PART SECOND.
What is this life but a whirling tide of pleasure and pain—glowing with gladness, darkening with grief, leaping with rapture, eddying with tears, now kissing the smiling cliffs of hope, now dashing against the frowning crags of fear and then vanishing in the darkness! What would it all be worth to us unblessed by love and mercy and the milk of human kindness? What would it all be worth to us bereft of music, that noblest gift of the soul?
The spirit of music, like an archangel, presides over mankind and the visible creation. Her afflatus, divinely sweet, divinely powerful, is breathed on every heart and inspires every soul to some higher thought, some grander sentiment.
I heard a great master play on his wondrous violin. His bow quivered like the wing of a bird. In every quiver there was a melody, and every melody breathed a thought in language sweeter than was ever uttered by human tongue. I was conjured, I was mesmerized by his music. I thought I fell asleep under its power and was rapt into the realms of visions and dreams. The enchanted violin broke out in tumult, and in its music I thought I heard the rustle of a thousand joyous wings and the burst of song from a thousand joyous throats; mocking-birds and linnets thrilled the glad air with warblings; goldfinches, thrushes and bobolinks trilled their happiest tunes and the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. I heard the twitter of skimming swallows, the scattered coveys’ piping call. I heard the robin’s gay whistle, the cawing of crows, the scolding of blue-jays and the melancholy cooing of a dove. The swaying tree tops seemed vocal with bird song while he played, and the labyrinths of leafy shade echoed back the chorus.
There was a shifting of the bow, and I heard a flute play and a harp and a golden-mouthed cornet. I heard the mirthful babble of happy voices and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. Then I thought I caught glimpses of snowy arms, voluptuous forms and light, fantastic slippered feet all whirling in the mazes of the misty dance. The flying fingers now tripped upon the trembling strings like fairy feet dancing on the nodding violets, and the music glided into a still sweeter strain. The violin told a story of human life: Two lovers strayed among the elms and oaks and down by the river side where daffodils and pansies bend and smile to rippling waves, and there, under the bloom of incense-breathing bowers, the old, old story—so old and yet so new, conceived in heaven, first told in Eden, then handed down through all the ages,—was told over and over again. Ah! those downward drooping eyes, that mantling blush, that trembling hand in meek submission pressed! How well they told of love’s victory won and Paradise regained! And then he swung her in a grape-vine swing:
“Swinging in the grape-vine swing,
Laughing where the wild birds sing
I dream and sigh
For the days gone by,
Swinging in the grape-vine swing!”
But the violin laughed like a child and my dream changed again. I saw a cottage among the elms and oaks and a little curly head toddled at the door. He toddled under the trees, prattling to the birds and playing with the ripening apples that fell upon the ground. He toddled among the roses and plucked their leaves as he would have plucked an angel’s wing, strewing their glory upon the green grass at his feet. He chased the butterflies from flower to flower and shouted with glee as they eluded his grasp and sailed away on the summer air. Here I thought his childish fancy had built a Paradise and peopled it with dainty seraphim and made himself its Adam. He saw the sunlight of Eden glint on every leaf and beam in every petal. The flitting honey bee, the whirling June bug, the fluttering breeze, the silvery pulse beat of the dashing brook, sounded in his ears notes of its swelling music. The iris-winged humming bird darting like a sunbeam to kiss the pouting lips of the upturned flowers was to him the impersonation of its beauty. And I said, truly childhood is the nearest approach in this world to the Paradise of long ago. Then I saw him skulking like a Cupid in the shrubbery, his face downcast with guilt, his skirts bedraggled and soiled. He had waded the Atlantic ocean in the mud puddle, and stirred up the Mediterranean sea in the slop bucket. He had shipwrecked the young ducks, capsized the goslings, and drowned the kitten, which he imagined a whale. And I said, there is the old original Adam coming to the surface.
“Lawd bless my soul, jis look at dat chil’! Look at dat face and dem hands, all kivered wid mud and mulberry juice! You’s gwine to ketch it! Jis ’zactly like your fadder,—always gittin’ into some scrape or nudder—always breakin’ into some kind uv debilment! Gwine to brek into Congress some uv dese days, sho! Dey can’t keep you out’n it! Come along wid me dis instinct to de baf tub! I’se gwine to wash dat face uv yown an’ lucidate some uv dat dirt off’n dem han’s an’ dem clo’es, you triflin’ rascal, you!” and so saying she carried him away kicking and screaming like a young savage in open rebellion.
And I said, there is some more of the original Adam. Then I saw him come forth again, washed and dressed in spotless white like a young butterfly fresh from its chrysalis, and when he got a chance, I saw him slip on his tiptoes into the pantry, and there was the clink of glassware as though a mouse was playing there among the jam pots and preserves. There two little dimpled hands made trip after trip to a rose-colored mouth, bearing burdens of mingling sweets that dripped from cheek and chin and skirt and shoes, subduing the snowy white with the amber of the peach and the purple of the raspberry as he ate of the forbidden fruit. Then I saw him glide into the library and soon there was a crash and a thud in there which brought a frightened mother into the room only to find the young rascal catching his breath while streams of cold ink trickled down his drenched bosom. And as he wiped his inky face, which grew blacker with every wipe, the remainder of the ink was pouring from the bottle onto the carpet and making a map of darkest Africa. Then the rear of a small skirt went up over a curly head and the avenging slipper in lightning strokes kept time to the music in the air. And I said, there is Paradise lost! The sympathizing, half angry old nurse bore her weeping, sobbing charge to the nursery and bound up his broken heart, and soothed him to sleep with her old-time lullaby:
O, don’t you cry, little baby; don’t you cry no mo’,
For it hurts ole mammy’s feelin’s for to hear you weepin’ so!
Why do dey bring temptation to de little hands and feet?
What makes ’em ’buse de baby, kase de jam and ’zarves am sweet?
O, de sorrows, triberlations, dat de joys of mortals break;
O, it’s heaven when we slumber, it’s trouble when we wake!
O, go to sleep, my darlin’, now close dem little eyes
And dream uv de shinin’ angels an’ de blessed Paradise;
O, dream uv de blood red roses and de birds on snowy wing,
O, dream uv de fallin’ waters and de nebber endin’ spring!
O de roses, O de rainbows! O de music’s gentle swell!
In de dreamland uv little children whar de blessed spirits dwell.
“Dar now, dar now, he’s gone! Bless its little heart! Dey treats it like a dog. Ole black mammy’s de best friend de chile’s got in de world!” And then she tucked him away in the Paradise of his childish slumbers.
[To be continued.]
SOUTHERN
PLATFORM
DEPARTMENT
Devoted to the interest
of
The Lyceum of The South.
