Violets in the Springtide gathered,
To the child-heart prest,
Treasured in the breast
With a tender wistful joy,
In their fading, fragrant yet:—
A tearful sweet regret
Of the early time.
II.
Glowing, wayward crimson roses,
Shedding perfume rare
O’er the summer air,
With a canker at the heart
And a stem where thorns are set:—
O bitter-sweet regret
Of the golden prime!
III.
Snowflakes falling through the darkness,
Hiding out of sight
Graves of past delight,
Till the folded whiteness mocks
Watching faces, wan and wet:—
O mournful-sweet regret
Of the wintry time.
REALITIES.
I AM informed by “Pen and Pencil,” with a certain harsh inexorableness of tone, that something I must produce this evening, or—incur a sentence too dreadful to be contemplated, no less than that of ostracism (perhaps ostracism for incapacity should be spelt asstracism).
Well, what are the words? Realities and drifting. Very good; then I’ll take both, for the most characteristic element that I have noted of realities is that they are constantly drifting.
Wishing to start from an undoubted basis, I asked a friend, before sitting down to write, what exactly he understood by realities, and he replied, with the air of a philosopher, “whatever man, through the medium of his senses, can surely realize.” The conclusion I draw is, that there is some inextricable connection between realities and real lies. In which I am confirmed by Johnson, who traces the derivation of the word reality as from real.
Sir John Lubbock, in his “Origin of Civilization,” under the heading of “Savage Tendency to Deification,” states as a fact that “The king of the Koussa Kaffirs, having broken off a piece of a stranded anchor, died soon afterwards, upon which all the Kaffirs looked upon the anchor as alive, and saluted it respectfully whenever they passed near it.” At a glance it occurred to me, this is a reality well worthy of being brought under the notice of “Pen and Pencil.” Will it not furnish, thought I, material for their philosophers, and mirth for their humorists, and surely an excellent subject for their artists? But is it true? Ay, that must be my first discovery. Who shall hope to palm off doubtful realities upon “Pen and Pencil,” without deservedly drifting to disgrace?