THE PINE-TREE.
———
BY CAROLINE MAY.
———
How dear to my heart and my memory
Is that old majestic evergreen tree!
It stands like the guardian of our cot
Time-honored friend! it shall ne’er be forgot,
For I’ve spent bright hours of glee,
And of quiet rest
More deeply blest,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
A rose-tree lived ’neath this agéd one,
Concealed from the noontide rays of the sun,
And ’twas sweet to mark in his resting hour,
(The only time he could look on the flower,)
How he smiled on her lovingly,
Till her rosy hue
Still rosier grew,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
Up by its trunk I would stand and lean,
Gazing with rapture upon the soft scene,
(On the feathery-outlined isle that lay
Where the river and stream together play,)
For beauty and love seemed to be
Everywhere felt,
The spirits that dwelt
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And, laid at its feet, I oft tried to read,
But the breeze would play with my book, and plead
For my heart and ear, in a witching song
Which I could not resist, for ’twas never long,
And plaintive as plaintive could be;
So I listened, and sighed
When the sweet breeze died
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And there in the quiet I fain would rhyme,
And weave loving lays with a measured chime,
But my thoughts, as wild as the birds, would fly
From the beautiful earth to the beautiful sky
Unfixed, unfettered, and free,
In a dreamy joy
Which naught could destroy,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
I loved to be up on a merry May morn,
When musical sounds and bright clouds were born,
And join in the earliest chant of praise,
Which all that had life seemed glad to raise,
The clear carols of gushing glee
The birds would make,
Just at day-break,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
And I loved in the summer twilight dim,
To sing with my sister some holy hymn,
And watch the green shades as they deeper grew,
And a strange mysterious darkness threw;
And most dearly I loved to see
O’er the wavy grass
The night-wind pass,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
Then since I have loved both in shape and shine
Under its sheltering boughs to recline—
Since what I once love I love to the end,
Be it tree, bird or flower—book, music or friend—
When death cometh I fain would be
There laid to sleep,
Lowly and deep,
In the shade of the dark pine-tree.
GEMS FROM LATE READINGS.
BY MRS. GORE.
But few of those who examine the reminiscences of their own hearts, and the incidents of their own lives, will deny that scarcely a given moment of their youth admitted of swearing to a solitary object of attachment. Till the heart throbs with the master-passion which impels a man to seek a partner for life by an impulse as overmastering as that which prompts an heroic action, or generates a chef-d’œuvre, it is pretty sure to experience a succession of feverish spasms; the commencement of one of which is as hazily interblended with the conclusion of another, as with nocturnal darkness the glimmerings of a summer-day dawn, when “night is at odds with morning, which is which.”
BY J. WESTLAND MARSTON, ESQ.
LOVE’S VICTORY.
I was a bard—she listened to my lay
As there her questioning soul had answer found.
She stooped to pluck my wild-flowers on the way,
Fancies that teem from the prolific ground
In the heart’s solstice—in whose inner light
Through all the pleasant paths of earth we wound.
And sometimes through her music of delight
An undersound of sadness softly stole,
And floated ’twixt the fountain pure and bright
Of her deep joy and heaven—a cloud of dole
That almost seemed relief—for scarce below
The noon of rapture is allowed the soul.
Hence even in life’s summer sunbeams throw
Shades on the very path they glorify—
And ecstasy would perish but for wo.
I asked not if she loved me; for reply
To every doubt, I read her glance and tone,
And made them oracles of destiny.
They whispered love—I deemed that love my own:
Nor guessed that in the mirror of my song
She saw an idol face to me unknown.
Nor that the chords of my devotion, strung
To feeling’s highest tension for her sake,
And on whose notes with breathless hush she hung,
Were prized for memories which they did awake—
To her an echo what to me was life.
O God, the strings that quivered would not break!—
He came! Can I forget that inward strife
Which made me calm?—The mightiest grief is dumb.
They met:—he clasped her—called her plighted wife!—
A frost was in that moment to benumb
My very sense of anguish—and I smiled.
Freed by despair—what after-pang could come?
She was his own—both Love’s. They roamed the wild,
And knew not it was bleak:—the wooded dell
They called not fair, for love had reconciled
And blent all difference. From their spirits fell
A glow that bathed creation. Where they stood
Light was their shadow:—bliss unspeakable
Became at once their being and its food:—
The world they did inhabit was themselves;
And they were Love’s—and all their world was good!
As o’er a barren reef that sea-ward shelves
Waves dash, their gladness sported o’er my fate;
But in the abyss no line of pity delves
Lay the wrecked hope which naught could re-create—
At least I deemed so then: and yet we parted
With blessings, and her eyes were dim with tears.
She told me I had been her friend true-hearted—
The friend she would recall in other years.
These came; and when the storm was spent there darted
Over my sombre deep as from the spheres,
The memory of those words, at first revealing
More present gloom from all the past endears.
In time, their light and beauty o’er me stealing,
Softened despair to grief; and in its dew
My withered heart put forth one bud of feeling.
I dared not hope its life:—fierce tempests blew
From the cold east of Youth in day’s decline,
And shook its tender petals:—still it grew!
It grew and blossomed to a hope divine:—
I might be like her in her nature’s worth;
I might live for her though she was not mine!
From her each better impulse should take birth—
For her my song should raise and cheer mankind,
And I would sow her influence through the earth.
And, as by great attraction are combined
All kindred essences—as waters blend
With waters, flame with flame—and though confined
By bounds material, each to other tend—
Released from the division of our clay
Again might be united friend with friend.
For then, immortal and beyond decay,
The store of love partaken richer grows:
The torch that burned for one—for all, a day!
Oh, ye whose hearts in happy love repose,
Your thankful blessings at its footstool lay,
Since faith and peace can issue from its woes!
BY MISS MARIA J. McINTOSH.
With most of us it is only when we are nigh unto death that we learn what it is to live. We talk of acquainting ourselves with the lives of eminent persons, when we read a record of the events through which they have passed; we call our own lives desolate, because events of a painful nature have befallen us; but these are not our life. Life—the principle which makes us sentient, intelligent, active beings; the principle by which we hold converse with the living spirit of beauty and goodness, by which—if we pervert not its heavenly aims—assimilating with that spirit incarnated in the adorable Saviour, we rise from the finite to the infinite, and, resting on the bosom of love, find blessedness when that which made our happiness has vanished from our grasp; this life no events can make desolate. Sorrow may darken our sky, but the loving, trusting child of God rises above its gloomy cloud, and there shines his life supremely bright.
Who shall penetrate into the spirit’s mysterious intercourse with Him, who inhabiting eternity, yet dwelleth with the humble and contrite heart? Reverently and humbly to illustrate this precious truth, to show that in His presence earth’s discords are harmonized, and peace and strength arise where all was disorder and weakness may be permitted—but there let us pause, lest we be as the fools who “rush in where angels dare not tread.”
BY G. A BERTIE.
STANZAS.
I am not what I was—the time’s gone by
When, bright and cloudless as the summer’s sky,
My day of life began;
When all was music to my raptured ear,
And, bounding onward, without grief or fear,
Eager my course I ran.
I am not what I was—the sense of youth,
And hope, and joyous feeling, and the truth
Of earth, hath passed away;
The heart that once throbbed high with health and life
Beats faint and wearied with the ceaseless strife
Which there has held its sway.
BY G. P. R. JAMES.
Long experience of any thing existing, has shown mankind all its benefits and all its evils; but beside this, there is an indirect advantage in retaining that which is, namely, that it has adjusted itself to the things by which it is surrounded; and there is an indirect disadvantage in change, namely, that one can never calculate what derangements of all relations may take place, by any great alteration of even one small part in the complicated machine of any state or society.
It is difficult to find words to express the infinite; and although it may seem a pleonasmatic expression, I must say that all the varieties of human character have infinite varieties within themselves. However, the easily impressible character, that which suffers opinions, feelings, thoughts, purposes, actions to be continually altered by the changing circumstances around—the chameleon character, if I may so call it—is, perhaps, the most dangerous to itself, and to those it affects, of any that I know. It goes beyond the chameleon, indeed. The reptile only reflects the colors of objects near, retaining its own form and nature. The impressible character, on the contrary, is changed in every line, as well as in every hue, by that with which it comes in contact. Certain attributes it certainly does retain. The substance is the same, but the color and the form are always varying. In the substance lies the permanence and the identity. All else is moulded and painted by circumstance.
The pure, ingenuous, open-hearted candor of early years, would be a better friend to man, if he did but cling to it with affection, through life, than all the worldly friends we gain in passing through existence—shrewdness, caution, prudence, selfishness, wit, or even wisdom.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE.”
A high, pure earthly love is powerful above all other earthly principles for overcoming evils; but even in its highest purity, it has not sufficient power to lead to fall perfection. It is from Heaven, but it is not Heaven itself; it is but as an angel messenger, and fails in its office if it does not lead on to love, perfect, unchangeable, divine.
BY MRS. GREY.
Is there a woman to be found who is not insensibly flattered, even against her better reason, by devoted incense to her charms?—Very few, we fear!—poor human nature is full of vanity. A woman will indignantly spurn such love—her sense of right will make her shrink with shuddering from such feelings; still there is too often a latent, lingering spark of gratified self-love hovering about the heart; although the spark is prevented from spreading into a flame, by the preponderating influence of strong principle and purity of mind. It is, as we before said, human nature—and this same nature is miserably full of weakness and vanity.