We believe it is a German poet who, walking "silent and thoughtful by the solemn shore of the vast ocean we must sail so soon," thus speaks "The Ship of Death:"
"By the shore of Time, now lying
On the inky flood beneath,
Patiently, thou Soul undying!
Waits for thee the Ship of Death!
"He who on that vessel starteth,
Sailing from the sons of men,
To the friends from whom he parteth
Never more returns again!
"From her mast no flag is flying,
To denote from whence she came;
She is known unto the dying—
Azael is her captain's name.
"Not a word was ever spoken,
On that dark, unfathom'd sea;
Silence there is so unbroken,
She herself seems not to be!
"Silent thus, in darkness lonely,
Doth the Soul put forth alone,
While the wings of angels only
Waft her to a Land Unknown."
How many are departing daily in that "Ship of Death!" "Good Heaven!" exclaims one, "how often are we to die before we go off this stage! In every friend we lose, we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left!"
The following ludicrous occurrence finds its way into the "Drawer," on a blank-leaf of a business-letter, from a flourishing town in Illinois: "A manufacturer of tombstones, in our place, lately received a call from a countryman, who wanted a stone to place over the grave of his mother. After looking around for some time, and making sundry remarks about the taste of his deceased mother, he finally pitched upon one which the stone-cutter had prepared for another person. 'I like this one,' said he. 'But,' said the manufacturer, 'that belongs to another man, and has Mrs. Perry's name cut on it: it wouldn't do for your mother.' 'O, yes, it would,' said the countryman, 'she couldn't read! And besides,' he continued, as he observed the wonderment of the stone-cutter, 'Perry was always a favorite name of hers, any how!'" This anecdote reminds us of a kindred occurrence, which actually took place in this good city of Gotham. A parvenu, who had set up his carriage in great state, went to a harness-maker to have "a silver letter" put on the blinders of his horses. "What letter shall I put on?" asked the harness-maker. "Well, I don't know, exactly," answered the pompous "patron;" but, after hesitating a moment, he said, "Well; I guess W is about as handsome a letter as you can put on—isn't it?"
In the "marriage of language to music and feeling," as the great German, Goethe, expresses it, Alfred Tennyson has but few equals, and probably no superior at the present day. A modern English critic, in a review of his Princess, observes: Mr. Tennyson is not, we believe, a connoisseur in music, as Moore was; yet look at the songs in 'The Princess.' Take the 'Bugle Song,' for example, unequaled in our language, except by Shakspeare:
'The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory:
Blow, bugle, blow—set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying!
'O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow! let us hear the purple glens replying
Blow, bugle! answer echoes, dying, dying, dying!
'O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill, on field, on river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever:
Blow, bugle! blow; set the wild echoes flying,
And answer echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying!'
"True," says the reviewer, "this is an imitation, in words, of the actual sounds of bugle-music; but it had been little to let us hear, in the wonderful combination of liquid, ringing consonants, and resounding vowels, the 'horns of Elfland faintly blowing,' had not the poet told us in the same key of sound, how
'The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story:'