That quotation from Alexander Smith reminds me of one other thing, for which your utilitarian has a sovereign contempt—that is poetry. What is poetry? Every thing that stirs the soul to its depths, or but crisps the surface, is poetry—every truth does this, therefore every truth is poetry. Mind, I don't say conversely, etc. There—that word 'conversely,' suggests to you that now you have me; there is mathematical truth, you say; you might as well attempt to raise a tree from cube-root as to attempt to make poetry sprout from mathematics.... Is there no poetry in the marked path of the vessel on the trackless ocean—no poetry in the magnificent sweep of suns and worlds through space—in the eccentric orbit of the faithful comet—faithful, for from the most distant errands he passes right by earth, and even Venus, lingers not a moment, but hastens back to his lord—is there no poetry in the icing over of the brook, (if you think not, read Lowell's Sir Launfel,) each icy crystal being an exact geometrical figure? When 'God geometrizes,' he also poetizes.
Then if we can't say conversely all poetry is truth, yet poetry gives to every thing she touches with her magic wand, the charm of reality. Are not Ariel, Puck, Oberon, real characters, though but 'beings of the mind'? Shylock and Lady Macbeth are to me as real as John Wesley and Hannah More, and far more real than the dimly defined heroes of Plutarch, except those that Shakspeare has thrilled with his own life-blood—his very ghosts have an awful individuality—they are enough to make you believe in ghosts. But hark! what was that—pshaw! it is only a screech-owl on the maple near my window—Keats' 'owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold,' I should think this was, from his shivering notes. Listen again! how old is the dead Time, whose age the distant town-clock is tolling? I don't care to count—to tell the truth, that owl makes me nervous—and if it is 'the witching time of night,' I don't care to know it—so good-night.
WOUNDED
Up the quiet street in the early Sunday morning, came with slow
steps and silently, two wounded soldiers:
One with shattered arm and a cruel sabre-cut on his forehead;
One with amputated leg, hobbled slowly along on crutches.
In the thunder-storm and sharp crash of terrible battle, 'mid blood,
carnage, and death,
Comrades in arms, they fell side by side; one of them senseless, the
other feeling his life-blood flowing away...
Faintness came over him, breathing the sulphurous smoke, with the
tornado of battle stunning his brain—
Faintness—forgetfulness. A vision of childhood, of the sweet
Heaven-time of life, came to him...
He hoped it was death, coming as no king of terrors, but as a
beautiful flower-crowned child,
Bidding a hero welcome to the great halls of the laurel-wreathed
dead—those who died for their country.
From this dream of the Future came sharp awaking to life; rattling
away in the ambulance...
Crashing pains shooting wildly from leg to brains—the heart now and
then grasped with steel fingers and squeezed...
The knife and the tourniquet, the rapid surgical operation: the
poor, pale fellow maimed for life.
At home in a hospital kindly nursed and tended, hearing for the
first time in life the name of God—not taken in vain: seeing the
good deeds of true woman...
Knowing that should he die he would ask no gentler sounds to cheer
him on his road to the Hereafter, than the prayer he once heard
read by The Lady in Gray to a dying soldier in the same
hospital:... thus passed he back again to life.
Now convalescent he walks in the fresh morning up the quiet street,
under the leafy shadow of lindens... he and his comrade in battle.
In the faces of both you may see that they know how earnest is
life...
The Angel of Death on the battle-field raised the veil of the
Future: transient the glimpse, but they will never forget it...
The Angel of Mercy here in the hospital bound up their wounds,
cheering their hearts with kind looks and well-spoken words of
true sympathy...
Solemnly earnest and beautiful is Life to these two wounded soldiers.
The lame one is weary, and halts by the steps of a handsome house;
his comrade with one arm helps him sit down there, on the lowest
step, leaning against the white marble balustrade.
Through lace and silk curtains, from drawing-room window, looks down the street
a beautiful woman, waiting impatiently carriage, coachman, and footman,
to carry her grandly to church.
Up comes the carriage; wide open the doors of the house: Madame descends...
How is this?... She stops by the two wounded soldiers.
I have two sons in the army, she thought; what if they were weary and wounded
like these?
Then she speaks to the comrades in battle, and learning where they were going,
insisted on their taking her carriage. She will have no refusal: and now
John the footman, inwardly groaning, assists the lame man to enter, then
the other one takes a seat...
Off they whirl to their hospital-home, with a blessing upon the fair lady who dared
follow the teachings of One whom that morning she worshiped with words ...
and with deeds.
Open your hands—and your hearts—ye who stand afar off from the battle! Lo!
the wounded and dying are here at your doors.
Slumber no more; but awake, awake to their cries!
Transcriber's Note: Because of the length of the lines, the above piece has been formatted as in the original.
ASTOR AND THE CAPITALISTS OF NEW-YORK.
The accumulation of wealth has always been a chief proclivity of our race. The earliest of all books (Job) mentions it with sharp reproof, as though even then it had become a theme with the moralist. In olden time, wealth was even more unreliable than at the present day, especially as the mere possession of gold was enough to endanger one's life. The modern capitalist avoids this by devolving the custody of his cash on some bank and holding its stock instead of a hoard of ingots. The science of wealth now takes a more philosophic turn, and may be summed up in one word, debt. To be rich is simply to have brought the community in debt to yourself; and the greater it is, the greater, of course, your riches. To be poor is simply to reverse this condition, and to be in debt to others. The richest of all mankind may not have on hand, in specie, at any one time, more than the amount of a single day's income, and may be only able to show for his entire capital sundry pieces of paper, representing value. This is a vast improvement upon antiquity, since then wealth was identified with the holding of bullion, for whose protection an especial deity was invented. By a strange coïcidence, while Pluto was god of the lower regions, a slight change of the name represented his moneyed colleague, and Plutus presided over money. This connection is with sober wit hit off by Milton, who sets the fallen angels at once to work digging gold.