MY FOREFATHERS.
———
BY J. HUNT, JR.
———
When soft falls the moonlight, and tranquil the hour,
Which holds by a spell the dear scenes of the Past,
How touchingly tender that mystical power
Which throws o’er existence its love to the last.
On the wings of Remembrance, forgetting, forgot
Are the dreams of the Present, as onward we fly,
To place our affections on that hallowed spot
Where the bones of our forefathers mouldering lie.
Deep, pure, in the bosom’s bright innermost shrine,
Are treasured the loves we inherit in Youth;
E’en Age, with its weakness, serves but to refine
Our early impressions of Virtue and Truth.
Those silent Instructors—God grant them a Rest
In mansions prepared for the holy in heart—
For oft do they come from the Land of the Blest,
And to us their kindly monitions impart.
CLEOPATRA.
———
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,
TRANSLATOR OF
THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.
———
Deliberatâ morte ferveior
Lævis liburnis scilicet invideus
Prevata deduci superbo,
Non humilis mulier, triumpho.
Horace, Lib. I. Ode 37.
Away! away! I would not live,
Proud arbiter of life and death,
Although the proffered boon of breath,
Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give,
Were Immortality.
Though all, that poets love to dream,
Of bright and beautiful were blent
To flow in one delicious stream,
Till time itself were spent;
Though glories, such as never met
In mortal monarch’s coronet,
Were poured in one unclouded blaze
On Cleopatra’s deathless days,
I would not bear the wretched strife,
The feverish agony of life,
The little aims, the ends yet less,
The hopes bud-blighted era they bloom,
The joys that end in bitterness,
The race that rests but in the tomb,
These, these, not death, are misery.
Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure,
Of empire, or renown, or treasure,
Of friendship’s faith or love’s devotion—
Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean—
For I have proved them all.
Away! If there be ought to bless
In rapture’s goblet, I have drained
That draught misnamed of happiness,
Till not a lurking drop remained
Of honey-mantled gall.
Oh! who would live, that once hath seen
The Lamia Pleasure’s mask removed;
That once hath learned how false the sheen
Of all he erst so madly loved?
And I have seen, have learned, the whole;
Till, for the passions fierce and wild
That torrent-like defied control,
A wretched apathy of soul,
Exhausted rapture’s gloomy child,
Hath crept into my very blood,
Chilling the tides that wont to flow
Like lava in their scorching flood—
An apathy more dull than care,
More sad than pain, more still than wo—
Twin sister to despair.
And thinkest thou I would stoop to live
On mercy such as Rome might give—
Or what is Rome, and what am I,
That I should bend a servile knee,
The free-born daughter of the free,
To her, whose victor lords have thrown
Their sceptre-swords before my throne,
And lost their empires at my frown?
Or deemest thou, impotent and base,
That I, of eldest earthly race,
Will thread in slow procession pace
Rome’s proud triumphal way—
A crownless queen, a shameless slave,
Beside thy golden chariot’s nave,
With fettered heads supine to crave
Plebeian pity—Roman ruth—
And with unroyal tears, forsooth!
“To make a Roman Holyday?”
An emperor thou! and I—no more!
My foot is on life’s latest shore.
Away! even now I die.
I feel it coursing through my veins,
The peace that soon shall still my pains,
And calm my ceaseless wo.
Away, proud chief! I would not yield
My empire for the conquered world
O’er which thine eagle wing is furled—
My empire in the grave.
Hades shall rise my steps to greet,
Ancestral kings my advent meet,
Sesostris, of the man-drawn car,
And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war,
Amenophis, of giant frame,
And Tathrak, of immortal name.
The mighty Ptolemies shall rise
With greeting in their glorious eyes,
And cry from lips no longer dumb—
“Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come
Right royally thy feres among.
Our thousand thrones have tarried long,
Till thou shouldst mount thine own.
Last, loveliest, frailest of our line,
By this immortal death of thine
Thou hast outdared all daring—thou
Art first among us. Lo! we bow—
We kneel—before thee! Sister queen,
The end of fortune here is seen,
Ascend thy fated throne.”
And now my woman-heart is steeled;
Call forth the bravest of the brave,
Your reapers of the crimson field,
To whom the battle-cry is breath,
To look upon a woman’s death.
I have outlived my love, my power,
My country’s freedom, people’s name,
My flush of youth, my beauty’s flower,
But not, oh not! my thirst of fame.
The Pyramids before me lie,
Piercing the deep Egyptian sky,
Memorials of the nameless dead,
To build whose glory thousands bled—
And I, the latest of their race,
A captive in their dwelling place,
Die, yet survive them all.
I tell thee, when no trophies shine
Upon the proud Capitoline,
When Julius’ fame is all forgot,
Even where his honored relics rot,
Ages shall sing my fall.
Proud Roman, thou hast won. But I,
More gladly than thou winnest, die.
Away! when crowns were on my brow,
And nations did my rising greet,
And Cæsar groveled at my feet,
I lived not—never lived till now.
REMINISCENCE.
Not every man, I believe, takes the trouble to look back occasionally to his very earliest recollections, recalling what he may, with a view to learn how much of his character was formed by the trivial incidents of his spring-time, how much, and what, is of later origin. It would surprise one to see accurately the proportion of his habit of thought, his sensibility, his ideas of right and wrong, his reverence and his affections, how much of the underlying sympathies and poetry of his nature is associated with this early period.
Some book I was reading, or some friend I was talking with the other day, suggested the matter and left me in a revery of reminiscence.
There came back to me the memory of pleasant dreams which I was perplexed to divorce from dream-like reality, of presents and promises, of nursery tales and melodies, of first disappointments, punishments, and altercations, of all the scenery between babyhood and boyhood, and of the constant wonder amid which my mind wrought its first essays.
The quiet village street between my father’s house and place of business, was the only one I was in the custom of seeing, and at such times generally in charge of an attendant, unless, with soiled face and apron full of toys, I adventured alone to run the hazard of the occasional carriages, and finally to be found asleep beside the fence and carried home to my anxious mother. When taken to another street, I seemed to pass to another realm. I roamed admiringly through the terra incognita; “the Bank,” with its brick walls and slated roof, I believed the castle of Giant Despair; the huge, white, fast-closed meeting-house seemed like a desolate prison; the drivers shouted to their teams in unknown tongues; the confectioners’ windows recognized me with smiles of dazzling invitation, and sometimes a benign old man would pat my head and ask me how old I was. The bustle and business, the shops and sign-boards, all I saw and met were wondrous discoveries, identified with histories of men and things which I had spelled out from my story-books, or had heard my father read at morning-prayer.
Once or twice I wandered off there alone. But to turn the corner of Mill street was like rounding the Cape of Storms. Men in a hurry tumbled over me, rude boys threatened to swallow me, dirty-faced and ragged children of my own age eyed me in mute surprise, that almost equaled mine, or with precocious malignity and a jealousy that, I trust, did not ripen in them, plucked my clothes or my hair, or threw mud on me. And one boy—and a twinge of my sometime indignation now comes across me—I remember took away the ten-cent piece which hung on a red ribbon around my neck, and spent it for India crackers.
There was a stump fence opposite our house, where I sometimes stood for long together, looking at the great, spangling roots and dead fibres twisted in fantastic shapes, to conjure up dragons, hydras, and all grotesque and horrible creations. And the old swamp of rank, slim hemlocks, that I used to shudder at passing, with their gnarled, naked trunks, dry limbs and mossy beards. And the tangled, dark thickets and unpathed woods with cawing rooks; these all filled my mind with shapeless shadows of strange myths. How I remember the first time I clambered up the hill and looked out upon the miles of forest, like a great, green, waving ocean, while the winds strode over it, as then my heart knew its first unutterable grasping, and swelled with vague emotions that I could not fit with words.
My reverence was sincere for “big boys twelve years old,” of intrepid courage, who talked slightingly of the maternal authority, owned jack-knives, and emulated the “mouth-filling oaths” of larger men. I considered it great condescension in them to let me go with them after their cows, or when they made journeys to the pine groves after “sliver,” or the alder swamps for whistles. These were the delightful music of this period, and from such excursions I returned inflated with the consciousness of travel, my torn shoes and clayey garments telling how dear I paid for the instrument in whose possession I exulted as those whom Jubal taught erewhile. Particularly I remember my paragon of chivalry, and the Mr. Great Heart of my erudition—Bill Thayer. How I hung upon his words of daring; how I admired the gasconade with which he threatened the “Shad-Laners,” between whom and the urchins at our end of the town fierce feud existed; and how he fell from the pinnacle of my veneration when I saw him return vanquished and limping from a foray upon the Shad-Lane district.
There were two or three places about the premises which I used to love to steal into and ransack. One of these was the garret of the house. We went up through a trap-door into a space just under the roof, its bare rafters within my touch at the sides, and through which the chimneys passed. Here were white hats and faded or unfashionable garments. Here were boxes with bedding in them; barrels of feathers, both boxes and barrels of old pamphlets and newspapers—behind a chimney leaned an old “king’s arms” musket, which at length familiarity encouraged me to lay hands upon, and near it hung a cartridge-box, a knapsack, and a bayonet in its sheath. These told me all sorts of tales. I shuddered and dropped the steel when I thought of its purpose and what might have been its deeds, and of all the Bible stories of Goliath with his sword and spear, and Samson slaying Philistines. I inquired strangely of myself what war was, and the mystery of conflict and enmity enveloped my young thought, as it has many an older. To tumble those old books and papers was delightful. Sometimes a rare waif came to hand, a print or a toy-book, or something equally valuable.
Thus do I rummage the neglected attics of my own memory; thus trace the concretion of that character which I must bear forever, and the gradual development of my reason and volition in the sunlight of home and innocence.
“God help thee, Elia,” said Charles Lamb, “how art thou changed!”
B. B.
TO THE PICTURE OF MY CHILD.[[1]]
———
BY META LANDER.
———
Oh! is it not a dream, my child?
Is not my yearning heart beguiled?
And have not then my longings wild
Disturbed my wildered brain?
Ah, no! the wish that night and day
Hath never, never passed away—
It stirred me not in vain.
Full many a dreary month has passed,
Since o’er me swept that chilling blast,
When on thee, child, I looked my last.
Oh! since that mournful hour,
How have I longed for some charmed art
To trace thine image from my heart
With thy rich beauty’s dower.
I see thee once again, my dove!
Thy face all radiant with love—
Thy parted rose-bud lips—they move—
Oh! will they never speak?
I list in vain, my warbling bird;
There gushes forth no loving word,
And tears steal down my cheek.
Thou puttest up thy month to kiss;
My heart is thrilled with wildest bliss—
And yet—and yet—something I miss—
Thought’s ever changeful play—
The variant, passing moods of life—
Its lights and shades in pleasant strife—
A dash of Sorrow’s spray.
I look upon thy morning face,
Enrapt with its sun-lighted grace—
But seek in vain the faintest trace
Of some o’ershadowing cloud.
Alas! dear child! it is not thou—
Sunshine laughed never on thy brow
When grief did mine enshroud.
I miss thy winsome tenderness—
Thy music-tones, so charmed to bless;
I miss thy soothing, fond caress—
Thy sweet lips on mine own.
Carrie, my child! thou wouldst not be
Thus mute in my keen agony.
Again I am alone!
Then hide that face from out my sight!
Its radiant smile and eyes of light
But mock me in my sorrow’s night—
I cannot bid it stay.
Too like it is, sweet one, to thee—
And oh! I cannot bear to see
That smile’s unbroken ray.
But hush, my heart! And would I, then,
Make thee a child of grief again,
And shroud thy boundless, starry ken
In Time’s bewildering night.
Ah, no! I would rejoice that now
Ray ever round thy cherub-brow
Beams of celestial light.
Freed from the cankering cares of life,
Its tears—its bitterness—its strife—
From all the ills with which is rife
This changing, mortal coil;
Oh! sweet forever be thy rest
In that Elysium of the blest—
Fair Eden’s genial soil.
How could I bear that thou shouldst weep?
That the sad angel, Grief, should keep
The key to thy dear heart, or sweep
O’er thee her storm-clouds wild!
Oh! let me weep my tears alone!
Ne’er shall thy lips breathe sorrow’s moan,
My own, my angel child!
Then while my aching heart is riven,
I lift it weeping up to heaven,
Exulting that to thee is given
Eternal sunlight sweet!
A sunlight imaged on thy brow,
Which doth not mock my misery now,
As thy love-glance I meet.
I look into thy moonlit eyes,
Wherein thy soul clear mirrored lies,
As heaven looks through the star-lit skies,
The wintry night to bless.
In their deep light is earnest thought—
Visions with inward beauty fraught
No language can express.
I gaze upon thy forehead fair,
Shadowed by thy brown, clustering hair,
And joy that is not written there
One line of grief or pain.
From that clear brow there beams a smile,
Which sweetly utters all the while
Mother, we meet again!
Oh! blest forever be that art
Which hath reversed the words—to part,
And back unto my yearning heart
My darling child hath given.
Around that face, in radiance bright,
Circleth an aureole of light—
Adumbrant sweet of heaven.
| [1] | By the poet-painter, T. Buchanan Read. |
PAQUETA.
———
BY. H. DIDIMUS.
———