FRAGMENT.
Excellence of the Christian Principle set forth, and recommended.
[From an unpublished work.]
If thou would’st lay thee in the grave at last,
And die as dies the good man; if thy heart
In that sad hour would feel its sympathies
Sweeten’d, and soothed by solitary thought;
Let thy whole life with virtuous actions teem,
With virtue’s law compare. Thou can’st not live
Too pure, or o’er thy smallest actions keep
Too close restraint. Thou can’st not think too oft,
There is a never, never sleeping eye
Which reads thy heart, and registers thy thoughts;
Thou can’st not say too oft—‘Teach me to know
My end, that I may feel how short it is’—
Nor can’st thou lie too frequent, or too low
Before that cross whereon the Saviour hung—
A blameless sacrifice. It is his fate,
And by his disobedience invoked,
That man shall view the sepulchre with dread;
That when he looks into its narrow depths,
Its gloom—its cheerlessness; and, spurning earth,
Reflection lifts the separating veil
Which hides the future, undissembled awe
Shall grasp his soul, and will not be dispell’d.
Yet in this chalice hath a provident God
Commingled blessings. He hath mark’d a path,
And promis’d peace to him who walks therein,
And safety through the portals of the grave:
And though thorns weary, and temptations press
To win him into crime—his word is sure,
And it will save him. Our emotions take
Their hues from the complexion of the heart,
As landscapes their variety from light;
And he who pays his conscience due regard,
Is virtue’s friend, and reaps a sure reward.
He who has train’d his heart with lib’ral care,
Has robb’d the sable tyrant of his crown,
And torn the robe of terror from his breast.
Death cannot fright him; he has that within
Which, as the needle to the Arctic kept
By law immutable, his mind upbears,
And fastens where earth’s influence cannot reach:
Let loose the cohort of diseases—rend
The finest shoots of passion from his heart—
Snap ev’ry tie of common sympathy,
And let the adverse and remorseless waves
Of disappointment roar against his breast—
And you have struck some rock on Newstra’s coast,
With but the heavings of a summer’s sea.
His spirit knows no thraldom, and it takes
A flight sublime, where earth hath never power.
There is a half-way virtue in the world
Which is the world’s worst enemy; its bane;
Its with’ring curse. It cheats it with a show—
But offers nought of substance, when is sought
Its peaceful fruits. It suffers men in power
To let the young aspirant rise or fall
As chance directs. The rich man fosters it;
And for the favor, it shuts up his ears
Against the cry of virtuous penury;
Or bids him dole out with a miserly hand,
A farthing, where a thousand should be thrown
And proffer’d kindly. The lone orphan’s cries,
The widow’s wail in impotence, perchance
Secure a few unmeaning tears—but not
The pity which administers relief.
Words flow as freely as a parrot talks
At tales of suffering; and tears may fall
As free as Niobe’s; but not a sacrifice
The heart accepts, nor pleasure is forgone,
Which marks the principle of virtue there,
Or such as finds acceptance in the skies.
Who pays with pity, all my debt of love—
Who weeps for me, yet never sees my lack—
Who says be clothed, yet never proffers aught—
He’s not my fellow, nor deserves the name.
A feeble virtue is a vice, adorn’d
With virtue’s semblance. ’Tis a negative
And useless quality. It exempts from wo
Insufferable, yet grudges perfect bliss;
And he but tricks him in a knave’s attire,
Who boasts no other. He’s but half the man
Who, when temptation stares him in the face,
Assents, yet trembles to be overcome!
Such men do things by halves, and never do
Aught with an earnest soul. They fool away
A life, in which the good and evil mix
So equal, that the sum is neutralized;
And Justice on their sepulchres inscribes
No sterner truth, than when she writes—a blank.
Why linger then betwixt the two extremes—
The passive puppet of each circumstance?
Why pure, and dev’lish—mortal, and immortal—
Too good for earth—and yet unfit for Heaven?
Why not at once, dispel these baneful mists,
Thrust from thy path, the arts and blandishments
Which win to wickedness; and rise at once
With a proud moral freedom, until thou
Can’st stand upon the stars—and see to Heaven?
*
THE SCIOT GIRL.
——“I cannot bear
To be the scorned and trampled thing I am
In this degraded land. Its very skies,
That smile as if but festivals were held
Beneath their cloudless azure, weigh me down
With a dull sense of bondage.”—Hemans.
The inhabitants of the once beautiful island of Scio, were among the last to rise against their oppressors and throw off the Turkish yoke. A combination of causes prevented them from taking part in the revolt when it first broke out. The spirit of enterprise and commerce, while it enriched and refined the people, had withdrawn them, by degrees, from those warlike habits which had distinguished many of the neighboring isles. They were immediately under the coast of Asia Minor, from whence, without a moment’s warning, they might be overwhelmed by hordes of merciless barbarians. They could not look out upon their vine-clad hills and their cultivated fields, where the orange, citron and pomegranate bloomed in oriental richness, and think that the fair scene should be polluted by the horrors of a desolating war. Learning and religion were protected. They were prosperous and happy under a government which, to them at least, had been an indulgent one, and they wisely preferred their present safety to the uncertain chance of future benefit. The young men of the island, many of whom had been educated in the universities of France and Italy, with the generous impulse of their age, hastened, at the first cry, to join the ranks of the revolters; and we may well imagine that many, who were themselves unable to take up arms, prayed for the success of the cause and aided it in secret.
A year had now passed, and such was the situation of Scio.
It was an evening in the month of March, when a young Greek might be seen hastening along the beach in the direction of the principal town of the island. In the dress of the person—which was that of the higher class of citizens—there was nothing remarkable; but in his manner there was much to draw attention. His countenance was marked by an expression of cool and high-strung desperation. He strode on, as if to escape from the burthen of some intolerable thought, and muttered to himself from between his close set teeth. We may catch the import of his words.