends of his race;
And mournful traces of his day of power
Make classic grove, and glade, and river-side.

Frost, washing rain-drops, and the plough lay bare
The rude graves of his sires on hill and plain,
Exposing their white secrets to the air,
And the rough foot-fall of the whistling swain;
When Autumn robes the forest in a dress
Of many colors, he returns no more,
To pay due homage to ancestral dust,
From distant wilderness;
The wave no longer flushes with his oar,
And crusted is his tomahawk with rust.

His woodland language cannot wholly die
While swift Ganèsus, with a voice of glee,
Between bright, flowery banks is rolling by
To mix his waters with the Genesee.
These tall old hemlocks tell of other days,
When the red warrior rested in their shade,
The painted ruler of the scene around;
And the far hills that raise
Their wooded tops, by Summer lovely made,
In marks of ancient Indian rule abound.

When the life-stream is frozen in my veins,
And hollow are my features with decay,
I fondly hope my cold and stiff remains
May not be hidden from the light of day,
In the dank yard where hundreds hide their dead;
For I would rather have a pleasant grave
Beneath the roofing of my arbor green,
With wild-grass over-spread;
While far below sing bird and gurgling wave,
Through the dense, rustling thicket, dimly seen.

* * * * *

PEDRO DE PADILH.

BY J. M. LEGARE.

(_Continued from page 310._)

SPAIN, AND TERCERA. }
AD. 1583. }

Capt. Wolfang Carlo and Don Hilo de Ladron, seated on the side of the mountain above Angra, watched the sea brighten along the opposite horizon and the white tents of the Spanish camp slowly emerge from the mists in the valley to the right.

“There’ll be hard fighting yonder before the commandant gives in,” the captain said, nodding toward Nostre Dame de Loup, “and nobody will find time to look after us for some weeks to come.”

“We must make our peace with the marquis before it is over,” Hilo returned indifferently.

“My plan,” the captain continued, “is to search along the western coast, and wherever we find a boat put off in it for St. George. One of the Portuguese told me the place wasn’t more than half a dozen leagues off at most.”

“And what would you do there, brave captain?” the Spaniard asked with a sneer. “Don’t comfort yourself that the marquis would let your bull’s-neck out of his noose, because you merely deserted the commandant and benefited himself in nothing. But your friendship for me mustn’t keep you in Tercera. Perhaps the best thing after all you can do, would be to go and be hanged; it will come about one of these days.”

“Not before I throttle you,” the ex-serjeant muttered, with a scowl at the back of his careless comrade’s head.

“Joke away,” he added sulkily, aloud. “You’ve a great chance of catching the count up here, while there’s a boat to be got, haven’t you.”

“Look you, captain,” Hilo said, raising himself on his elbow. “There isn’t a boat on this coast, nor has there been for these three weeks. These rascally Portuguese have been carrying away their families and goods in every thing that could float, to be out of harm’s way until the fighting is fairly over. I know it is so, for I overheard one of them tell the count night before last; he had been along shore to find out. So the viceroy is still in trap, and if you’ve a mind, you may come along and find where he’s hidden; or if you like it better, swim over the strait, or walk down to the marquis’ quarters: you’ve several acquaintances made in Madrid, you know, who will be pleased to meet you, captain.”

At this reference Wolfang regained enough of his good humor to show his tusks in a grin.

“Your friends ain’t too many down there, either,” he rejoined. “If I’m to go with you, let’s hear how the count is to be caught.”

“Why, my bold captain, we wont catch him at present, it might be inconvenient for you and I alone to fight a regiment of even Portuguese. But we will find out his hiding-place, and with the information buy our heads from Santa Cruz. Or, who knows, we may set a snare for him and take him off his guard; there may be some reward offered for him, too. What do you say, will you share the doubloons, or swim over to St. George’s?”

“I’ll follow,” Carlo cried, rising and tightening his belt: the mention of doubloons sounding in his ears with the proverbial music of the trumpet to a war-horse. He pulled his grizzly moustache and loosened his hanger. Hilo laughed.

“Come along,” he said. “You’re the sweetest-tempered gentleman of my acquaintance when gold is to be got by it.”

There was no path apparent, and the ascent was easiest up the bed of a wild gorge they presently discovered. As height after height was surmounted, the circle of their horizon widened: St. George and Pico were visible in the blue field of the ocean to the right, and over a wooded promontory the hazy outline of more distant Graciosa. Below lay Angra, and closer to the left the entrenched village of Nostre Dame de Loup.

So long as the thickets abounded, there was no likelihood of the fugitives attracting attention from below, but when _el duro_ was gained, where the bare surface of rocks lay open to view from all sides, the adventurers turned back a space, and following a depression in the chain of mountain-tops, lost sight of the ocean, and overlooked instead numerous farms scattered through the little valleys of the highlands of Tercera. The Portuguese owners had gone off with their effects, but the grain left in the partially harvested fields supplied abundant rations. Here the deserters fixed their head-quarters while conducting their search for the count, returning nightly with the caution requisite where the sudden falling in with any party would have proved perilous. The military operations on the coast, however, kept the foreign powers occupied for the present, and no natives were to be met with, although several country-houses belonging to members of the viceroy’s court, were sacked by the outlaws of what few valuables remained. In the course of a week, it was evident Torrevedros was secreting himself in some other quarter, the semi-circle of mountains having been traversed in all directions and found to terminate in steep precipices looking inward, leaving the only points of egress opposite Angra.

One morning Hilo and the captain resolved to descend far enough to turn the heel of the promontory and reascend on the farther side; a strong easterly wind lifted the fogs from the lowlands adjacent the sea, and enveloped the entire height of the mountain, for which reason, their knowledge of the geography of the country being very imperfect, the pair, before recognizing any landmarks, were close upon the road leading to the camp of the commander from the capital. Both caught the sound of hoofs instantly, and crouched in a thicket while a half-dozen troopers galloped by, headed by a knight with his visor up.

“Santiago!” Hilo said, rising to his feet when the tramp had died away in the direction of the French camp. “We may spare ourselves the trouble of finding the count; nothing will save our heads where that man is.”

“Who?” the captain asked.

“Don Augustine Inique—may the devil confound him! I thought him safe in Spain with that whining daughter of his.”

Wolfang’s face, not usually expressive, was a blank for some minutes, then slowly relaxed into a broad grin. The captain’s grin, as I have said elsewhere, boded no good.

“Hark ’e,” he whispered, “what hinders your getting hold of your fortune, if the knight dies: say, falls off his horse, or has his casque riddled by a bullet in battle—or _now_?”

“Ha!” Hilo answered quickly.

“Give me your arquebus, it carries a truer ball than mine,” he added moodily after an interval.

The captain did as he said, and the other tried it to his shoulder irresolutely twice or thrice.

“Climbing unsteadies my hand,” he exclaimed with an oath.

Upon which the captain cried. “Double the debt you owe me, and the work will be done.”

It might have been two hours after this, that Señor Inique riding slowly by the spot, lurched violently over his steed’s neck, which he grasped to save himself from falling, at the instant his men-at-arms were startled by the loud report of a carbine. All was consternation, two of the company running to support the maître-de-camp, while the others dashed into the thick mist to the right: the latter presently returned however with no tidings of the assassins, and the party conveyed the insensible knight to Angra, where Padilh was awaiting his arrival.

Don Pedro turned pale at the recital. “God forbid!” he said repeatedly, half aloud to himself, while musing gloomily by the side of his friend.

Meanwhile Carlo and De Ladron creeping noiselessly along parallel with the road, the better to baffle pursuit, came suddenly on the crouching figure of a man who was endeavoring to hide himself under a bush. Wolfang took him promptly by the throat, but before any violence could be done him, Hilo said:

“Stop, the fellow is a Moor. Look at his black face and turban.”

“What of that?” returned the captain. “He must have seen what happened just now, and Moor or Christian he mustn’t have liberty to use his tongue again.”

The prisoner during this whispered conference, looked from one to the other, his oriental eyes dilated with fear, but making no effort to release his throat; he had evidently watched the approach of the fugitives in the hope they would pass by without noticing him. At the last words he eagerly stretched his mouth open with a wildly supplicating gesture.

“Santiago!” both exclaimed in a breath. The Moor’s tongue was shrunk to half the natural size, and it appeared evident he could not speak a word.

“He is worth his weight in silver,” Hilo said, looking at him narrowly. “I have heard the count had a mute slave, and I remember once seeing this man with him in the Portuguese camp. Let’s carry the fellow higher up the mountain and compel him to show us where his master is.”

The Moor’s turban served to bind his arms, and the three reascending the mountain a space, halted on the farther side of Angra, which town they passed so close as to hear the sound of trumpets from the market-place. The slave confessed by signs, he had come in search of food for Torrevedros, who, deserted by his courtiers, was hiding among the rocks.

“If that is the case,” Hilo remarked in French to the captain, “we may capture him ourselves.”

“And pocket all the doubloons the marquis will offer,” the captain added greedily.

The same motive for obedience which had drawn the acknowledgment of the viceroy’s destitution, a choice between that and a dagger stroke, induced the Moor to guide them in the direction of his master’s lodging, no doubt in the secret hope of wearying out his heavier-clad companions, and giving them the slip when opportunity offered. Up and down steeps they toiled most of the morning; the mist had disappeared and the sun beat fiercely on the rocks of the _duro_. The phlegmatic Wolfang followed with plodding endurance, as he would for a piece of gold to the world’s end, but Hilo’s impatience at last boiled over.

“Infidel dog!” he cried. “I will leave your carcass on this peak if you fail to lead us straight to the viceroy.”

At this the mute paused, whimpered, cast a terrified look at Hilo’s unpromising countenance, and ended by turning off abruptly from the course they were about to pursue.

A few yards farther, the captain, who was in advance, cried out:

“Hey! Yonder goes one of those Portuguese rascals. Hallo, you sir, come here or I will fetch you with a bullet.”

Whereupon the peasant came down the narrow path he was ascending hastily, without demur.

“I am a poor working-man,” he whined out deprecatingly, “and have nothing to do with fighting, señor. For the love of charity, give me something, for my children to eat, who are dying of hunger.”

“I will give you what will keep you from ever being hungry,” Hilo answered curtly, “if you don’t show us where your viceroy is hid.”

“I take all the saints to witness, I have not seen the viceroy this month or more,” the fellow exclaimed, falling on his knees.

“What is that you are rolling in your mouth?” Carlo demanded, seizing him suddenly by the jaws and forcing a ducat out. The captain’s interest was aroused, and he thoroughly searched the clothing of the Portuguese despite his lamentations.

“You may be worse off,” the captain rejoined after his fruitless trouble, “if you trouble us any more about your whelps.”

And Hilo crying impatiently, “One is enough to guide us; leave the idiot alone,” they crossed a ravine which De Ladron recognized as one they had before visited, and confirmed a suspicion of the Moor’s duplicity. Turning upon him in a fury he uttered: