Then she arose with solemn eyes,
And, moving through the vocal dark,
Sat down, with bitter, ceaseless sighs,
The river tones to hark—
Deep in the forest dark.
Sick, sick she was of life and light—
She longed for shadow and for death;
And, by the river in the night,
Thus to her thought gave breath—
Her hungry wish for death:
'Shall I not die, beloved, and free
My weary, hopeless, breaking heart?
Shall I not dare death, love,' said she,
'And seek thee where thou art?
Life keeps our souls apart!'
'So weak, my darling, couldst thou be?'
A far voice stirred the pulseless air:
'Thus vainly wouldst thou seek for me—
My heaven thou couldst not share:
Such death were love's despair!'
Then through the long, lone night she prayed;
At last, 'How weak my dream!' said she.
'I'll meet the future unafraid;
I will grow worthy thee—
I will not flinch,' said she.
'I will not leave both souls so lone:
Where thou art, cowards cannot be;
I will not wrong our love, mine own;
At last I shall win thee.'
I will be brave,' said she.
Then she arose with patient eyes,
And, turning, faced the incoming day.
'There, love, the path to meet thee lies,'
Said she; 'I went astray.
But now I know the way.'
The following pleasant bit of gossip is from our 'Down-East correspondent:'
As I sit down to cover a few slips of paper with a thought or two (spreading it thin, is it?) for the readers of'Old Con.,'—
By the way—a delicious phrase that same 'by the way,' that lets a man turn in from the dusty road a brief while and enjoy a 'rare ripe' or a juicy 'south side'—you ask me, in a genial note, Mr. Editor, what I think of 'Old Con' as the 'family nickname.' Capital! The only objection in the world that I have is, that it reminds me of 'Old Conn,' the policeman, who used to loom up around corners with his big, ugly features, to the terror of the small boys, when I was 'of that ilk.' These huge, overgrown, slow hulks almost always 'pick on' the boys; the real hard work of the force is done by your small, wiry fellows, who step around lively, and don't stop to see whether a man is 'bigger nor they.' Old Conn, though, was a pretty good-hearted man after all, despite unpopularity among the juveniles; and so I say, let us christen the youngster 'Old Con,' by all means—old in the affections of a host of friends, if not in years.
But revenons à nous moutons, as the scribblers say, whose mouton we dare say is less often 'material' than we could wish it were.
As I set about penning a rambling thought, then, and—
En passant, did you never notice how a tendency to ramble will sometimes almost completely control a man? A candidate for Congress, for instance, comes round to your town to talk to you 'like a fa-ther'about what? To tell you that he has made all his arrangements to go to Washington? and could go just as well as not if you would like to have him? and that, on the whole, he wants to go awfully? No, indeed; nine cases out of ten the poor fellow forgets himself, and wanders off into the 'glorious Constitution as our fathers framed it,' and the 'eternal principles,' ' sacrifices' that one's constituency require, and a full assortment of such phrase. Just as some of the speakers, at the 'war meetings' this summer, get up a full head of patriotic steam, and in the excitement of the moment 'don't remember' all about mentioning that they are going themselves. Inclined to ramble!
But this wasn't what I meant to observe at the outset. Let us change the subject, as they say at the medical college.
What I was about to remark originally was—and I don't know as it is original, either. The fact is, there is very little now-a-days that is strictly original—except war-correspondence, and of course nobody but old maids reads that. There is a fellow who writes for the 'Daily——,' and signs himself 'Wabash.' Well, what of it? Nothing; only some people think it ought to be spelt, 'War bosh.'