Through yonder meadow comes the milk-maid’s song,
Clear, but not blithe, a melancholy chaunt,
With dying falls monotonous; for youth
Affects the dark and sad: Her ditty tells
Of captive lorn, or broken-hearted maid,
Left of her lover, but in dream thrice dreamt
Warned of his fate, when, with his fellow-crew
Of ghastly sailors on benighted seas
He clings to some black, wet, and slippery rock,
Soon to be washed away; what time their ship,
Driven on the whirlpool’s wheel, is sent below,
And ground upon the millstones of the sea.
The song has ceased. Up the dim elmy lane
The damsel comes. But at its leafy mouth
The one dear lad has watched her entering in,
And with her now comes softly side by side.
But oft he plucks a leaf from off the hedge,
For lack of words, in bashful love sincere;
Till, in his innocent freedom bolder grown,
He crops a dewy gowan from the path,
And greatly daring flings it at her cheek.
Close o’er the pair, along the green arcade,
Now hid, now seen against the evening sky,
The wavering, circling, sudden-wheeling bat
Plays little Cupid, blind enough for that,
And fitly fickle in his flights to be
The very Boy-god’s self. Where’er may lie
The power of arrows with the golden tips,
That silent lad is smit, nor less that girl
Is cleft of heart: Be this the token true:—
Next Sabbath morn, when o’er the pasture hills
Barefoot she comes to church, with Bible wrapped
In clean white napkin, and the sprig of mint
And southernwood laid duly in the leaves,
And down she sits beside the burn to wash
Her feet, and don her stockings and her shoes,
Before she come unto the House of Prayer,
With all her reverence of the Day, she’ll cast
(Forgive the simple thing!) her eye askance
Into the mirror of the glassy pool,
And give her ringlets the last taking touch,
For him who flung the gowan at her cheek
In that soft twilight of the elmy lane.
Pensive the setting Day, whether, as now
Cloudless it fades away, or far is seen,
In long and level parallels of light,
Purple and liquid yellow, barred with clouds,
Far in the twilight West, seen through some deep
Embrowned grove of venerable trees,
Whose pillared stems, apart, but regular,
Stand off against the sky: In such a grove,
At such an hour, permitted eyes might see
Angels, majestic Shapes, walking the earth,
Holding mild converse for the good of man.
Day melts into the West, another flake
Of sweet blue Time into the Eternal Past!
Dumfries, May 18, 1846.
CABRERA.
[Historia de la Guerra Ultima en Aragon y Valencia, escrita par D. F. Cabello, D. F. Santa Cruz, y D. R. M. Temprado. Madrid: 1846.]
On the twenty-seventh day of December 1806, at the collegiate town of Tortosa in Catalonia, Maria Griño, the wife of José Cabrera, an industrious and respectable mariner, gave birth to a son. Destined to the church, this child, from his earliest boyhood, was the petted favourite of his family. His parents looked to him as a staff and support for their declining years, his sisters as a protector; and none ventured to thwart his whims, or correct the failings of the young student. Thus abandoned to the dictates of a disposition naturally perverse, Ramon Cabrera led the life of a vagabond, rather than that of a scholar and of one destined to holy orders. Avoided by the more respectable of his classmates and townsmen, he fell amongst evil associates, and soon became notorious for precocity of vice. The reprimands of his superiors, the entreaties of his relatives, even punishment and seclusion, were inefficacious to reclaim him. Disliking books, the sole use he made of opportunities of study, was to imbibe the abominable and sanguinary maxims of the Inquisition. The taint of Carlism, widely spread amongst the clergy of the diocese of Tortosa, whose bishop, Saenz, was an influential and devoted member of the apostolical party, was speedily contracted by Cabrera. By character and propensities better fitted for an unscrupulous military partisan than for a minister of the gospel, for a devouring wolf than for a meek and humble shepherd of God’s flock, no sooner was the cry of insurrection raised in the kingdom of Arragon than he hastened to swell it with his voice. On the 15th of November 1833 he joined Colonel Carnicer, who had already planted on the ramparts of Morella the standard of Charles the Fifth.
Six years have elapsed since the termination of the civil war in Arragon and Valencia, and we should scarcely hope to interest English readers by raking up its details. In taking the volumes named at foot for the subject of an article, our intention is rather to give a correct notion of the character of a man who by one party has been extolled as a hero, by another stigmatized as a savage. A brief sketch of his career, and a few personal anecdotes, will afford the best means of deciding which of these epithets he may with most justice claim.
For the first sixteen months of the war, Cabrera acted as subordinate to Carnicer, chief of the Arragonese Carlists; and during that time he in no way distinguished himself, save by occasional acts of cruelty. His presumption and want of military knowledge caused the loss of more than one action—especially that of Mayals in Catalonia, in which, as it was then thought, the Arragonese faction received its death-blow. This unlucky encounter was followed by various lesser ones, equally disastrous; and at the commencement of 1835, the Carlist chiefs in the eastern provinces of the Peninsula were reduced to wander in the mountains at the head of scanty and disheartened bands, seeking shelter from the Queen’s troops, against whom they were totally unable to make a stand. Furious at this state of things, and still more so at the conduct of Carnicer, to whose lenity with the prisoners and population he attributed their reverses, discontented also with his obscure and subaltern position, Cabrera, who represented in Arragon the apostolical or ultra-absolutist party, and who on that account had influential supporters at the court of Charles the Fifth, resolved upon a bold attempt to get rid of his chief and command in his stead. Abandoning his post, he set out for Navarre, in company with a clever and resolute female of considerable personal attractions, intended as a propitiatory offering to the royal widower whose favour he was about to solicit. On his arrival he obtained a private audience of Don Carlos, to whom he represented himself as capable of commanding in Arragon, and of achieving the triumph of the King’s cause. He exposed his plan of campaign, accused Carnicer of weakness and mistaken humanity, and urged the necessity of severe and sanguinary measures. The result of his representations, and of the pleadings of his friends, some of whom were the Pretender’s most esteemed counsellors, was his return to Arragon, bearing a despatch by which Carnicer was ordered to make over his command to Cabrera, and to present himself at headquarters in Navarre. On the ninth of March 1835, Cabrera assumed the supreme command, and Carnicer, in obedience to his instructions, set out for the Basque country. On his road he fell into the hands of the Christinos, and was shot at Miranda del Ebro.