Why poets should sing of this War
In rapturous anthems of praise,
I know not. Its meanings so jar,
Its purpose hath so many ways,
The Sphinx never readeth the whole.
'Tis a riddle propounded to me
That I am unskillful to tell.
The Sphinx by the way-side, I see,
Is watching (I know her so well)
To mangle us, body and soul.
Is it 'Freedom, that Bondage may live,'
Which cheers on the North to the fray?
Is it 'Slavery more Freedom to give,'
That slogans the Southern foray?
She asks, and awaits your reply:
Now answer, ye marshal-bred bands
Whose business is murder and blood;
Ye priests with incarnadined hands;
Ye peace-men who 'fight for the good;'
Now solve her this riddle or die!
'Our Flag,' the conservative says,
'Waves over the land of the free;'
God save us!—I think many ways,
But still 'tis a riddle to me,
Whose mystery is hid from the eye;
But Oedipus, showing the souls
All fettered, imbruted and blained,
Who point where its blazonry rolls,
And wail the sad plaint of the chained,—
Asserts, 'There is, somewhere, a lie.'
THE ACTRESS WIFE.
I had been sent by my New York employers to superintend a branch of their business in a southern city. On the evening of a brilliant Sabbath, as I walked musingly through the cemetery, where thousands of the city's dead had found a calm and sequestered resting place, my attention was drawn to a monumental structure, the character and symbolism of which defied my comprehension. On a grassy mound, in a grove of oak trees, almost concealing it from observation, rose a mausoleum of dark stone, which at the first glance I conjectured to represent a Druidical temple. At the four corners were the carved resemblances of oak trees, the trunks forming columns for the structure, and the limbs branching out, intertwining above into a graceful net-work. The spaces between the trunks—forming the four sides of the edifice—were simply plain, deep-set slabs. The design could not be mistaken. It was that of an oak grove inclosing a tomb. But whose, and why this singular design? There was no inscription to afford an explanation. Another view added to the mystery. Standing in the middle of one of the sides, underneath the arch formed by the branching limbs, was an exquisite female figure of white marble. One foot and the body advanced, one hand grasping her robe, the other extended pointing into the distance, her head turned to one side, the lips parted as if speaking, the countenance expressive of the enthusiasm of love combined with impetuous resolution, an attire of the most perfect simplicity, similar to that worn by Roman maidens, and with a plain bandeau around the head,—the whole presented a figure of perfect symmetry and life-like impassioned earnestness, as beautiful as it was unintelligible. I sought through all my recollections of ancient and modern impersonations—of mythology, history, Scripture, and poetry—but could find nothing to furnish a solution. The structure and the figure surpassed even conjecture. Velleda, and Lot's wife, according to an old picture in the catechism, were the only resemblances I could recall, but the surroundings evidently did not suit the types.
While in my embarrassment, I became dimly conscious of seeing an elderly man coming towards me from behind the structure, but should have received no distinct impression of his presence had he not approached the gate of the inclosure upon which I chanced to be leaning, and mildly requested my permission to pass. Recalled to myself, I saw by a hasty glance that the person before me was a man apparently some sixty years of age, to whom time had imparted only a 'richness' of appearance, exhibiting the gentleman at every point, and with an aspect of the most profound grief, tempered with resignation, benevolence, and urbanity. Having politely assisted his egress, he passed onward with a graceful gesture of acknowledgment. He had taken but a few steps, when the thought occurred to me that he must have come from within the perplexing structure by some secret door, and that he could unravel its mystery. I was impelled to follow him, and proceeded hastily to do so, when the indelicacy of my intrusion on one evidently connected with the grief which the monument was designed to commemorate, flashed upon me, and I suddenly paused. He probably observed my rapid footsteps and their pause, for he turned toward me, when in a confused manner I stammered forth an apology, which, undesignedly on my part, involved a statement of the contradictory motives which had influenced me. With the most quiet and prepossessing demeanor he questioned me if I were a stranger visiting the city, and in reply I gave him all the necessary particulars concerning myself,—that my name was Waters, that I was employed by the firm of Brown, Urthers & Co., managing their branch business. A conversation ensued, which elicited the fact that the gentleman had been acquainted with my father a score of years before. The latter, whose head lies on his last pillow, was then a clerk in the New York house of Sampson, Bell & Co. The gentleman before me was Mr. Bell, who during the existence of the house had been first a clerk, and subsequently the partner who conducted their branch business at the city of my own present residence.
With this preliminary acquaintance, he kindly took my arm, and, leading me back to the monument, informed me, in a manner entirely free from any poignancy, or from that lionizing of costly memorials to departed friends so often indulged in, that it was erected to the memory of his wife; that she had formerly been an actress of celebrity, attaining peculiar distinction by her representation of the character of Imogen, in Shakespeare's Cymbeline; and that the marble figure portrayed her at the utterance of the words—
'Oh for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford Haven. Read and tell me
How far 'tis thither ... Say, and speak quick,
How far it is
To this same blessed Milford;'[5]
and that the architecture of the tomb was intended to correspond with the period at which the incidents of the drama transpired.
Mr. Bell's ordinary life was one neither of seclusion nor of widely extended social courtesies; but of active benevolence and cheerful retirement, disfigured neither by ostentatious philanthropy nor studied recluseness. A son and daughter who had hardly passed the confines of juvenility, with the necessary attendants, formed his household. For the rest, he lived apparently as a gentleman of taste and wealth might be supposed to do.