Imatges de pàgina
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His was the searching thought, the glowing mind;

The gentle will to others' soon resigned;

But, more than all, the feeling just and kind.

His pleasures were as melodies from reedsSweet books, deep music, and unselfish deeds, Finding immortal flowers in human weeds.

True to his kind, nor of himself afraid,
He deemed that love of God was best arrayed
In love of all the things that God has made.

He deemed man's life no feverish dream of care,
But a high pathway into freer air,
Lit up with golden hopes and duties fair.

He showed how wisdom turns its hours to years,
Feeding the heart on joys instead of fears,
And worships God in smiles, and not in tears.

His thoughts were as a pyramid up-piled,
On whose far top an angel stood and smiled-
Yet in his heart was he a simple child.

THE BIRD-CATCHER.

Gently, gently yet, young stranger, Light of heart and light of heel! Ere the bird perceives its danger,

On it slyly steal.

Silence! Ah! your scheme is failing!
No; pursue your pretty prey;
See, your shadow on the paling
Startles it away.

Caution! now you're nearer creeping; Nearer yet-how still it seems! Sure, the wingéd creature's sleeping

Wrapped in forest-dreams! Golden sights that bird is seeingNest of green or mossy bough; Not a thought it has of fleeing; Yes, you'll catch it now.

How your eyes begin to twinkle! Silence, and you'll scarcely fail; Now stoop down and softly sprinkle Salt upon its tail.

Yes, you have it in your tether, Never more to skim the skies; Lodge the salt on that long feather: Ha! it flies! it flies!

Hear it, bark! among the bushes,
Laughing at your idle lures!
Boy, the self-same feeling gushes

Through my heart and yours.
Baffled sportsman, childish Mentor,
How have I been-hapless fault!-
Led, like you, my hopes to centre
On a grain of salt!

On what captures I've been counting, Stooping here and creeping there, All to see my bright hopes mounting High into the air!

Thus have children of all ages,

Seeing bliss before them fly, Found their hearts but empty cages, And their hopes-on high!

SONNET: HIDDEN JOYS.

Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy, of silence or of sound,
Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.
The very meanest things are made supreme
With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand
But moves a bright and million-peopled land,
And hath its Eden, and its Eves, I deem.
For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye
Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things,
And touched mine ear with power. Thus far or nigh,
Minute or mighty, fixed, or free with wings,
Delight from many a nameless covert sly
Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.

SONNET: WISHES OF YOUTH.

Gayly and greenly let my seasons run:
And should the war-winds of the world uproot
The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit
Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun,-
The dews be turned to ice,-fair days begun
In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit
Despair and discord keep Hope's harp-string mute,
Still let me live as Love and Life were one:
Still let me turn on earth a childlike gaze,
And trust the whispered charities that bring
Tidings of human truth; with inward praise
Watch the weak motion of each common thing,
And find it glorious-still let me raise
On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring.

Sarah Helen Whitman.

AMERICAN.

The maiden name of Mrs. Whitman (1803-1878) was Power, and she was a native of Providence, R. I. In 1828 she married John Winslow Whitman, a Boston lawyer, who died in 1833, after which she resided in Providence. For a short period during her widowhood she was betrothed (1848) to Poe, the poet, and one of his most impassioned poems is addressed to her. In 1853 she published "Hours of Life, and other Poems ;" and in 1859, "Edgar Poe and His Critics." Among the many obvious allusions to Poe in her poems is the following:

"Oh! when thy faults are all forgiven,
When all my sins are purged away,
May our freed spirits meet in heaven,
Where darkness melts to perfect day!
There may thy wondrous harp awake,

And there my ransomed soul with thee
Behold the eternal morning break

In glory o'er the jasper sea."

"Both the verse and prose of Mrs. Whitman," says Mr. George W. Curtis, "have a distinctive attraction from the same pure and fresh earnestness, combined with sweet and grave restraint, which was the basis of her character." A complete edition of her poems, revised in the last year of her life, was published in Boston in 1879. The pieces which we quote have an obvious reference to Poe.

THE LAST FLOWERS.

Dost thou remember that autumnal day
When by the Seekonk's lonely wave we stood,
And marked the languor of repose that lay,
Softer than sleep, on valley, wave, and wood?

A trance of holy sadness seemed to lull

The charmed earth and circumambient air, And the low murmur of the leaves seemed full Of a resigned and passionless despair.

Though the warm breath of Summer lingered still In the lone paths where late her footsteps passed, The pallid star-flowers on the purple hill

Sighed dreamily, "We are the last-the last!"

I stood beside thee, and a dream of heaven
Around me like a golden halo fell!
Then the bright veil of fantasy was riven,
And my lips murmured, "Fare thee well! fare-
well!"

I dared not listen to thy words, nor turn
To meet the mystic language of thine eyes;
I only felt their power, and in the urn
Of memory treasured their sweet rhapsodies.

We parted then, forever-and the hours

Of that bright day were gathered to the pastBut, through long, wintry nights, I heard the flowers Sigh dreamily, "We are the last!-the last!"

SONNETS: TO E. A. P.1

I.

When first I looked into thy glorious eyes,
And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained,
Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies
Of autumn nights without a shadow stained,—
I stood as one whom some strange dream inthralls;
For, far away, in some lost life divine,
Some land which every glorious dream recalls,
A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine.
E'en now, though death has veiled their starry light,
And closed their lids in his relentless night-
As some strange dream, remembered in a dream,
Again I see in sleep their tender beam;
Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill,
Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and still.

II.

If thy sad heart, pining for human love,
In its earth-solitude grew dark with fear,
Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove
Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere
Wherein thy spirit wandered-if the flowers
That pressed around thy feet seemed but to bloom
In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,
When all who loved had left thee to thy doom:-
Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale
Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain
So much of Heaven's sweet grace as shall avail
To lift its burden of remorseful pain,-

My soul shall meet thee, and its heaven forego Till God's great love on both one hope, one Heaven, bestow.

Douglas Jerrold.

Jerrold (1803-1857) was a native of London. His early days were passed in Sheerness, where his father, an actor, was lessee of the theatre. Before he had completed his tenth year, Douglas served two years at sea as a midshipman. Then he removed with his parents to London, became apprentice to a printer, and gave every spare moment to solitary self-instruction. He took early to dramatic writing. His nautical drama, "Black-eyed Susan," was brought out at the Surrey Theatre in 1829, and had a run of three hundred nights, though Jerrold got from

1 Edgar A. Poe.

it only about £70. Other dramas followed, abounding in pointed and witty sayings. He contributed largely to Punch, and in 1852 became editor of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper at a salary of £1000 per annum. He died in 1857, after a short illness, and a fund of £2000 was raised by his friends for the beneât of his family. Jerrold's wit was neat and brilliant. Here are specimens: “Dogmatism is the maturity of puppyism." "A friend of an unfortunate lawyer met Jerrold, and said: 'Have you heard about poor R-? His business is going to the devil.' Jerrold: That's all right; then he is sure to get it back again.""

"Some member of a club, hearing a certain melody mentioned, said: "That always carries me away when I hear it.' 'Can nobody whistle it?' exclaimed Jerrold." Though his poetical effusions are few in number, they are always sensible and pithy.

THE DRUM.

Youder is a little drum, hanging on the wall; Dusty wreaths and tattered flags round about it fall. A shepherd youth on Cheviot's hills watched the sheep whose skin

A cunning workman wrought, and gave the little drum its din;

And happy was the shepherd-boy while tending of his fold,

Nor thought he there was in the world a spot like Cheviot's wold.

And so it was for many a day; but change with

time will come,

And he (alas for him the day!)-he heard the little drum.

"Follow," said the drummer-boy, "would you live in story!

For he who strikes a foeman down wins a wreath of glory."

"Rub-a-dub! and rub-a-dub!" the drummer beats

away

The shepherd lets his bleating flock on Cheviot wildly stray.

On Egypt's arid wastes of sand the shepherd now is lying;

Around him many a parching tongue for "water"

faintly crying.

Oh that he were on Cheviot's hills, with velvet verdure spread,

Or lying 'mid the blooming heath where oft he made his bed;

Or could he drink of those sweet rills that trickle

to its vales,

Or breathe once more the balminess of Cheviot's mountain gales!

At length upon his wearied eyes the mists of slumber come,

And he is in his home again, till wakened by the drum.

"To arms! to arms!" his leader cries; "the foethe foe is nigh!"

Guns loudly roar, steel clanks on steel, and thonsands fall to die.

The shepherd's blood makes red the sand: "Oh water-give me some!

My voice might meet a friendly ear but for that little drum!"

'Mid moaning men and dying meu, the drummer kept his way,

And many a one by "glory" lured abhorred the drum that day.

"Rub-a-dub! and rub-a-dub!" the drummer beat aloud

The shepherd died; and, ere the morn, the hot sand was his shroud.

And this is "glory?" Yes; and still will man the tempter follow,

Nor learn that glory, like its drum, is but a sound, and hollow.

Robert Stephen Hawker.

Hawker (1803-1875), a native of Plymouth, England, was for more than forty years Vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall. He was educated at Oxford, and as early as 1821 published a collection of poems anonymously, under the title of "Tendrils, by Reuben." He was twice married. The evening before his death he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. A collection of his poems was published by Kegan, Paul & Co., London, 1879. There is much in it that is commonplace; but the "Song of the Cornish Men " is one of the most spirited little lyrics in the language.

SONG OF THE CORNISH MEN. With the exception of the choral lines,

"And shall Trelawny die?

Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why"-

and which have been, ever since the imprisonment by James II. of the seven bishops, a popular proverb in Cornwall, the whole of this song was composed by Hawker in 1825. It was praised by Scott, Macaulay, and Dickens under the persuasion that it was the ancient song. Dickens afterward admitted its paternity in his "Household Words."

A good sword and a trusty hand!
A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.

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Gerald Griffin.

Griffin (1803-1840), author of the remarkable novel of "The Collegians," was a native of Limerick, Ireland. He emigrated to London in his twentieth year, became a reporter, and then an author. In 1838 he joined the Christian Brotherhood, a Roman Catholic institution, and two years later died of fever. He gave proof of rare literary abilities. "The book that above all others," says Miss Mary Russell Mitford, "speaks to me of the trials, the sufferings, the broken heart of a man of genius, is that Life of Gerald Griffin, written by a brother worthy of him, which precedes the only edition of his collected works."

SONG.

A place in thy memory, dearest,

Is all that I claim,

To pause and look back when thou hearest

The sound of my name.

Another may woo thee nearer,
Another may win and wear;
I care not, though he be dearer,
If I am remembered there.

Could I be thy true lover, dearest,
Couldst thou smile on me,

I would be the fondest and nearest
That ever loved thee.

But a cloud o'er my pathway is glooming
Which never must break upon thine,

And Heaven, which made thee all blooming, Ne'er made thee to wither on mine.

Remember me not as a lover

Whose fond hopes are crossed, Whose bosom can never recover

The light it has lost:

As the young bride remembers the mother
She loves, yet never may see,

As a sister remembers a brother,
Oh, dearest, remember me.

ADARE.1

Oh, sweet Adare! oh, lovely vale!
Oh, soft retreat of sylvan splendor!
Nor summer sun, nor morning gale

E'er hailed a scene more softly tender.

1 This beautiful and interesting locality is about eight miles from Limerick.

How shall I tell the thousand charms Within thy verdant bosom dwelling, Where, lulled in Nature's fostering arms, Soft peace abides and joy excelling?

Ye morning airs, how sweet at dawn

The slumbering boughs your song awaken, While lingering o'er the silent lawn,

With odor of the harebell taken! Thou rising sun, how richly gleams

Thy smile from far Knockfierna's mountain, O'er waving woods and bounding streams, And many a grove and glancing fountain!

In sweet Adare, the jocund spring

His notes of odorous joy is breathing; The wild birds in the woodland sing, The wild flowers in the vale are wreathing. There winds the Mague, as silver clear,

Among the elms so sweetly flowing, There fragrant in the early year,

Wild roses on the banks are blowing.

The wild duck seeks the sedgy bank,

Or dives beneath the glistening billow, Where graceful droop and cluster dank

The osier bright and rustling willow. The hawthorn scents the leafy dale,

In thicket lone the stag is belling,
And sweet along the echoing vale
The sound of vernal joy is swelling.

THE BRIDAL OF MALAHIDE.

The joy-bells are ringing in gay Malahide;
The fresh wind is singing along the sea-side;
The maids are assembling with garlands of flowers,
And the harp-strings are trembling in all the glad
bowers.

Swell, swell the gay measure! roll trumpet and drum!
'Mid greetings of pleasure in splendor they come!
The chancel is ready, the portal stands wide,
For the lord and the lady, the bridegroom and bride.

Before the high altar young Maud stands arrayed;
With accents that falter her promise is made:
From father and mother forever to part,-
For him and no other to treasure her heart.

The words are repeated, the bridal is done, The rite is completed, the two, they are one;

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