The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 6, December 1843

by Various

A BALLAD.

The old dry leaf came circling down,
On a windy autumn day,
The leaf all sere, and glazed, and brown,
On the bleak, bare hill to play;
And the sky put on its dreariest frown,
On that windy autumn day.
The heavy clouds went drifting by,
As gray as gray could be,
And not a speck of azure sky
Could the worn-out wanderer see;
That dark, stern man, low crouching by
The gnarlèd old oak tree.
But drearer grew the inky sky,
As daylight fled away,
And the winds came out, and hurried by,
As if they dared not stay;
Howling afar, and shrieking nigh,
Like spirits doomed, at play.
Then the old man shook his hoary head,
As on his staff leaned he,
For the sky above with blood seemed red,
And the earth a bloody sea;
And on him crimson drops were shed
From the boughs of the old oak tree.
Then the old man laughed a horrid laugh,
And shook his head again,
And clenching fast his crooked staff,
He turned him to the plain;
And the hills rung back his hellish laugh,
Mocking in wild disdain.
On, on he hurried, but still there rung
That laugh back from the hill;
While livid clouds above him hung,
And forms, his blood to chill
High o'er his head in mid-air swung,
And all were laughing still!
The old man noted not his way,
For his heart grew cold with fear;
And language never breathed by day
Was whispered in his ear:
But he hurried on, for he dared not stay,
Those awful words to hear!
He had trod that self-same path before,
Ere evening, when he fled
That mangled form bathed all in gore,
And to the hill-side sped;
And now at midnight met once more
The murderer and the dead!
Hushed were the winds, the clouds rolled back,
And on that lonely dell,
Revealing clear a blood-marked track,
The cold, pale starlight fell;
Ah! light the old man did not lack,
His handiwork to tell.
He had loved full long and well the youth,
So cold and quiet lain,
But what to him was love or truth?
For bitter words and vain
Had passed that day; and now, in sooth,
He ne'er might love again!
Morn came; and on one fearful bed,
In that dark, lonely wild,
With sere brown leaves of autumn spread,
The sun looked down and smiled;
But there they lay, stiff, cold, and dead—
The old man and his child!

[SKETCHES OF EAST-FLORIDA.]

NUMBER THREE.

SAINT AUGUSTINE: THE FIRST LOOK.

There are places, and there are passages, in life that keep bright in all weathers. They improve just in proportion as we have been able to contrast them with others, and change, if at all, only to come a little closer to the heart. I beg Tom Moore's pardon; he says something about 'growing brighter and brighter,' but he was thinking of a first kiss, or a last one, which perhaps hangs the most; or at the moment of that writing, he may have had a side-thought for the choice wine that smoothed his inspiration; all which are very charming, bewitching, and all-possessing to those who affect that sort of thing——But I was only thinking of St. Augustine, East-Florida. I may live to feel a stronger pull at the heart; but so far, St. Augustine is my particular passion. And what the deuce is the reason? It is not my home, for my first step 'forward and back' was in the face of a cold wind; high mountains on either side, and the only gap in them opened to the north-east. All winds north of the sun's track had to bend around and come in by that gap. Of course, every thing in that country has a north-east cast, and perhaps this is why I love the south, for it's hard loving any thing that is forced upon you with the pertinacity of a high wind. Men running after hats, women holding their skirts down, toppling chimneys, and faces tied up with the tooth-ache, prevail in all that region; wherefore it is, that those who cannot learn to love the place, for these privileges, will (if only to be obstinate) love so much the more the warm sun and air of the south, and the quiet, the repose, the opiate of the southern climate. But I do not mean the south-west. I was once crossing the Alleghanies, on my way to the south-west, when, fortunately, it occurred to me that the south-west was only a north-easterly continuation, and I immediately struck off at right angles, or rather left angles, and landed in Florida. That, Sir, is the exact spot, where the hat takes care of itself.

I am willing to believe that there are people who sleep with their feet uncovered, when the mercury at the bedside is below freezing, because I have seen it done, and not as a penance, but a privilege, to which the physician gave his consent; and I have myself, springing from a warm bed, stepped into a tub of water frozen so hard as to require my whole weight to crush a passage through the ice. I have done this often, but not for the pleasure of it. I have also been through a course of calido-frigido. I suppose you know all about that, Mr. Editor, calido-frigido? Well, I will tell you the order of proceeding.

Get into a warm bath, so exactly tempered to your delicacy of outline, that the change from the warm air of the room is insensible, and having stretched yourself, part your limbs, so as to produce a vacant space in the water, and into this space let your servant pour hot water which you will pump up and down with a long-handled brush. (I say you will pump, because if you don't, it will be too hot there.) The servant then brings boiling water and continues to pour, and you to pump, till your nerves begin to slacken, and insensibly to you, the pump works slower and slower, and at last it stops. You think you are still pumping, but that is a delusion. You are now in boiling water, but like the approach of vice, or any other insidious thing, the change has been so gradual, that you are not sensible of boiling; you only know that you are very comfortable, and that is sufficient. 'John, you may go,' but John knows better. Presently you begin to confess that you are a little happier than usual, and you speculate about Heaven; where it may be; how far off, and whether it is possible to make a nearer approach before breakfast; and then a faintness comes over you, a die-away-ative-ness, during which, you forgive your enemies, and bless those that persecute you; in short, you love every body and every thing beyond all conception, and you would clasp the whole universe with all its black spots of sin and damnation, for your heart is melting within you. All this time, John has an eye upon you; and just as you are going to sleep, with the infatuation of a man sucking exhilarating gas, he lifts you from the bath, and with a struggle, you are landed upon the floor. You stagger, and grasp at a chair to keep from falling, and the servant, dipping a pail in a tub of iced-water, gives you the whole contents at a single dash. First in front, then in the rear, then under each arm; after which he jumps upon the bath, and drops a pail-full on top of your head. Of course you try to knock him down with a chair, or poker; but at every attempt, splash! comes the bucket of water; and at the last throw, the servant disappears. Such, Sir, is the operation; and they say there is no living in this climate without going through it once or twice a week. If you have lived so long, Mr. Editor, without doing it, don't flatter yourself that you will live much longer. You may die suddenly, some cold morning, from not practising the calido-frigido. After the calido-frigido, you breakfast; and stepping into the street, any warm morning in January, the snow is melting from the hot sun, and the gutters are running; the effect of which is so sickening that every body is at a gasp. But you delight in it. In the evening of the same day you walk home to dinner in a snow-storm; streets glazed with ice, wind blowing a hurricane out of the north, and Fahrenheit, as the evening papers tell you, twenty degrees below zero; but to you, the weather is charming; only a fine bracing atmosphere. Why? You and your servant went through the same contrasting operation before breakfast. Sir, you are acclimated.

But we have forgotten St. Augustine. Perhaps there is something in getting there that renders the place so charming. The pleasantest route is by way of Savannah, which you may reach by rail road and steam-boat in three or four days, or in half a dozen by packet, with a rough-and-tumble, pleasant or unpleasant, as the wind happens, and a day or two additional in working up the river, a tide at a time. But there you are in another climate; and if it pleases the wind not to blow, you are quite indifferent whether the ship is a day or a week in getting up the river. How delightful to be without the necessity of overcoat and umbrella; and oh! how delicious the soft warm air after a week's passage at sea. Matter-of-fact here, is better than the most frolicsome imagination, especially that of being seven hundred miles from the region of ice and snow. There is nothing very enticing in the low, flat shores, or the interminable marshes, or the cormorants standing in a row on the beach; but over all, lying warm and lovingly, is the soft haze of the Indian summer, giving the country a look, not like spring, for that has life and effort, and the feeling of spring is bounding; nor like summer, with its scorching heat and long wearisome days; nor is it much like our northern autumn, for that has decay and death; the moaning wind and the rustling of dry leaves; the scarlet tea that gives the same nervous tremor under foot that green tea does to the head; but (if you won't laugh) it is something like what we imagine of the silent land; not dead, but sleeping. You will query whether to crack nuts and eat apples on deck, or go ashore and dream away the day, not in joy or sadness; no looking before or behind, and no speculation or argument upon the present; but merely its enjoyment. How is your blood, Sir? Bounding, with a steady motion like the falls of Niagara, or faint and intermittent? Have you suffered yourself to get feverish, merely for the fun of the thing, and now have to endure its tortures? Have you prayed for rest—rest, that one burden of your prayer? Then, Sir, take the first packet for the Savannah river, and shoot duck, from the quarter deck; or, if you choose to land on some of the islands, there are hawks there that will let you shoot at them a dozen times without winking! But perhaps you are a better marksman. I like any thing that is off-hand; but the wit of aiming hard at any thing, with the savage determination to kill, in this world of short-comings, great outlays and small returns, is too forced to suit my particular temperament. I don't see the point of it. The next best thing after shooting, is to go ashore on the west side. On the edge of the bluff, which looks down upon the rice-fields and the river, there is a small circular opening in the live-oaks; and standing about that circle, are fifty to a hundred blacks threshing out rice. There are old men and women, and young men and maidens, and all varieties of dress, from the coquettish and full, to the indifferent and half-dress of more fashionable circles; skirts tucked, skirts looped, and skirts gathered at the waist; some with a riband, and some with a scarf dangling; all with a head-dress of some kind, and all singing whatever happens to be the impromptu of the occasion. The boys question and the girls answer in a kind of chant, and this is repeated opera-fashion once or twice, when the young and old all join in a regular break-down, and then the flails come down all as one, and exact as the bow-tip of an orchestra-leader. The young girl sings with a roguish cast of the eye, and a smile on her lip, but the old men, and the old hags of women, how frantic they look as they burst into the chorus! Here and there is an old African, who hardly knows what it all means, but with a guess at the subject, he joins in with his native lingo, and his notes are as well timed and unearthly as the best of them. The song may affect to be lively and joyous, but it is not so. There is something so sad and wild about it, that I defy any one who knows the tones of the heart, to look on and listen without something of a shudder. And yet they appear to be happy, all but those old creatures who have the look of being past all care or hope. On the edge of the bank, in a sentry-box, a man stands, with rifle in hand, ready to pick off any bird that may come within his aim, and on the other side of the group is an old, blind, gray-headed negro sitting in the straw, with a dozen half-naked children frolicking about him, and rolling in the sunshine. Puffing away at his pipe that went out 'long, long ago,' he will sit there in the sun hour after hour, bare-headed and almost motionless, muttering to himself, or grasping eagerly at the young ones, as though he would tear them in pieces; but they know better, for just so have they seen an old cat play with her kittens. Occasionally he starts, as though he heard and understood the song of the threshers, and with a fling of his arms, as if there again at his old post, he breaks out with some old, forgotten ditty, and then crouches down again in the straw, motionless as before; and so the time goes by, till the children lead him away to his hut and his hominy.

In this lounging way a day or two passes pleasantly, during which the ship has drifted up to Savannah, where fifteen darkeys, of different sizes and novelties of wardrobe, stand ready, each with a hand raised to his hatless head, to take your luggage to Mr. Wiltberger's. Not less than fifteen will answer; for it needs two for a hat-box, three for a valise, and five for each trunk. I recommend this in preference to the more gentlemanlike way of having your baggage sent for; for a cart would have to be got up for that purpose, and a negro who could harness a horse in less than half a day, would be too smart to live at the South. With this ragged troop you clamber up the high bank, and after a good deal of fuss, find yourself in a pleasant room at the Pulaski House, and look out the open window to see what is going on; but the square and the streets are still and dreamy as midnight. Nothing living save the warm sunlight; but that seems so much a thing of life, that you put out your hand to see if it will bite, and, rather surprised that it don't, look about again for an object.

The shop doors are all open, and through one of them is discovered a man with a lathered face, the sunshine lying half way up his lap, a white barber holding his nose, and a small black one whisking about the room with a brush. Every little while the small barber goes out to the door-steps to pull at the ears of a dog that lies asleep on the side-walk, and then back again to brush with renewed vigor. It is not fly-time, but he is whisking for a picayune. And this is all that can be seen of Savannah during the impatient half-hour of the day. At the end of that time, a black head appears at your door and asks, 'Will massa please walk down to dinner?' which being repeated three times to make you fully understand the meaning, you follow the head to the first floor, and sit down to constituents from all parts of the land. Delicate preparations from the interior, the substantials from Charleston market, the luxuries of the Florida coast, and West-Indian fruits freshly-gathered, are all there, to help charm away the hour. Beside, there are pleasant faces and bright eyes about you, and not the slightest jar to disturb your digestion. Those who like to doze or dream over the last half hour, will find the low murmur of table-talk as lulling as a brook in a June night. After dinner you step into the street with renewed conviction that stomach and climate have more to do with one's religion than most people imagine. The wide street that opens to the south (every one knows how beautiful are the streets in Savannah) leads past a cemetery, where of course it is very still and solemn, but it is equally so in every other, save the one that skirts the river bank; and even there the cawing of the crows a mile distant over the river comes to the ear as distinctly as in the shut-up mountains of the Highlands. Fifty feet below are the outward-bound ships, stowing away their cotton for the East, and from their gloomy depths comes up the half-smothered, never-ending song of the negro slave. All day long you may hear the same monotonous, melancholy cry, a little exaggerated as the labor varies; and, with only at long intervals a louder quack from some bold crow venturing over, or the far-off scream of a boat coming down the river, there is nothing to prevent your taking a siesta, wherever the humor of the moment is disposed to be lazy.

The journey south from Savannah was formerly made in what is called the inland passage, between the Sea Islands and the main land. The boat that ran in those waters, some seven or eight years since, promising to reach Picolata as soon as the weather and tide would permit, was a small fussy affair, lying very low in the water, with no cabin under deck, but hatchways very convenient to fall through, and a power of engine, equal to—say five hundred cats. It also had about the same power of screaming, and was steered by a big black on the upper deck, with the old-fashioned tiller. Much of this inland channel is narrow and crooked, running for long distances through immense marshes, where the passage was alike solemn and slow. If the helmsman happened to look aside for a moment, it needed but a slight penchant either way for the boat to go ashore; but the motion was never so great as to send us very far inland, and by the help of setting-poles and reversed wheels, we were soon made to float again. But it would sometimes come to pass, that in working with the one desire of getting the boat off, the captain and his men forward and the big helmsman aft would not amalgamate in their operations, and the boat when launched would be heading the wrong way. In such cases, we had to run back to find a place wide enough to turn in, or go ashore again very carefully, and repeat the operation. As this occurred pretty often, and the captain always found some landing-place to rest over night, it was only after many days, and a die-away scream, as though the poor old thing was breathing its last, that the boat reached its destination. Now, the boats are intended to be sea-worthy, and when the weather is pleasant, the passage is made outside, running in between the islands occasionally to the landings on the coast, and stopping at St. Mary's the last night, so as to pass the bar at St. Augustine by daylight. The tide of those inland seas and rivers seems to be very sluggish; but a little incident occurred a few years since, showing the contrary, in no very contemptible manner. Half a dozen of us had taken passage for St. Augustine, and the third day out, just after we had passed the St. Johns, the wind suddenly freshened from the south, and the boat pitched about to such a degree, that we decided upon running back and making the harbor. The captain had never passed the bar, and the breakers were in one continued dash of foam for miles, presenting no passage to the eye; but a gentleman on board said he knew the way, and under his pilotage we floundered through; and avoiding a wreck that was rolling about near the scene of its disaster the day previous, we ran up to Pablo and fastened to a schooner that was secured to a dock; shortly after, a government steamer came in and made fast to us outside, so that the three vessels and the dock, which was quite long, extended some distance into the river. After a stroll of some hours on shore, prying into the bushes very carefully, for fear of Indians, we went back to supper, condoled with the ladies upon sea-sickness, discussed the probability of an Indian attack, and went to bed. The night soon fell, solemn and still; so still that the small talk of the pelicans over the river might have been heard distinctly; that is, if any one had been awake to listen; but some time between midnight and morning, there was a sudden shock, something like an earthquake, only more personal; after which a shouting and tramping, but no yells, as in that case it would have been an Indian attack. What could be the matter? We might have been struck with lightning, or, as any thing is possible to our apprehension, it might be that the boiler had burst, though the fire had gone out long ago; but then the engine would certainly have screamed at that; beside, in case of lightning, or steam, we should have smelt, or felt it, which we did not. All things considered, as there was no cry of fire, nor murder, we turned over in our berths, and went to sleep again. The next morning, going on deck, we found the boat anchored some two miles from shore; the government steamer still farther out on the west side; the schooner in another direction; the dock in pieces, hither and yon; and outside of all, dancing about in the breakers, was the wreck. Fine work, indeed, for Sunday morning! The old thing had gone up with the tide in the night, and getting a fair start, came down broadside on, and carried us all out to sea!

About nine o'clock, we fired up and ran down the coast, making St. Augustine early in the afternoon, to the great delight of the idlers who had marked our coming by the black line on the horizon, long before the boat was in sight. The coast of Florida above St. Augustine is not such as we should expect from the promised land; a smooth white beach with little hillocks of sand in the rear, having a stunted growth of scrub oak, with here and there a cabbage-tree, or palmetto, and in the spring a few large flowers of the Spanish-bayonet, looking in the distance like sentries with white feathers, posted on the verge of the sea.

St. Augustine, sheltered by an island in front, and a sea-wall running close along the town, presents only a long line of low, flat stone houses, with narrow sandy streets, a square in the centre with a church and cathedral, and at the upper end of the town, an old fort, looking as though it had been built in the time of Adam, and so, for that matter, looks the town. There is much, very much, that would be intolerable in any other latitude; but oh! beautiful, beautiful beyond all picturing, the climate! The first day you take to be the belle of the season; a little passée, and a little sad, you think, but for all that, very bewitching. Well, the next day rises and sets the same, with perhaps a brighter blush at parting; and after a fortnight of such, you feel an utter contempt for all the extras and extravaganzas of northern life. Your boxes of books are unopened, and so they remain all winter, with an increasing wonder that you ever cared for them, when the song, and the dance, and the real poetry of life can so thoroughly fill the heart. Nothing under heaven to do, (so you say in writing home,) and yet with fishing, and riding, sea-bathing and nine-pins, pic-nics and dances, and the half dozen 'sociables' of the day, not forgetting the one 'round the corner,' you will go to bed in the small hours, with some urgent fancy still ahead, which will be fresh for the morning; and, sure that the sun will rise to-morrow, and abide with you, you neither hurry your dreams nor your breakfast. The devotional hour, to be sure, is at sunrise; but the Catholic bells are ringing at all hours of the day, and a man would be indolent indeed, who could not make out some religion from these multiplied conveniences.

So passes the day, the week, the month, the winter; and with so much done, there are so many pleasant things undone, that the longer you tarry the greater will be the throng to put a finger on your lips at the last good-bye. Verily, those who love pleasant faces and warm hearts will love St. Augustine. But it is not the place for all. The young, the eager, and the ambitious should not go into that silent land; and especially to those who have that kind of nervous irritation which requires stimulants to allay, would the climate be frightful. Such persons would have the St. Vitus's dance. But the mentally-dyspeptic, and all those who have tired of crowds, and forced civilities; all those, in short, who in one way or another have 'had enough of it,' will find all true as above written.

Have you ever found yourself sitting up in bed after long illness, fever or delirium? You listen to the song of birds, and the thousand and one voices of the outside world, and wonder whether you are in the same old planet from which you retired long ago in sickness and disgust. You think back, and there is a confused memory of pain and trouble; of long nights in which you neither slept nor waked; of a kind hand that seemed ever vainly attempting to minister comfort about you, and of low tones sounding in your ear like voices in the dark: musing in this way, you sink back upon the pillow, with your face turned to the light, and after a little, begin to argue with yourself, very rationally as you think, whether this too is not a dream, only pleasanter than usual; and then you dispute whether you were just now sitting up in bed, and deciding on the whole that that too was a delusion, you fix your eyes upon the sunshine playing on the carpet, and sleep again. Half an hour afterward you wake to the touch of warm lips, the clasp of warm arms, and open your eyes to another's——and so forth.

Not unlike, in this quiet city of St. Augustine, is the feeling with which you thank God that you have escaped the fretting, restless fever of a northern life. As to the lips and arms, I say nothing; but oh! good-bye to the long faces, the sharp look of care and apprehension; the cold reply, the rush of the eager heartless throng; good-bye to all your cold things of the forty-second latitude! I look back upon the long line of a thousand miles, and say that your cold winds shall not reach me; your blustering northerners, and your blustering politics shall storm within their own dominions. Good-bye!