The floating plume
Tells how the wind blows, with a certainty
As great as doth the vessel's full-swoln sheets;
So doth the winged seed; 'tis not alone
In mighty things that we may truliest read
The heart, but in its temper and its tone:—
Thus true Benevolence we ever find
Forgiving, gentle, tremblingly alive
To pity, and unweariedly intent
On all the little, thousand charities,
Which day by day calls forth. Oh! as we hope
Forgiveness of our earthly trespasses,—
Of all our erring deeds and wayward thoughts,—
When Time's dread reckoning comes,—oh! as we hope
Mercy, who need it much, let us, away
From kindness never turning, mould our hearts
To sympathy, and from all withering blight
Preserve them, and all deadening influences:—
So 'twill be best for us. The All-seeing Eye,
Which numbers each particular hair, and notes
From heaven the sparrow's fall, shall pass not o'er
Without approval deeds unmarked by man—
Deeds, which the right hand from the left conceals—
Nor overlook the well-timed clemency,
That soothed and stilled the murmurs of distress.
Enamour'd of all mysteries, in love
With doubt itself, and fond to disbelieve,
We ask not, "if realities be real?"
With Plato, or with Berkeley; but we know
Life comes not of itself, and what hath life,—
However insignificant it seem
To us, whose noblest standard is ourselves,—
Hath been by the Almighty's finger touch'd,
Or ne'er had been at all—it must be so.
Therefore 'tis by comparison alone
That things seem great or small; and noblest they
Whose sympathies, with a capacious range,
Would own no limit to their fond embrace.
Yea, there, as in all else, doth Duty dwell
With happiness: for far the happiest he,
Who through the roughnesses of life preserves
His boyish feelings, and who sees the world,
Not as it is in cold reality,
A motley scene of struggle and of strife,
But tinted with the glow of bright romance:
For him the morning has its star; the sun,
Rising or setting, fires for him the clouds
With glory; flowers for him have tales,
Like those which, for a thousand nights and one,
Enchained the East; each season as it rolls
Strikes in his bosom its peculiar chord,
Yet each alike harmonious, to a heart
That vibrates ever in sweet unison:
Each scene hath its own influence, nor less
The frost that mimics each on pool or pane:
Delight flows in alike from calm or storm:
Delight flows in to him from nature's shows
Of hill and dale, swift river, or still lake:
To him the very winds are musical—
Have harmony Æolian, wild and sweet;
The stream sings to its banks, and the wild birds
To Echo—viewless tell-tale of the rocks—
Who in the wantonness of love responds.
Gifts, in the eye of Heaven, not always bear
The marketable value stamped by man
Upon them,—else the poor were truly poor,
The willing spirit destitute indeed.
In other balance are our actions weighed
By Him who sees the heart in all its thoughts;
Both what it wills and cannot, what it tries
And doth,—and with what motive, for what end.
Clouds clothe them like realities, and shine
Even so to human eyes; yet, not the less
Are only mockeries of the things they seem,
And melt as we survey them. Let us not
The shadow for the substance take, the Jay
For the true Bird of Paradise. A crust
Dealt, by the poor man, from his daily loaf,
To the wayfarer, poorer than himself—
A cup of water, in the Saviour's name
Proffered, with ready hand, to thirsting lips,—
Seem trifles in themselves, yet weigh for wine,
And gems, and gold, and frankincense. The mite,—
The widow's offering, and her all, put in
With grief, because she had no more to give,
Yet given although her all,—was in the sight
Of Heaven a sumless treasury bestowed,
And reckoned such in her account above:—
When Nineveh, through all her myriad streets,
Lay blackened with idolatry and crime,
God had preserved her—would have saved her whole—
Had but the Prophet, as a leaven, found
His righteous ten!
Therefore, Oh never deem
Thoughts, deeds, or feelings valueless, that bear
The balance of the heart to Virtue's side!
The coral worm seems nought, but coral worms
Combined heave up a reef, where mightiest keels
Are stranded, and the powers of man put down.
The water-drop wears out the stone; and cares
Trifling, if ceaseless, form an aggregate,
Whose burden weighs the buoyant heart to earth.
Think not the right path may be safely left,
Though 'twere but for one moment, and one step;
That one departure, slight howe'er it be,
From Innocence is nought. The young peach-bloom,
Rudely brushed off, can be restored no more,
By all the cunning of the painter's art;
Nor to the sered heart comes, in after life
Again,—however longed for, or bewailed,—
Youth's early dews, the pure and delicate!
VALEDICTORY VISITS AT ROME.
Andiamo a Napoli; and so we will, in accordance with the repeated suggestions we have received during the last ten days from all the vetturini in Rome. Easter is gone by, the Girandola went off last week, the English are going, and so is our bell, tinkle! tinkle! tinkle!—as if its wire had a touch of vernal ague—while the old delf plate in the hall is filled and running with cards, every pasteboard parallelogram among them with two P's and a C in the corner; for we are becoming too polite, it seems, to take leave of each other in our own tongue. As the English quit Rome, the swallows arrive, and may be seen in great muster flitting up and down the streets, looking at the affiches of vacancies before fixing on a lodging. Unlike us, these callow tourists—though many of them on their first visit to Rome—are no sooner within the walls, than they find, without assistance, their way to the Forum, and proceed to build and twitter in that very Temple of Concord where Juvenal's storks of old made their nidus and their noise! Andiamo a Napoli; yes, but not yet; we are sure at this season to have an impatient patient or two to visit in the Babuino, or at Serny's; who, labouring under incipient fever which has not yet tamed them into submission, tell us they would—optative mood—be at Florence in a week, and add—in the imperative—that they must be in London in three! Vedremmo! These cases—may they end well—are sure, meanwhile, to be somewhat tedious in their progress; and besides, were there none such, two motives have we for always lingering the last in Rome: the one, to avoid the importunity of many indiscreet acquaintance, who would else be sure at this season to plague us with some trifling commission, on purpose to open a sudden correspondence, in the hope of learning all about the heat, the fever, the mosquitoes, the fare and the accommodation of Castellamare and Sorrento, thinking themselves, meanwhile, perfect Talleyrands in diplomacy, in employing a ruse which it is impossible not to see through; the other and more important, to secure the necessary quiet while we linger about favourite haunts, and refresh our memory with sites and scenes endeared by long and intimate acquaintance. To describe people or places accurately, requires a long and attentive familiarity, but to do so feelingly and with effect, we should trust principally to first and last impressions: either will be more likely to furnish a lively representation, as far as it goes, than when too great intimacy with details leads us to forget what is characteristic, and to dwell without emphasis, or with equal and tedious emphasis, upon all alike. New scenes, owing, perhaps, part of their charm to that circumstance, may occasionally betray us into exaggeration; but the records of a last coup-d'œil, when we dwell with sad complacency upon every feature, as upon those of a friend from whom we are about to part, are characterised at once by an equal freshness, and by more truth, feeling, and discrimination. We might proceed to exemplify this, from a long series of first and last views in Italy: with some of them the reader may be familiar, for we have frequently met in Maga's pages; with others he will—should it so please him—become acquainted, when, leaving the company of our present agreeable associates, we stand forth an author of "Travels," and have more ample scope for our egotism. We confine ourselves now to a few valedictory visits in and about Rome.