I heard a bird in yonder glen—
It sang with all too gay a heart,
For ere I sought the wild again,
The cold had warned her to depart;
Afar beyond the southern bound
Where wind of autumn never grieves,
She sings in some sweet isle, around
Whose shore the soft blue ocean heaves.
IV.
No snow-charged tempest there shall chide
The forest by the silvery deep:
No wintry whirlwind there shall ride,
To break the sweet sea's summer sleep;
Though cold and brief the northern day,
The noon-tide lingers longest there,
Merry with winds that fling the spray
High in the fresh, brisk ocean air.
V.
Leave me and the cold north forgot,
While autumn paints the woods again,
For sweeter than a fresher spot,
Is the sad beauty of the glen!
I'll gaze far through the thickening night
While the leaves rustle o'er my head,
Muse on the days which once were bright—
Feel that they all are cold and dead!
[THE INFLUENTIAL MAN.]
A SKETCH OF TINNECUM.
The citizens of the little suburb of Quog pressing on to the accomplishment of any town measure would remind you of the sheep-flocks of their own extensive plains and pasture-grounds, urged helter-skelter, yet all in one direction, and that too by the agency of a single shepherd. Whoever threw himself in the way, must either press onward with the throng, or be trampled down and overcome. Yet plastic as they were in the hands of their own chosen guides, the people of Quog were an unconquered Democracy, and breathed the voluptuous air of freedom. Every man was 'as good' as his fellow, none better. Socially, morally, politically, they considered themselves on one dead level, like the country around them. Quog was the very grave of all distinctions; but although its citizens submitted to no dictation, and would not be 'druv,' yet what amounted to the same thing, they could be impelled in a pretty compact body, whether for good or for ill, by the seductive gentleness of a force applied a tergo; that is, not so much to their reasoning faculties, as to their baser propensities.
Uncle Billy Pine was beyond all question the great man of Quog; the umpire, the last court of appeal in complex cases. 'If he says so, I guess it will have to be so,' was a common saying, should any one be so obdurate as to persist in an opinion of his own. It was marvellous how two or three words from him would alter the complexion of cases which had just before been flooded with light by the eloquence of some confident orator. Arguments piled upon arguments, until they got to be highly cumulative, were thrown down in ruinous confusion, the moment his carbuncled nose appeared in sight. The school-master succumbed to him, but the school-master was seldom 'abroad' in Quog. The minority, which was ridiculously small, (for there was a minority on all important questions,) were forced to acknowledge, 'He is an influential man—an influential man.' How he came to acquire so much respect, I know not; it was a sentiment which sprang up, and gradually gained strength, in the bosom of his townsmen; and which they explained in no more philosophical way than this, that 'there was something about him.' He possessed the common rudiments of education; but although he always did take his regular potations, and always would, by reason of which his face had become as ruddy as a lobster, he claimed it as a positive virtue, on the strength of which he expected to inherit heaven, that he was unflinchingly honest, that he 'never robbed nobody,' and that so long as he was above ground, or had any thing to say, he meant to see justice done between man and man. He possessed what was esteemed a handsome property in land, which enabled him to smoke his pipe at the ale-house in a very leisurely way; and here perhaps he laid the foundation of his influence, by the fascination of his social powers, his practical democracy, his cordial familiarity, and his uniform system of treating all alike. He slurred over his ignorance very handsomely by being fluent on all public topics, and by a display of what his fellow-citizens denominated 'good common sense.' Such was the 'Influential Man.'