But the night-wind cries,—"Despair!
Those who walk with feet of air
Leave no long-enduring marks;
At God's forges incandescent
Mighty hammers beat incessant,
These are but the flying sparks.
"Dust are all the hands that wrought;
Books are sepulchres of thought;
The dead laurels of the dead
Rustle for a moment only,
Like the withered leaves in lonely
Church-yards at some passing tread."
Suddenly the flame sinks down;
Sink the rumors of renown;
And alone the night-wind drear
Clamors louder, wilder, vaguer,—
"'T is the brand of Meleager
Dying on the hearth-stone here!"
And I answer,—"Though it be,
Why should that discomfort me?
No endeavor is in vain;
Its reward is in the doing,
And the rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain?"
BETWEEN EUROPE AND ASIA.
"Pushed off from one shore, and not yet landed on the other."
Russian Proverb.
The railroad from Moscow to Nijni-Novgorod had been opened but a fortnight before. It was scarcely finished, indeed; for, in order to facilitate travel during the continuance of the Great Fair at the latter place, the gaps in the line, left by unbuilt bridges, were filled up with temporary trestle-work. The one daily express-train was so thronged that it required much exertion, and the freest use of the envoy's prestige, to secure a private carriage for our party. The sun was sinking over the low, hazy ridge of the Sparrow Hills as we left Moscow; and we enjoyed one more glimpse of the inexhaustible splendor of the city's thousand golden domes and pinnacles, softened by luminous smoke and transfigured dust, before the dark woods of fir intervened, and the twilight sank down on cold and lonely landscapes.
Thence, until darkness, there was nothing more to claim attention. Whoever has seen one landscape of Central Russia is familiar with three fourths of the whole region. Nowhere else—not even on the levels of Illinois—are the same features so constantly reproduced. One long, low swell of earth succeeds to another; it is rare that any other woods than birch and fir are seen; the cleared land presents a continuous succession of pasture, rye, wheat, potatoes, and cabbages; and the villages are as like as peas, in their huts of unpainted logs, clustering around a white church with five green domes. It is a monotony which nothing but the richest culture can prevent from becoming tiresome. Culture is to Nature what good manners are to man, rendering poverty of character endurable.
Stationing a servant at the door to prevent intrusion at the way-stations, we let down the curtains before our windows, and secured a comfortable privacy for the night, whence we issued only once, during a halt for supper. I entered the refreshment-room with very slender expectations, but was immediately served with plump partridges, tender cutlets, and green peas. The Russians made a rush for the great samovar (tea-urn) of brass, which shone from one end of the long table; and presently each had his tumbler of scalding tea, with a slice of lemon floating on the top. These people drink beverages of a temperature which would take the skin off Anglo-Saxon mouths. My tongue was more than once blistered, on beginning to drink after they had emptied their glasses. There is no station without its steaming samovar; and some persons, I verily believe, take their thirty-three hot teas between Moscow and St. Petersburg.