These bricks from Babylon convey but scanty intimation of the varied interest of the book. However the readers of it may differ from its opinions, they cannot but find, even in Mr. Carlyle's misjudgments and prejudices, ample matter for serious reflection: for if he misjudges, it is generally because he is looking too intently at a single truth, or a single side of a truth; and such misjudgments are more suggestive than the completest propositions of a less earnest, keen-sighted, and impassioned thinker. He is indeed more a prophet than a logician or a man of science. And one lesson we may all learn from this, as from everything he writes,—and it is a lesson that interferes with no creed,—that honesty of purpose, and resoluteness to do and to say the thing we believe to be the true thing, will give heart to a man's life, when all ordinary motives to action and all ordinary supports of energy have failed like a rotten reed.
[SONGS OF THE CASCADE.]
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
BY A. OAKEY HALL.
I.
THE CASCADE VAUNTETH ITSELF.
Over my pebbly bed I flow:
Till foaming—now splashing,
Soon leaping—then dashing
Into the chasm's bowl below,
Where my pearl drops glittering,
Rival the driven snow.
The chains of Winter I spurn!
All Summer and Spring
Through the grove I sing,
Gladdening lily and fern,
And the tired bird who kisses my cheek
With a dainty touch of his thirsty beak.
And when from the mountain side
The sunshines of May
Charm the snows away—
The torrent's impulsive tide
Mingles its turbid strength with mine,
Marking the thicket with surging line.
Then as the grove I enter,
The tree-tops shake,
The granite beds quake,
Into their very centre;
Whilst the birds around on the soaking ground
Hush their song at my thunder sound!