Chapter VIII: Part 8

"Thick as the autumnal leaves which strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa."

I found it impossible to sleep. The feverish state of the atmosphere, and the tumult around me, scared the drowsy god from my pillow--[I had no pillow by the way, but made my great coat serve as a substitute for one.] The thundering and crashing of the engine,--the dashing of the paddles in the water--the stamping of feet above our heads--the uproar of many voices, heard at intervals when some order was given to the crew--the _banging_ of the wood upon the planks, at it was transferred from the pile to the engine-room--the rumbling of ballast-boxes, as they were occasionally transferred from side to side, for the purpose of _trimming_ the steamer--the harsh rattling of the tackle, as a boat was lowered, to land or take off passengers by a _tow line_,[1] and the simultaneous rush to the gangway of those who were to go on shore, while the subtile fluid which gave motion to our floating caravan, being partially restrained, emitted a wheezing and uncomfortable sound.

[Footnote 1: This method of landing and taking off passengers was practised for many years on the Hudson, but finally abolished by law, on account of its risks, several fatal accidents having been caused by it. The steamer was not brought to during the operation; but a tow line attached to the small boat, was out from the steamer, and drawn in by the machinery with great velocity.]

But who shall describe the varied and terrific music of the steam engine? I do not attempt it, not doubting that in the march of improvement, the poet will hereafter make it a special theme; and that some American Mayerbeer or Mozart, will consider the composition of a passage by steam from Albany to New York, as affording facilities for expression and contrast, equally sublime with the March in Saul or the Battle of Prague.--Occasionally we came to a dead stop at some principal landing place. For a moment the engine was hushed, as silent as death; then a feeble whistle was heard from the steam pipe, (sweet, shrill and almost plaintive,) followed by a roar of the imprisoned element, fiercely exulting at its recovered liberty, as it was _let off_ from the engine, and rushing forth with such gigantic impulse as to shake every timber in the vessel.--Gradually the roar subsides; slowly, slowly, until a humming sound succeeds, as though all the bees of Hybla were swarming around our heads. Suddenly it ceases, and for a moment the steam is silent. Then again, the hoarse thunder of the machinery commences, the paddles dash the water from beneath them, with giant strides, and the motion of the vessel is distinctly felt, as she rushes onward in her course.

Such were the sounds above which afforded to the hundreds of sleepers a discordant lullaby, sufficiently hostile to repose, one would think, to drive slumber from the eyelids of Somnus himself. But all this "mortal pudder o'er our heads," was less distracting than the concert of discords which was in a coarse of performance immediately around me, comparatively, it is true, in a _minor key_.--One hundred and fifty _wind instruments_ of various constructions and dimensions, were playing _ad-libitum_, in every diversity of tone and time, concertos, fantasias and airs, which breathed of any thing but heaven. Here could be heard the mournful strain of a proboscis which seemed attuned to melancholy--there, the fierce blast of a nostril which emulated the magic horn of the wild huntsman; while in ludicrous contrast, hard-by were heard the stifled eruptions of a snout, which might have been taken for the rehearsals of an inexperienced porker. One drew in his breath with a painful squeel and a low whistle, and puffed it forth as he would have done in extinguishing a candle--another, began in a gentle strain, "like the sweet south, breathing upon a bed of violets"--gradually rising to a full and manly tone--still gaining strength as it advanced--now louder and more rapid--dashing onward with alarming impetuosity--louder, louder still; and now, the very brink of this musical cataract having been reached--a _crash_ ensues, like the termination of that terrific passage in the overture to Der Freyschutz, which almost freezes the blood. The explosion past, this fantastic nose commenced again its tender strains, and again rose to its climax. Another rolled forth a heavy bass, deep, solemn and monotonous, like the muttering of distant thunder, or the roar of the vexed ocean heaving its waves on the shore after a storm. Another, with teeth compressed, seemed to draw in breath repeatedly without respiration, and suddenly to disembogue this over supply of air with a single emphatic snort, which threw his mouth open to its full extent. Some squeeled continuously; some groaned; and others whistled through their mouths in drawing in breath, and through their noses, in respiring it.

It will not be wondered that I could not sleep, yet my fellow travellers seemed unannoyed. I fell into a train of profound thought upon the causes of the various cadences of different noses, and puzzled myself upon the shapes and dimensions suitable to produce certain simple or compound tones in the concert. In following out these reflections, I wondered what description of music I must make myself, and could not but wish to hear myself snore--(a thing I believe impossible.) I could not avoid handling my own nose, to fix according to my imperfect theory, the extent and character of its musical capacity. By an association of ideas, the consideration of this question brought back to my mind the prophecy of aunt Deborah. I pondered upon it until the reflections which it suggested became painful. I endeavored to banish it from my thoughts, but could not entirely succeed. After a considerable time, I fell into a kind of _snooze_--a state which was neither absolute sleeping or waking--a kind of conscious unconsciousness, partaking of both in nearly equal degrees. Visions of imaginary objects glanced before me, which seemed to partake of or to be blended with the scene and sounds around me. Dim figures came and went between me and the lamp, hanging at the extremity of the cabin, on which my eye was fixed. Among these beings my aunt Deborah two or three times made her appearance; her starch'd cap, peaked nose, and keen grey eye, were not to be mistaken. I could identify even her tortoise snuff-box, which seemed as new as when I saw it ten years ago. Her look was rigid and menacing, and seemed to bode me no good--for I dreaded a lecture. These objects were the materials of dreams:--active thought and volition had nothing to do with their production. Yet my eyes were open,--my senses were awake. I could see and mark the motion of the red curtains, swinging to and fro--I still heard the unwearied nasal minstrelsey to which I have alluded, as distinctly as before.

The philosophers, I believe, have explained this contradictory state of the body and mind. I fear I have not described it so as to make myself clearly understood; but I am no philosopher, unless it be a laughing one. Those who have experienced a visitation of the "night mare," will I presume, comprehend my meaning.--I am not aware that this state of things had ceased, but believe the combat between real and unreal impressions was still going on in my mind, when I plainly perceived two large, gaunt blackamoors (whom I well remembered to have seen when at home in Richmond, pursuing their daily toil in Myers's tobacco factory,) descend the cabin stairs, and approach the spot where I lay. The obstacles of a crowded room did not seem to impede them; and I soon felt their iron grasp on my limbs. I was lifted by them from my pallet, and borne, I know not how, up the stairs, past the engine, to the forward deck. I endeavored from the moment they laid hands on me, to struggle with them; but my limbs were powerless: I endeavored to call out, and awaken my fellow lodgers; but my voice had lost its sound, my tongue seemed paralyzed: I could not articulate a syllable. The cold sweat of terror stood upon my brow. I had a presentiment that some awful fate awaited me, but I could form no conception what it was to be.

At the place where they halted in their progress, I saw a huge grindstone, from behind which a little black urchin leaped up, and seizing the handle, commenced turning it with surprising velocity, looking into my face and laughing with that hearty glee so peculiar to the cachinations of his race. I knew the imp too well, for I had seen him in his tatters an hundred times, hopping the gutters in front of the Eagle Hotel. A horrible consciousness of my fate now flashed upon me. The prophesy of my aunt Deborah came into my mind, and I felt that it was to be fulfilled. I cast my eyes around me in despair, when they fell upon the figure of the old lady herself, standing upon the prow of the vessel. Her look was severe and reproachful. The finger of her right hand was uplifted, as if she would have said, "I have warned you in vain!"--while her left hand conveyed a pinch of snuff to her nostrils, which they received with an inspiration so keen that it hissed in my ears like hot iron. My glance at this figure was but momentary. Scarce had the imp commenced turning the instrument upon which I had now become aware that I was to be tortured, when the Titans in whose gripe I was held, forced my head downward, until my proboscis rested upon the revolving stone, and I felt its horrid inroads upon that sensitive member. The first excoriation was severe. I writhed and struggled to free myself, but the power which held me was indomitable. Gradually the urchin relaxed in the rapidity of his motions--the stone revolved slowly, and I saw that my torment was to be a lingering one.

In the midst of their task the inhuman wretches began to chaunt songs and incantations adapted to the horrid ceremony. I remember some snatches of the ballads they sung. Never shall I forget them, for the cruel mockery of their fiendish merriment was more galling than the pain I endured, or the awful reflection that I must pass the rest of my days the noseless object of pity and contempt. One of the stanzas ran thus:

De man who hold he nose too high
Mus' be brought low:
Put him on de grinstone
And grind him off slow.
Wheel about, and turn about,
And wheel about slow;
And every time he wheel about
De nose must go.

I was at no loss to recognize in this a parody on a popular ballad by James Crow, Esquire, very skilfully arranged for the piano-forte by Mr. Zephaniah Coon; and I despised my tormentors the more for their plagiarism and want of originality. At the end of each _refrain_, the barbarians sent forth as a kind of supplementary chorus, shouts of laughter, which seemed to come from their very souls. It was none of your civilized _ha ha's_--nor your modish _he he's_--but the hearty, pectoral _yeoh yeoh yeoh_ of the unsophisticated "_nigger_."

All this time my nose was gradually diminishing. The imp at the handle turned it slowly but steadily; the grasp upon my shoulders was firm, and the pressure upon my head was so heavy, that the inexorable stone was fast penetrating flesh, cartilage and bone, and reducing to a level the inequalities of my visage. This could not last forever; and at length I felt that the sacrifice had been consummated--the friction of the stone upon my cheeks, gave fearful evidence that what had been a nose, existed no longer, and brought the horrid reflection that I was noseless! That the pride of my countenance was gone, and forever!

The awful consciousness of my bereavement made me desperate, and strung up my sinews to a gigantic effort for freedom and revenge.--Suddenly the grasp upon my body was loosened, and as suddenly the agents and the instrument of my torment vanished.

I awoke, covered with perspiration and in a mortal tremor. The cabin was dark, and but for the snoring of my neighbors, I should not have known where I was. My nose was still suffering a most uncomfortable sensation, and I breathed with difficulty from some unknown obstruction. Although instantly aware that, to use the language of Molly Brown, I had merely "dreampt a dream," I instinctively lifted my hand to my face to reassure myself that my nose remained in undiminished amplitude and longitude. In searching for that interesting feature, I found that it was eclipsed and borne down by some weighty substance, which the sense of feeling soon informed me was the ponderous fist of my Kentucky neighbor, who had in shifting his position during his slumbers, unceremoniously thrust it into my face. I was cramped for room, and tugged to rid myself of the incumbrance, when its owner awoke.

"Halloo stranger!" said he, "you kick about like an eel out of water."

I explained to him the cause of my uneasiness, for which he briefly asked my pardon; and re-adjusting himself, again fell asleep. I could not follow his example, my mind being occupied in recalling the incidents and sensations of my dream, which fully engaged my thoughts until I was made aware, by the shouting and scampering upon deck, that we had reached New York.

And now for the _moral_ which I promised my readers. It is this--Do not think too much of your nose--or hold it too high,--lest it should be brought to the grindstone in good earnest; and moreover, never sleep in a steam boat cabin, where men are planted, like Indian corn, _in rows_--if you can avoid it.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MORELLA--A TALE.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

Auto kath' auto meth' autou, mono eides aei ou.
Itself--alone by itself--eternally _one_ and single.
_Plato_. _Sympos_.

With a feeling of deep but most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul, from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never known--but the fires were not of Eros--and bitter and tormenting to my eager spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning, or regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met; and Fate bound us together at the altar: and I never spoke of love, or thought of passion. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder. It is a happiness to dream.

Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were of no common order--her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this, and in many matters became her pupil. I soon, however, found that Morella, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, laid before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reasons I could not imagine, were her favorite and constant study: and that in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example.

In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by my imagination, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read, to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts. Feeling deeply persuaded of this I abandoned myself more implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with a bolder spirit into the intricacy of her studies. And then--then, when poring over forbidden pages I felt the spirit kindle within me, would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low singular words, whose strange meaning burnt themselves in upon my memory: and then hour after hour would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her thrilling voice, until at length its melody was tinged with terror and fell like a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly tones--and thus Joy suddenly faded into Horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon became Ge-Henna.

It is unnecessary to state the exact character of these disquisitions, which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fitche--the modified [Greek: Palingenesia] of the Pythagoreans--and, above all, the doctrines of _Identity_ as urged by Schelling were generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That _Identity_ which is not improperly called _Personal_, I think Mr. Locke truly defines to consist in the sameness of a rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call _ourselves_--thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. But the Principium Individuationis--the notion of that Identity _which at death is, or is not lost forever_, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest, not more from the mystical and exciting nature of its consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which Morella mentioned them.

But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife's manner oppressed me like a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this but did not upbraid. She seemed conscious of my weakness, or my folly--and, smiling, called it Fate. She seemed also conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent: and one instant my nature melted into pity, but in the next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary and fathomless abyss.

Shall I then say that I long'd with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morella's decease? I did. But the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days--for many weeks and irksome months--until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious with delay, and with the heart of a fiend I cursed the days, and the hours, and the bitter moments which seemed to lengthen, and lengthen as her gentle life declined--like shadows in the dying of the day.

But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in Heaven, Morella called me to her side. There was a dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich October leaves of the forest a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen. As I came, she was murmuring in a low under-tone, which trembled with fervor, the words of a Catholic hymn:

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner's sacrifice
Of fervent prayer, and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.

At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn.
In joy and wo, in good and ill,
Mother of God! be with me still.

When my hours flew gently by,
And no storms were in the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy love did guide to thine and thee.

Now, when clouds of Fate o'ercast
All my Present, and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine.

'It is a day of days'--said Morella--'a day of all days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of Earth and Life--ah! more fair for the daughters of Heaven and Death.'

I turned towards her, and she continued.

'I am dying--yet shall I live. Therefore for me, Morella, thy wife, hath the charnel house no terrors--mark me!--not even the terrors of the _worm_. The days have never been when thou couldst love me; but her whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore.'

'Morella!'

'I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that affection--ah, how little! which you felt for me, Morella. And when my spirit departs shall the child live--thy child and mine, Morella's. But thy days shall be days of sorrow--that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions, as the cypress is the most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over, and Joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Pæstum twice in a year. Thou shalt not, then, play the Teian with Time, but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt bear about with thee thy shroud on earth, like the Moslemin at Mecca.'

'Morella!'--I cried--'Morella! how knowest thou this?'----but she turned away her face upon the pillow, and, a slight tremor coming over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.

Yet, as she had foreseen, her child--to which in dying she had given birth, and which breathed not till the mother breathed no more--her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in size and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent and more intense than I believed it possible to feel on earth.

But ere long the Heaven of this pure affection became overcast; and Gloom, and Horror, and Grief came over it in clouds. I said the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange indeed was her rapid increase in bodily size--but terrible, oh! terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and faculties of the woman?--when the lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye? When, I say, all this became evident to my appalled senses--when I could no longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled to receive it, is it to be wondered at that suspicions of a nature fearful, and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the world a being whom Destiny compelled me to adore, and in the rigid seclusion of my ancestral home, I watched with an agonizing anxiety over all which concerned my daughter.

And as years rolled away, and daily I gazed upon her eloquent and mild and holy face, and pored over her maturing form, did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to her mother--the melancholy, and the dead. And hourly grew darker these shadows, as it were, of similitude, and became more full, and more definite, and more perplexing, and to me more terrible in their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother's I could bear--but then I shuddered at its too perfect _identity_: that her eyes were Morella's own I could endure--but then they looked down too often into the depths of my soul with Morella's intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the musical tones of her speech, and above all--oh! above all, in the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror--for a worm that would not die.

Thus passed away two lustrums of her life, yet my daughter remained nameless upon the earth. 'My child' and 'my love' were the designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the daughter--it was impossible to speak. Indeed during the brief period of her existence the latter had received no impressions from the outward world but such as might have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present deliverance from the horrors of my destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise and beautiful, of antique and modern times, of my own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips--and many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound, which, in its very recollection, was wont to make ebb and flow the purple blood in tides from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the night, I shrieked within the ears of the holy man the syllables, Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of my child and overspread them with the hues of death, as, starting at that sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the Earth to Heaven, and falling prostrate upon the black slabs of her ancestral vault, responded 'I am here!'

Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct--like a knell of death--horrible, horrible death, sank the eternal sounds within my soul. Years--years may roll away, but the memory of that epoch--never! Now was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine--but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my Fate faded from Heaven, and, therefore, my spirit grew dark, and the figures of the earth passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only--Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore--Morella. But she died, and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb, and I laughed, with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the charnel where I laid the second--Morella.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

CONTENT'S MISHAP:

A VERITABLE HISTORY.

BY PERTINAX PLACID, ESQUIRE.

CONTENT once dwelt in humble cot
Beside a stream with music flowing,
Embower'd in shade--a verdant spot--
Woodbines and wild flowers round it growing.

There NATURE lavish of her store
Breath'd fragrance over plain and mountain;
A soft entrancing aspect wore,
And sang sweet strains by brook and fountain.

Within the cot where dwelt the maid
PEACE ever reign'd, with mild dominion,
And LOVE, reform'd, no longer stray'd,
But loos'd his bow, and furl'd his pinion.

There PLENTY crown'd each savory meal
With simple food from NATURE'S bounty;
And HEALTH contemn'd the boasted skill
Of all the Doctors in the county.

One morning PRIDE, a city belle,
In FASHION'S gaudiest trappings glaring,
The fragrant meads for once to smell,
That way had driven to take an airing.

By chance, a vagrant cloud sent down
A shower to cool the sultry weather,
When PRIDE protested with a frown,
'Twould spoil her riding-hat and feather.

CONTENT'S snug dwelling stood hard by,
And thither PRIDE her car directed:
Welcomed with homely courtesy,
She smiled to find her dress protected.

The first brief salutations o'er,
PRIDE view'd with scorn the humble cottage,
Its narrow rooms, its sanded floor--
And turn'd her nose up at the pottage.

Then thus, to meek CONTENT she spoke:
"I wonder so genteel a maiden
Should dwell in this secluded nook,
As dull as ever hermit pray'd in.

'Tis shameful such a form and face
Should hide themselves in this mean hovel:
That so much loveliness and grace
Should with such stupid people grovel.

How would you grace those splendid halls
Where I and PLEASURE lead the million!
There you would shine at routes and balls,
Queen of the _waltz_ and gay _cotillion_.

These humdrum folks you live with now
Are _cut_ by all who aim at fashion:
To see you so beset, I vow,
It puts me quite into a passion.

Here's PEACE, a tiresome, dowdy thing,
Fit only for the chimney corner,
To listen while the crickets sing,
And teach the brats their _Jacky Horner_.

PLENTY is well enough 'tis true,
Where hungry peasants gorge their rations;
But her rude fare would never do,
For FASHION'S delicate collations.

And LOVE,--who once was all the rage,
And turn'd the heads of half the city,
Dealing his shafts on youth and age,
As you have learnt from many a ditty--

Has long been voted quite a bore,
He made so many a sad miscarriage;
And now, the part he play'd before,
CONVENIENCE takes at every marriage.

This rustic-looking, sheepish boy
I ne'er should dream was master CUPID,--
Whom once I knew so full of joy--
He looks so quiet and so stupid.

I cannot bear that you should dwell
In such a lonely sequestration,
When you might reign a city belle,
And taste the sweets of admiration.

Come then, nor longer tarry here
In this retreat so lone and dreary:
In PLEASURE'S brilliant throng appear,
Where TIME'S bright pinions never weary."

The artless nymph, ta'en unawares,
Was dazzled by PRIDE'S invitation;
But still she fear'd the City's snares,
And answer'd with great hesitation.

She said a happy life she led,
That care had ne'er her bosom enter'd
Tho' tenant of an humble shed,
Here all the joys she ask'd for centred.

But PRIDE protested 'twas a sin,
That so perversely she should prattle,
When HOPE, (the jade) who just dropp'd in
That moment--closed the wordy battle.

HOPE whisper'd in the maiden's ear--
What 'twas I never could discover,--
But from her beaming eye, 'twas clear
CONTENT'S resistance all was over.

Suffice to say, the car was brought,
The ladies in it soon were seated:
PRIDE took the reins, and quick as thought,
The valley from their vision fleeted.

'Tis true CONTENT some sorrow felt
At leaving PEACE and LOVE behind her;
But HOPE sat by, and fondly dwelt
On all the happiness design'd her.

* * * * *

Soon by Dame FASHION'S mystic aid
CONTENT became another creature;
Such _art_ was in her form display'd,
She needed not the charms of nature.

* * * * *

Behold our country maiden now!
In PLEASURE'S train a gay attendant;
Before her throng'd admirers bow;
Her beauty was pronounced transcendent.

In every scene where PLEASURE reign'd
CONTENT was found, a radiant charmer;
And while the novelty remain'd,
Her wild career did not alarm her.

Months pass'd in one continued round
Of parties, balls, and routes and levees,
And tired CONTENT at length had found
No happiness in PLEASURE'S bevies.

Jaded in this unceasing maze,
Her eye grew dim, her cheek grew pallid:
PRIDE only could her spirits raise,
And oft her melancholy rallied.

But long even PRIDE could not hold out;
Sorely the maid her change repented--
Her dreams had all been put to route--
CONTENT was sadly discontented.

One morning HOPE, who scarce had seen
The maiden since she sought the City,
To make a flying call, popp'd in,--
And saw her alter'd looks with pity.

"Ah faithless HOPE!" exclaim'd CONTENT:
"Why did you flatter and deceive me--
Why urge the step I now repent,
And be the first to scorn and leave me.

Oh, but for you, deceitful friend,
I still had lived untouched by SORROW,
Where beauteous flowers their fragrance blend,
Nor blushes from cosmetics borrow.

I might have dwelt, a happy maid,
With PEACE and LOVE, in blest seclusion,
Afar from FASHION'S dull parade,
Her endless throngs of gay confusion.

Fain would I to my cottage fly,
But PRIDE resists, and SHAME upbraids me;
And PLEASURE, ever hovering nigh
With some delusive tale dissuades me."

HOPE, with a woman's ready wit,
From all reproach herself defended;
And forced her listner to admit
Her counsel "_for the best_" intended.

* * * * *

CONTENT at length "made up her mind"
('Gainst PRIDE'S usurp'd control rebelling,)
To leave the bustling town behind,
And seek again her humble dwelling.

'Twas a bright morn in early Spring,
When, HOPE her languid steps attending,
Through vales where birds were on the wing,
To that lone cot the maid was wending.

The sun shone bright on hill and lea,
The flowers from leafy shades were peeping;
The brook ran murmuring merrily,
And flocks were in the valleys leaping.

The Cottage reach'd, she met once more
The smile of PEACE, and LOVE'S embraces;
JOY lit the maiden's eye again,
And from her brow chased sorrow's traces.

Soon HEALTH return'd, with genial glow,
Her languid frame with strength induing,
The blood resumed its wonted flow,
The roses on her cheeks renewing.

HOPE views the change with fond delight;
Vows from CONTENT she ne'er will sever;
Controls each wild impassion'd flight,
And points where mercy beams forever.

What more could Providence bestow
To yield CONTENT an added blessing?
Each hour her heart's pure offerings flow,
To Heaven its gratitude addressing.

And ever since, CONTENT has dwelt
From the gay crowd, in vale secluded:--
Their joyless strife she once has felt,
And cannot be again deluded.

Oft have I seen the humble roof,
Where, with PEACE, LOVE and HOPE uniting,
She dwells, from worldly cares aloof,
Even while her story I am writing.

The following beautiful reply to the stanzas of Mr. Wilde, published in the first number of the Messenger, is attributed to Mrs. Buckley, the wife of a distinguished physician of Baltimore, a lady whose fine taste and poetic capacity are most happily displayed in these touching lines. The answer is a very perfect counterpart of Mr. Wilde's stanzas, and if we were called on to decide upon their relative merits, we do not know which of the two would most demand our admiration.

ANSWER

To "_My Life is Like the Summer Rose_."

The dews of night may fall from Heaven,
Upon the wither'd _rose's_ bed,
And tears of fond regret be given,
To mourn the virtues of the dead:
Yet morning's sun the dews will dry,
And tears will fade from sorrow's eye,
Affection's pangs be lull'd to sleep,
And even love forget to _weep_.

The _tree_ may mourn its fallen _leaf_,
And autumn winds bewail its bloom,
And friends may heave the sigh of grief,
O'er those who sleep within the tomb:
Yet soon will spring renew the flowers,
And time will bring more smiling hours;
In friendship's heart all grief will die,
And even love forget to _sigh_.

The _sea_ may on the desert _shore_
Lament each _trace_ it bears away;
The lonely heart its grief may pour
O'er cherish'd friendship's fast decay:
Yet when all trace is lost and gone,
The waves dance bright and gaily on;
Thus soon affection's bonds are torn,
And even love forgets to _mourn_.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO ---- ----

We parted--not as lovers part--
No tear was in thine eye;
No mantling blush was on thy cheek,
Thy bosom heaved no sigh;
Yet there was something in thine air
That seemed to all unmoved,--
Something that told my bursting heart,
Dearest, that I was loved.

For, when I took thy gentle hand
To bid a short adieu,
Methought within my trembling clasp,
That white hand trembled too;
And when too, from my faltering tongue
The parting accents fell,
Thou didst not, dearest--can it be
Thou couldst not say farewell!

Forgive, if I have boldly erred--
If fancy 'twere alone,
That check'd thy voice, and lent thy hand
The tremors of my own.
Forgive, forgive the daring thought--
Forgive the hopes--the love--
That bids me seek thee soon again,
My bliss or wo to prove.

T. H. T.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

WHAT I LOVE.

I love to stray at early morn,
'Mid flowers along the verdant dale,
Inhale the fragrance of the thorn,
And hear the Dove's low plaintive wail.

I love within some forest deep,
At sultry noon reclined to lie,
And watch the fleecy clouds that creep,
With quiet pace along the sky.

I love at quiet eve to go,
Far from the noisy crowd, and dream
Of all the glorious hopes which throw
Their sunshine o'er life's gloomy stream.

But more than all, at silent night,
I love with one fair form to rove,
Beneath the pale moon's pensive light,
And whisper burning words of love.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO ---- ----

Let not your heart be troubled.--_John_ 14: 1.

Let Ocean swell with angry spite,
And yawn and lash the heedless shore;
And billows rage with mount'nous height,
As if they'd be at peace no more.
Let storm 'gainst storm their fury hurl,
And loudly roar with fearful might,
Till sea and land--yea, all the world--
May seem to grope in trouble's night.

But let _thy heart_ thy Saviour know,
Whose word once calmed the troubled deep,
Who spake to winds that dared to blow,
And _hushed_ them in the lap of sleep.
Tis He can quell each rising sigh,
And calm thy heart from cruel fears,
As when the storms in silence lie,
And not a wave the Ocean mars.

SIWEL.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

AN ITALIAN EXTRAVAGANZA.

Addressed to a beautiful lady.

Se tutti gli alberi del mondo
Fossero penne--
Il cielo fosse carta,
Il mare, inchiostro--
Non basterebbero a descrivere
La minima parte della vostra perfexione!

AN ATTEMPT AT TRANSLATION.

Could we the sky's unbounded range,
To paper all convert--
And had we power, miraculous, to change,
To _pens_, the _trees_,
To _ink_, the _seas_--
These would not all suffice to paint, in part,
The rich perfections of thy mind and heart--
Thy _graces_--thy _desert_!

ELLA.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

WHERE IS MY HEART?

BY ALEX. LACEY BEARD.

Where is my heart?
Its place of rest is not within this aching breast;--
Where does it dwell?
It is not in the glittering hall,
Where sunbright glances gaily fall
'Neath pleasure's spell.

Where is my heart?
Not in the crowd 'mid mirth and wine and revel loud;--
It is not there.
Nor is it where the summer's sky
Gives birth to flowers of brightest dye
And balmy air.

Where is my heart?
Upon the sea, where dwell the joyous and the free,
It has not gone.
My withered heart, it has not flown
Where love or hope or joy is known,
Or pleasures dawn.

Where is my heart?
To the cold grave, where yew and cypress darkly wave,
My heart has fled.
Yes, where the form it worshipped sleeps,
My blighted heart its vigil keeps,
Beside the dead.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

INVOCATION.

Come my love--O! come with me,
We will wander wild and free,--
Where the pale moon sheds her light,
And the dew-drops glisten bright;--
Where is heard the gurgling flow
Of the streamlet, we will go,
And our joyous feet shall tread,
Near the humble violets bed.
We will breathe the rich perfume,
Born of fragrant flowers in bloom;
All that's sweet and all that's fair,
From green earth or scented air,
Nature brings in vesture gay,
Laughing strews around our way.

We will seek the shady grove,
Through its mazes we will rove,
Sit upon the moss-grown seat,
And our youthful vows repeat.
Years have passed since we were there,
Still thy cheeks are fresh and fair,
Not a single care-worn line,
Mars that lovely brow of thine.
Many gay and gladsome hours,
We have spent in sunny bowers;
Not one cloud of care or strife,
E'er has dimmed our path thro' life,--
And our pilgrimage doth seem
As one long and happy dream.

Come my love the Moon's on high,
Sailing o'er the summer sky,
And the stars are twinkling through
Boundless fields of azure-blue--
Faintly from the leafy trees,
Sighs the balmy southern breeze.
Down the valley we will stray,
Where the night-flowers scent the way;
Arm in arm we'll wander o'er
Many a scene beloved of yore;
Tell the oft repeated tale,
By the fountain in the vale,--
Talk of deep, confiding love,
And of hearts that never rove.

ALEX. LACEY BEARD.

_Aldie, Va._

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

AUTUMN.

Come to the forests, while the leaves are falling
In rustling showers from every yielding bough--
Seek the wild haunts, where, save some lone bird calling
Its mate departed, all is silence now.

Leave the bright hearth, where love and peace are smiling,
To dream awhile 'midst Autumn's falling leaves,
To watch her power the Summer's charms despoiling
As time of early joys the heart bereaves.

There, as the year's bright glories fade around thee
Bring home the lesson to thy saddened heart;
Muse on the loves and friendships that have bound thee,
Which thou hast seen like autumn leaves depart.

Or if the Past yield no sad recollection,
Upon the Future let thy thoughts be cast;
Nor check the current of the sad reflection
That whispers, human life is fleeting fast.

Then bow to Him, in meek and low contrition,
Whose Wisdom, full of Mercy, doth ordain
To man a second spring in realms elysian,
Where the bright hues of Summer ever reign.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

NAPOLEON.

Aye! there he lies,--the mighty one!
Death's hand is on him now;
And fearfully he puts his seal
Upon that haughty brow.

What boots it that his own proud name
In foreign lands has rung?
That orators his fame have spoke,
That bards his deeds have sung?

What boots it that the hills of Spain
Shook 'neath his lordly tread--
That with the blood of her best sons,
Her vallies' streams ran red?

That over Moscow's battlements,
His flag-folds he shook out--
That e'en the lofty pyramids
Rang with his charging shout?

He who subdu'd so many lands,
Must now from England crave
(Although she is his deadliest foe)
What man last wants--a grave!

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MR. WHITE,--You have published at page 199 of your January number, four outlandish-looking lines, with a hope that some one of your numerous readers may not only be able to inform your correspondent who furnished them, in what language they are written, but let him still further into the secret by giving their meaning. Happening to know a little of the Gaelic, I have no hesitation in saying that that is the tongue in which they are written; and further, I think I have succeeded, after a good deal of trouble, in discovering to a certainty that they are a translation of the first stanza of Sappho's celebrated Ode addressed "_To the Beloved Pair_," and commented upon at some length by Longinus, in the tenth section of his De Sublimitate. The stanza in question runs thus:

[For want of proper type we cannot give it in the Greek.--_Ed._]

Videtur mihi ille æqualis Diis
Esse Vir, qui oppositus tibi
Sedet, et prope te dulce loquentem audit
Et rides amabiliter.

Blest as the immortal Gods is he
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee all the while
Softly speak and sweetly smile.

An interesting critique upon the Ode, with the whole of Ambrose Philips' spirited translation of it, is to be met with in the two hundred and twenty-ninth number of the Spectator. Yours, &c.

UDOCH.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE FINE ARTS.

No. II.

----If the painter saw
Naught but the prose of things, and dared but draw
The literal, aged, uninspiring truth,
And saw not nature in her winged youth
Her rainbow aspect, when she stands array'd
In floods of sunshine and in nights of shade,
What would he gain?--_Barry Cornwall_.

In my last number, I undertook to show, that "uncultivated taste, is incapable of estimating excellence in art" and that, "the beautiful in nature, like philosophy and science, can only be comprehended by those who study it profoundly and observe it habitually." But those who think nature an unveiled beauty to be gazed upon by every wanton eye, or that the arts aspire no higher than the "prose of things;" those who are resolved to admire what they like, rather than learn to like that which is admirable, may spare themselves the trouble of reading this article,--as my object is, to instruct the teachable, to ramble with the lover of nature amidst the shades of rural life, and converse with the amateur of art, about all that is excellent in ancient or modern works.

Before we can perceive what is beautiful in art, we must comprehend what is beautiful in nature; and without entering into the abstruse question of _beauty_, which has so much divided the erudite in all ages, we may say, that every thing from the hand of the Creator is beautiful in its _proper place_: and it is precisely this, that is beautiful in art. But to know the place where beauteous nature lurks, and to trace the harmony and fitness of every object to the part it supplies in the picturesque of scenery, requires a mind

"----by nature's charms impress'd,
An ardor ever burning in the breast,
A zeal for truth, a power of thought intense;
A fancy, flowering on the stems of sense;
A mem'ry as the grave retentive, vast
That holds to rise again, the imprison'd past."

Beauty is not confined to the waving line of Hogarth, or to objects smooth and soft, as Mr. Burke thought, but is multiform in nature, and therefore admits of a diversity of tastes; yet it is not an arbitrary principle subject to the fancy of every individual, but like harmony in music, it vibrates on the imagination and affections of a cultivated mind, as doth the octave in a well tuned instrument;--the tutored ear perceives the slightest discordance in sounds, and the cultivated eye detects with equal facility the want of harmony in art or nature. It has been said "that the peasant youth, would require more red in the cheek of his beauty, than would be agreeable to a man of cultivated taste," and the inference was, "that the delicate is more beautiful than the florid," but in fact, they are each beautiful in their _place_. In rustic life, amidst the scenes of the vintage, in the hay field, or milking the cow--how beauteous is the flush and healthful bloom of the cottage maiden! The ruby lip and liquid laughing eye bespeak the joyous heart, pleased with its vocation. Here, the delicate and courtly dame of polished life would appear unequal to the task; would be incongruous to the scene, and as much out of place as epic verse in pastoral poetry;--yet in her proper sphere

"----those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet
Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul,
Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd
Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart,"

she moves the attractive star of cultivated taste.

The choice of these subjects, constitutes the difference between the Dutch and the Italian schools of art. The former painted pastoral scenery with a fidelity incomparably superior to the Italians, yet greatly inferior in the higher excellencies of art. They are justly admired for their attention to detail, to exact finish, and all the results of "mere mechanic pains," but are void of classical taste, of moral instruction, and the poetry of the imagination, that highest effort of genius. Their works may therefore be beautiful, but never sublime, and their attempts at historic painting degrade it to something worse than caricature. I remember to have seen in the Louvre, a little painting of this school, designed for "Peter denying his Lord in Pilate's house." The interior was a _Holland kitchen_; boors _were smoking_ before a _chimney_ place, or _playing at cards_ on a tub reversed; a coarse looking woman held Peter by his collar, and chanticleer sat perched on a beam of the house. The costume and furniture were equally out of keeping, but executed with the most harmonious tone and finest touch of the pencil. Now the same subject in the schools of Italy would represent a hall becoming the governor of Judea, soldiers in Roman costume would be grouped around an antique vase of embers, placed upon a tripod, and Peter would quail under the pert recognition of a beautiful damsel; the grey dawn would appear through the intercolumniations of the portico, and the warning clarion of the cock would be expressed on the brow of the conscience-stricken Apostle.

This may not be considered a fair comparison, but rather the antithesis of the two schools. What then shall we take as the highest effort of Dutch genius? The Bull of Paul Potter![1] As well might we compare a wax figure of Tecumseh with the Apollo Belvidere, or the Sleeping Beauty with the Venus de Medicis. But, if indeed, it be the highest effort of genius to produce an _exact representation_ of things, the modeller in wax, is superior to the sculptor in marble, and the Bull at the Hague, to the Transfiguration in the Vatican. As no one of any pretension to taste will ever assent to this conclusion, I must again insist, that art aspires to a higher attainment than the mere portraiture of nature, and claims poetic honors; it is the poetry of form and color: it selects the agreeable from the discordant parts of the great prototype--combines and disposes them--and without changing the features, elevates and ennobles them; it seizes upon incidental effects to cast a shadow over the asperities of objects, and throws a broad and brilliant light on the more beautiful parts. When Dominichino was asked what obscured a part of his picture, "_una neblia si passa_," was his reply; and by thus imagining a passing cloud, he was enabled to preserve that breadth of light and shade so remarkable in the English school at present. The Italians however, did not often seek after _effect_; they did not address themselves so much to the eye, as to the judgment; and their distinguishing excellence is _correctness_ of _design_ and _dignity of character_. It was this that acquired for them the praise of a "grand gusto," or sublimity of style, superior to all other artists.

[Footnote 1: This is esteemed the greatest of the Dutch school.]

G. C.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

ETYMOLOGY.

----The inventor of a new word must never flatter himself that he has secured the public adoption, for he must lie in the grave before he can enter the Dictionary.--_D'Israeli_.