P. S. My friend Monsieur de P—— has just written to me from Perpignan, informing me that the statue is no longer in existence. After the death of her husband, the first care of Madame Peyrade was to have it cast into a bell, under which new form it now serves the church of Ille. But, added Monsieur de P——, it seems as if bad luck continues to attend the possessors of this bronze. Since this bell has sounded at Ille, the vines have been twice frozen.
[THE OLD MAN.]
A BALLAD.
The old dry leaf came circling down,
On a windy autumn day,
The leaf all sere, and glazed, and brown,
On the bleak, bare hill to play;
And the sky put on its dreariest frown,
On that windy autumn day.
The heavy clouds went drifting by,
As gray as gray could be,
And not a speck of azure sky
Could the worn-out wanderer see;
That dark, stern man, low crouching by
The gnarlèd old oak tree.
But drearer grew the inky sky,
As daylight fled away,
And the winds came out, and hurried by,
As if they dared not stay;
Howling afar, and shrieking nigh,
Like spirits doomed, at play.
Then the old man shook his hoary head,
As on his staff leaned he,
For the sky above with blood seemed red,
And the earth a bloody sea;
And on him crimson drops were shed
From the boughs of the old oak tree.
Then the old man laughed a horrid laugh,
And shook his head again,
And clenching fast his crooked staff,
He turned him to the plain;
And the hills rung back his hellish laugh,
Mocking in wild disdain.
On, on he hurried, but still there rung
That laugh back from the hill;
While livid clouds above him hung,
And forms, his blood to chill
High o'er his head in mid-air swung,
And all were laughing still!
The old man noted not his way,
For his heart grew cold with fear;
And language never breathed by day
Was whispered in his ear:
But he hurried on, for he dared not stay,
Those awful words to hear!
He had trod that self-same path before,
Ere evening, when he fled
That mangled form bathed all in gore,
And to the hill-side sped;
And now at midnight met once more
The murderer and the dead!
Hushed were the winds, the clouds rolled back,
And on that lonely dell,
Revealing clear a blood-marked track,
The cold, pale starlight fell;
Ah! light the old man did not lack,
His handiwork to tell.
He had loved full long and well the youth,
So cold and quiet lain,
But what to him was love or truth?
For bitter words and vain
Had passed that day; and now, in sooth,
He ne'er might love again!
Morn came; and on one fearful bed,
In that dark, lonely wild,
With sere brown leaves of autumn spread,
The sun looked down and smiled;
But there they lay, stiff, cold, and dead—
The old man and his child!
[SKETCHES OF EAST-FLORIDA.]
NUMBER THREE.
SAINT AUGUSTINE: THE FIRST LOOK.
There are places, and there are passages, in life that keep bright in all weathers. They improve just in proportion as we have been able to contrast them with others, and change, if at all, only to come a little closer to the heart. I beg Tom Moore's pardon; he says something about 'growing brighter and brighter,' but he was thinking of a first kiss, or a last one, which perhaps hangs the most; or at the moment of that writing, he may have had a side-thought for the choice wine that smoothed his inspiration; all which are very charming, bewitching, and all-possessing to those who affect that sort of thing——But I was only thinking of St. Augustine, East-Florida. I may live to feel a stronger pull at the heart; but so far, St. Augustine is my particular passion. And what the deuce is the reason? It is not my home, for my first step 'forward and back' was in the face of a cold wind; high mountains on either side, and the only gap in them opened to the north-east. All winds north of the sun's track had to bend around and come in by that gap. Of course, every thing in that country has a north-east cast, and perhaps this is why I love the south, for it's hard loving any thing that is forced upon you with the pertinacity of a high wind. Men running after hats, women holding their skirts down, toppling chimneys, and faces tied up with the tooth-ache, prevail in all that region; wherefore it is, that those who cannot learn to love the place, for these privileges, will (if only to be obstinate) love so much the more the warm sun and air of the south, and the quiet, the repose, the opiate of the southern climate. But I do not mean the south-west. I was once crossing the Alleghanies, on my way to the south-west, when, fortunately, it occurred to me that the south-west was only a north-easterly continuation, and I immediately struck off at right angles, or rather left angles, and landed in Florida. That, Sir, is the exact spot, where the hat takes care of itself.
I am willing to believe that there are people who sleep with their feet uncovered, when the mercury at the bedside is below freezing, because I have seen it done, and not as a penance, but a privilege, to which the physician gave his consent; and I have myself, springing from a warm bed, stepped into a tub of water frozen so hard as to require my whole weight to crush a passage through the ice. I have done this often, but not for the pleasure of it. I have also been through a course of calido-frigido. I suppose you know all about that, Mr. Editor, calido-frigido? Well, I will tell you the order of proceeding.