It filled the purple grapes that lay
And drank the splendors of the sun
Where the long summer's cloudless day
Is mirrored in the broad Garonne;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes
That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,—
The maidens dancing on the grapes,—
Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.
Beneath these waves of crimson lie,
In rosy fetters prisoned fast,
Those flitting shapes that never die,
The swift-winged visions of the past.
Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,
Each shadow rends its flowery chain,
Springs in a bubble from its brim,
And walks the chambers of the brain.
Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong
No form nor feature may withstand,—
Thy wrecks are scattered all along,
Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;—
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,
The dust restores each blooming girl,
As if the sea-shells moved again
Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.
Here lies the home of school-boy life,
With creaking stair and wind-swept hall,
And, scarred by many a truant knife,
Our old initials on the wall;
Here rest—their keen vibrations mute—
The shout of voices known so well,
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,
The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.
Here, clad in burning robes, are laid
Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed;
And here those cherished forms have strayed
We miss awhile, and call them dead.
What wizard fills the maddening glass?
What soil the enchanted clusters grew,
That buried passions wake and pass
In beaded drops of fiery dew?
Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,—
Our hearts can boast a warmer glow,
Filled from a vintage more divine,—
Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow!
To-night the palest wave we sip
Rich as the priceless draught shall be
That wet the bride of Cana's lip,—
The wedding wine of Galilee!
CHILD-LIFE BY THE GANGES.
We are told—and, being philosophers, we will amuse ourselves by believing—that there are towns in India, somewhere between Cape Comorin and the Himalayas, wherein everything is butcha,—that is, "a little chap"; where inhabitants and inhabited are alike in the estate of urchins; where little Brahmins extort little offerings from little dupes at the foot of little altars, and ring little bells, and blow little horns, and pound little gongs, and mutter little rigmaroles before stupid little Krishnas and Sivas and Vishnus, doing their little wooden best to look solemn, mounted on little bulls or snakes, under little canopies; where little Brahminee bulls, in all the little insolence of their little sacred privileges, poke their little noses into the little rice-baskets of pious little maidens in little bazaars, and help their little selves to their little hearts' content, without "begging your little pardons," or "by your little leaves"; where dirty little fakirs and yogees hold their dirty little arms above their dirty little heads, until their dirty little muscles are shrunk to dirty little rags, and their dirty little finger-nails grow through the backs of their dirty little hands,—or wear little ten-penny nails thrust through their little tongues till they acquire little chronic impediments in their decidedly dirty little speech,—or, by means of little hooks through the little smalls-of-their-backs, circumgyrate from little churruck-posts for the edification of infatuated little crowds and the honor of horrid little goddesses; where plucky little widows perform their little suttees for defunct little husbands, grilling on little funeral piles; where mangy little Pariah dogs defile the little dinners of little high-caste folks, by stealing hungry little sniffs from sacred little pots; where omnivorous little adjutant-birds gobble up little glass bottles, and bones, and little dead cats, and little old slippers, and bits of little bricks, in front of little shops in little bazaars; where vociferous little circars are driving little bargains with obese little banyans, and consequential little chowkedars—that is, policemen—are bullying inoffensive little poor people, and calling them sooa-logue,—that is, pigs;—where—where, in fine, everything in heathen human-nature happens butcha, and the very fables with which the little story-tellers entertain the little loafers on the corners of the little streets, are full of little giants and little dwarfs. Let us pursue the little idea, and talk butcha to the end of this chapter.
When, in Calcutta, you have smitten the dry rock of your lonely life with the magic rod of connubial love, and that well-spring of pleasure, a new baby, has leaped up in the midst of your wilderness of exile, the demonstration, if any, with which your servants will receive the glad tidings, will depend wholly on the "denomination of the imbecile offspring," as our eleëmosynary widow, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green, would call it. If it happen to be only a girl, there will be a trace of pity in the silent salaam with which the grim durwan salutes you as you roll into your palkee at the gate to proceed to the godowns where they are weighing the saltpetre and the gunny bags. As he touches his forehead with his joined palms, he thinks of the difference that color makes to the babivorous crocodiles of Ganges. Perhaps your gray-beard circar, privileged by virtue of high caste and faithful service, will take upon himself to condole with you: "Khodabund" he will say, "better luck next time; Heaven is not always with one's paternal hopes; let us trust that my lord may live to say it might have been worse; let us pray that the baba's bridal necklace may be as gay as rubies and as light as lilies, and that she may die before her husband."
But if to the existing number of your suntoshums—the jewels that hang on the Mem Sahib's bosom—a man-child is added, ah, then there is merry-making in the verandas, and happy salaaming on the stairs; and in the fulness of his Hindoo Sary-Gampness, which counts the Sahib blessed that hath "his quiver full of sich," he says, Ap-ki kullejee kaisa burri ho-jaga! Khodá rukho ki beebi-ka kullejee bhee itni burri hoga,—Gurreeb-purwan! "How large my lord's liver is about to grow! God grant to the Mem Sahib, my exalted lady, a liver likewise large,—O favored protector of the poor!" The happiness and honors which should follow upon the birth of a male child being figuratively comprehended in that enlargement of the liver whence comes the good digestion for which alone life is worth the living.