Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

He smiled and pressed the soft hand he held. “And do you not think me a vain fellow, Minnie, mine, for having my own self, set into a frame like this? See on the other side, dearest, what I dared to do?”

It flew open there and a ring fell out, a tiny bouquet of the brightest diamonds upon it, and an opal in the centre that changed its hue at every motion of the hand. Harry placed the circle upon that taper finger, and held captive the hand that owned it.

“Now, Minnie! I loved you so dearly that I vowed to strive and win the very privilege I have taken, of placing this ring upon your hand myself. I will not let you go until you now tell me when I may put another where this now is, that will bind us closer yet. Tell me, Minnie, and make my happiness complete.”

And I suppose that Minnie told him, reader, for the last time I was at Oakwood there was the happiest bond assembled that earth can show. Kate, my poor Kate! was the delighted mother of another girl called Minnie, while a little Paul that ran about had a decided resemblance to Harry Selby, the proudest man alive. Blanche was beginning to look matronly with her three treasures, and Rose was wandering down the avenue with another nephew of Mr. Selby’s. Lisa, my queen-bee, was herself still—I could not say more for her, and Mr. de la Croix sat at the hall door watching his children and grand-children with a happy look. “They have suffered enough,” said he to me; “but my crown of jewels, my friend, is brighter than ever, after the breath of adversity for a while dimmed its lustre. Kate and Minnie, poor girls! have been in the storm, and felt its violence, but the rest shared their sorrow until it became their own. It was for the best, as all things are, and God in his mercy chastened them without sending Death among us again. They often recur to it, and while Minnie deplores her fault, Kate weeps at the remembrance of her dead child with a gentle sorrow, that allows her to contemplate its happy fate with a Christian’s view of the two worlds. It is not perhaps my part to praise them, but take them all in all, I do not think you will find a more cheerful, willing, and dutiful band than mine. They have been and are still, my crown of jewels.”

* * * * *

TO A CELEBRATED SINGER.

BY R. H. STODDARD.

Oft have I dreamed of music rare and fine,
The wedded melody of lute and voice,
Divinest strains that made my soul rejoice,
And woke its inner harmonies divine.
And where Sicilia smooths the ruffled seas,
And Tempe hollows all its purple vales,
Thrice have I heard the noble nightingales,
All night entranced beneath the bloomy trees;
But music, nightingales, and all that Thought
Conceives of song is naught
To thy rich voice, which echoes in my brain,
And fills my longing heart with a melodious pain!

A thousand lamps were lit—I saw them not—
Nor all the thousands round me like a sea,
Life, Death and Time, and all things were forgot;
I only thought of thee!
Meanwhile the music rose sublime and strong,
But sunk beneath thy voice which rose alone,
Above its crumbled fragments to thy throne,
Above the clouds of Song.
Henceforth let Music seal her lips, and be
The silent Ministrant of Poesy;
For not the delicate reed that Pan did play
To partial Midas at the match of old,
Nor yet Apollo’s lyre, with chords of gold,
That more than won the crown he lost that day;
Nor even the Orphean lute, that half set free—
Oh why not all?—the lost Eurydice—
Were fit to join with thee;
Much less our instruments of meaner sound,
That track thee slowly o’er enchanted ground,
Unfit to lift the train thy music leaves,
Or glean around its sheaves!

I strive to disentangle in my mind
Thy many-knotted threads of softest song,
Whose memory haunts me like a voiceless wind,
Whose silence does it wrong.
No single tone thereof, no perfect sound
Lingers, but dim remembrance of the whole;
A sound which was a Soul,
The Soul of sound diffused an atmosphere around!
So soft, so sweet, so mellow, rich and deep,
So like a heavenly soul’s ambrosial breath,
It would not wake, but only deepen Sleep
Into diviner Death!
Softer and sweeter than the jealous flute,
Whose soft, sweet voice grew harsh before its own,
It stole in mockery its every tone,
And left it lone and mute;
It flowed like liquid pearl through golden cells,
It jangled like a string of golden bells,
It trembled like a wind in golden strings,
It dropped and rolled away in golden rings;
Then it divided and became a shout,
That Echo chased about,
However wild and fleet,
Until it trod upon its heels with flying feet!
At last it sunk and sunk from deep to deep,
Below the thinnest word,
And sunk till naught was heard,
But charméd Silence sighing in its sleep!

Powerless and mute beneath thy mighty spell,
My heart was lost within itself and thee,
As when a pearl is melted in its shell,
And sunken in the sea!
I sunk, and sunk beneath thy song, but still
I thirsted after more, the more I sank;
A flower that drooped with all the dew it drank,
But still upheld its cup for Heaven to fill;
My inmost soul was drunk with melody,
Which thou didst pour around,
To crown the feast of sound,
And lift to every lip, but chief to me,
Whose spirit uncontrolled,
Drained all the fiery wine and clutched its cup of gold!

Would I could only hear thee once again,
But once again, and pine into the air,
And fade away with all this hopeless pain,
This hope divine, and this divine despair!
If we were only Voices, if our minds
Were only voices, what a life were ours!
My soul would woo thee in the vernal winds,
And thine would answer me in summer showers,
At morn and even, when the east and west
Were bathed in floods of purple poured from Heaven,
We would delay the Morn upon its nest,
And fold the wings of Even!
All day we’d fly with azure wings unfurled,
And gird a belt of Song about the world;
All night we’d teach the winds of night a tune,
While charméd oceans slept beneath a yellow moon!
And when a-weary grown of earthly sport,
We’d wind our devious flight from star to star,
Till we beheld the palaces afar,
Where Music holds her court.
Entered, and beckoned up the aisles of sound,
Where starry Melodies are marshaled round,
We’d kneel before her throne with eager dread,
And when she kissed us, melt in trances deep,
While angels bore us to her bridal bed,
And sung our souls asleep!

Oh, Queen of Song! as peerless as thou art,
As worthy as thou art to wear thy crown,
Thou hast a deeper claim to thy renown,
And a diviner music in thy heart;
Simplicity and Goodness walk with thee,
Beneath the wings of watchful Seraphim;
And Love is wed to whitest Chastity,
And Pity sings its hymn.
Nor is thy goodness passive in its end,
But ever-active as the sun and rain—
Unselfish, lavish of its golden gain—
Not Want alone, but a whole nation’s—Friend!
This is thy glory, this thy noblest fame;
And when thy glory fades, and fame departs,
This will perpetuate a deathless name,
Where names are deathless—deep in loving hearts!

* * * * *

BLANCHE OF BOURBON.

A TALE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

BY WALTER BROOKE.