PART II. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Something of the same character is the subjoined:
EVENING SONG.
Brightly blue the stars shine o’er us, While the sinking sun ascends To the wide spread waves before us, And a pleasing softness lends. Homeward now the aged plough-boys Wing their way o’er hill and dale, And the laughter-loving cow goes Tripping lightly down the vale. Gentle zephyrs’ ink-stained fingers Point the hour-hand of the clock, There the warbling sheep-fold lingers— Save it from the cruel hawk! Thus excoriate the hours, Till the red volcano’s powers Kindle on the hearth its fires: Poets! dissipate your lyres!
In the following musical poem, the letter e does duty so well for all the other vowels, as to suggest the idea that our ordinary lavish use of them is a piece of extravagance!
When the September eves were new, When fresh the western breezes blew, When meek Selene, gem-besprent, The dew her crested jewels lent; We met, Belle, where the beeches grew, When the September eves were new. When the September eves were new, Endless, meseemed, the sweets we knew! Sweet fell the dew; sweet swept the breeze; Sweet were the templed beechen trees; The spell yet sweeter, tenderer grew, When the September eves were new! When the September eves were eld, The templed beechen trees were felled; Keen-edged the western breezes blew; Crestless the meek Selene grew; The fettered dew her jewels held, When the September eves were eld. When the September eves were eld, Fled were the scenes we erst beheld— Reft were the tender scenes we knew;— The desert, where the beeches grew! Yet, Belle, we sweeter secrets held, Ere the September eves were eld!
The construction of the following verses, from which the letter s is omitted, shows that our language is not of necessity a succession of sibilant sounds, as it is generally supposed to be:
Oh! come to-night, for naught can charm The weary time when thou’rt away. Oh, come! the gentle moon hath thrown O’er bower and hall her quivering ray. The heather bell hath mildly flung From off her fairy leaf the bright And diamond dew-drop that had hung Upon that leaf a gem of light. Then come, love, come! To-night the liquid wave hath not, (Illumined by the moonlit beam Playing upon the lake beneath, Like frolic in a fairy dream—) The liquid wave hath not, to-night, In all her moonlit pride, a fair Gift-like to them that, on thy lip, Do breathe and laugh and home it there. Then come, love, come! To-night, to-night, my gentle one, The flower-bearing Amra tree Doth long, with fragrant moan, to meet The love-lip of the honey-bee. But not the Amra tree can long To greet the bee, at evening light, With half the deep, fond love I long To meet my Nama here to-night. Then come, love, come!
What a boon would a volume of poems, modeled on the above principle of architecture, be to perthonth troubled with a lithp; whose reading at present (through the perverseness of the English language), sounds thus:
Thweetly murmurth the breethe from the thea, Thoothing my thoul to thlumberth, Fond memorieth bearing to me, Of the patht, in endleth numberth. I thigh ath I think how yearth have thped, How joy hath left me to thorrow; My heart now thleepeth the thleep of the dead; Will it waken to gladneth to-morrow?
THE NIMBLE BANK-NOTE.
“And he rose with a sigh, And he said, ‘Can this be?’”
(Motto chosen chiefly for its inappropriateness.)
One evening at the house of a friend of mine, while we were seated at the table, Mr. Baker, my friend’s husband, absently feeling in his vest pocket, found a five dollar note which he had no recollection of putting there.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “that is no place for you. I should have put you in my pocketbook. Here, wife, don’t you want some ready money?” and he threw the note across the table to her.
“Many thanks,” she replied; “money is always acceptable, although I have no present need of it.” She folded the note and put it under the edge of the tea-tray, and then proceeded to pour out the tea and attend to the wants of her guests.
At her right sat Mrs. Easton, or Aunt Susan, whom we all knew as an acquaintance who, from time to time, spent a week with Mrs. Baker. Her visit was just at an end, and she was to return home that evening.
As Mrs. Baker was pouring her tea, it occurred to her that she was in her aunt’s debt for certain small matters, and when she had the opportunity, she pushed the note under her plate, saying:
“Here, auntie, take this five dollars in part payment of my debt.”
“Very well,” she replied, “but the money does not belong to me. I owe you fifteen dollars, my dear Grace, which you lent me last Saturday. I had to pay the taxes on my little home, and had not the ready money, and Grace lent it to me,” explained Aunt Susan.
Grace, an orphan, was a cousin of Mrs. Baker. She and her brother Frank boarded with her, and made a very pleasant addition to the family circle. She was studying music, and her brother was a clerk in a mercantile establishment.
As soon as Aunt Susan received the note, she handed it to Grace, saying:
“I will give you this now on account, and the rest as soon as I get it.”
“All right,” answered Grace, laughing, “and since we all seem in the humor of paying our debts, I will follow suit. Frank, I owe you something for music you bought me; here is part of it,” and she threw the bank-note across the table to her brother, who sat opposite.
We were all highly amused to see how the note wandered around the table.
“This is a wonderful note,” said Mr. Baker; “I only wish somebody owed me something, and I owed somebody something, so that I might come into the ring.”
“You can,” said Frank. “I owe Mrs. Baker—or you, it’s all the same—for my board; I herewith pay you part of it.”
Amid general laughter, Mr. Baker took the note and playfully threw it to his wife again, saying:
“It’s yours again, Lucy, because what belongs to me belongs to you. It has completed the round, and we have all had the benefit of it.”
“And now it must go around again,” replied she gayly. “I like to see money circulate; it should never lie idle. Aunt Susan you take it. Now I have paid you ten dollars.”
“Dear Grace, here is another five dollars on my account,” said Aunt Susan, handing it to Grace.
“And you Frank, have paid ten dollars for the music you bought me,” said Grace, handing it to her brother.
“And I pay you ten dollars for my board,” he continued, and the note once more rested in Mr. Baker’s hands.
The exchanges were quick as thought, and we were convulsed with laughter.
“Was there ever so wonderful an exchange?” exclaimed Grace.
“It’s all nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Baker.
“Not in the least,” answered his wife. “It’s all quite right.”
“Certainly,” said Frank; “when the money belonged to you, you could dispose of it as you would; I have the same right; it is a fair kind of exchange, though very uncommon.”
“It shows the use of money,” said Aunt Susan. “It makes the circuit of the world and brings its value to every one who touches it.”
“And this note has not finished its work yet, as I will show you, my dear, if you will give it to me again, said Mrs. Baker to her husband.
“I present you with this five dollar note,” said Mr. Baker.
“And I give it to you, Aunt Susan—I owed you fifteen dollars, and I have paid my debt.”
“You have, my dear friend, without doubt; and now, my dear Grace, I pay you my indebtedness, with many thanks for your assistance.”
“I take it with thanks, Aunt Susan,” replied Grace; “and now the time has come when this wonder-working, this inexhaustibly rich bank-note must be divided, because I do not owe Frank five dollars more. How much have I to pay you?”
“Two dollars and sixty-two cents,” replied Frank.
“Can you change it?”
“Let me see; sixty-two, thirty-eight, yes, there is the change; the spell is broken, Grace, and you and I divide the spoils.”
“This bank-note beats all I ever saw. How much has it paid? Let us count up,” said Grace. “Mrs. Baker gave Aunt Susan fifteen dollars, which Aunt Susan gave me; I gave Frank twelve dollars and sixty-two cents; Frank gave Mr. Baker ten dollars—altogether fifty-two dollars and sixty-two cents.”
“It’s all nonsense, I tell you,” cried Mr. Baker, again; “you all owe each other what you owed before.”
“You are deceived, my dear, by the rapid, unbroken race this little sum has made; to me it is as clear as daylight,” replied Mrs. Baker.
“If it is all nonsense, how could the note which you gave Mrs. Baker, if nothing to me or to you, be divided between us two?” asked Grace.
Mr. Baker did not seem to see it very clearly, but the others did, and they often relate this little history for the amusement of their friends.
THE RATIONALISTIC CHICKEN.
(Inspecting its shell.)
BY J. S. STONE.
Most strange! Most queer,—although most excellent a change! Shades of the prison-house, ye disappear! My fettered thoughts have won a wider range, And, like my legs, are free; No longer huddled up so pitiably: Free now to pry and probe, and peep and peer, And make these mysteries out. Shall a free-thinking chicken live in doubt? For now in doubt undoubtedly I am: This Problem’s very heavy on my mind, And I’m not one either to shirk or sham: I won’t be blinded, and I won’t be blind. Now, let me see: First, I would know how did I get in there? Then, where was I of yore? Besides, why didn’t I get out before? Dear me! Here are three puzzles (out of plenty more) Enough to give me pip upon the brain! But let me think again. How do I know I ever was inside? Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain, Less than my reason, and beneath my pride, To think that I could dwell In such a paltry miserable cell As that old shell. Of course I couldn’t! How could I have lain, Body and beak and feathers, legs and wings, And my deep heart’s sublime imaginings, In there? I meet the notion with profound disdain; It’s quite incredible; since I declare (And I’m a chicken that you can’t deceive) What I can’t understand I won’t believe. Where did I come from, then? Ah! where, indeed? This is a riddle monstrous hard to read. I have it! Why, of course, All things are moulded by some plastic force, Out of some atoms somewhere up in space, Fortuitously concurrent anyhow;— There, now! That’s plain as is the beak upon my face. What’s that I hear? My mother cackling at me! Just her way, So prejudiced and ignorant I say; So far behind the wisdom of the day. What’s old I can’t revere. Hark at her. “You’re a silly chick, my dear, That’s quite as plain, alack! As is the piece of shell upon your back!” How bigoted! upon my back, indeed! I don’t believe it’s there, For I can’t see it: and I do declare, For all her fond deceivin’, What I can’t see I never will believe in!
A MEDLEY.
I only know she came and went, [Lowell.
Like troutlets in a pool; [Hood.
She was a phantom of delight, [Wordsworth.
And I was like a fool. [Eastman.
One kiss, dear maid, I said, and sighed, [Coleridge.
Out of those lips unshorn! [Longfellow.
She shook her ringlets round her head, [Stoddard.
And laughed in merry scorn. [Tennyson.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, [Tennyson.
You hear them, Oh, my heart, [Alice Cary.
’Tis twelve at night by the castle clock— [Coleridge.
Beloved, we must part. [Alice Cary.
Come back, come back, she cried in grief, [Campbell.
My eyes are dim with tears; [B. Taylor.
How shall I live through all the days, [Mrs. Osgood.
All through a hundred years? [J. J. Perry.
’Twas in the prime of summer time, [Hood.
She blessed me with her hand; [Hoyt.
We strayed together deeply blest, [Mrs. Edwards.
Into the dreaming land. [Cornwall.
The laughing bridal roses blew, [Patmore.
To deck her dark brown hair, [B. Taylor.
No maiden may with her compare, [Brailsford.
Most beautiful, most rare! [Read.
I clasped it on her sweet cold hand, [Browning.
The precious golden link; [Smith.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm— [Coleridge.
Drink, pretty creature, drink! [Wordsworth.
And so I won my Genevieve, [Coleridge.
And walked in Paradise; [Hervey.
The fairest thing that ever grew [Wordsworth.
Atween me and the skies! [Tennyson.
ANOTHER MEDLEY.
(WHO ARE THE AUTHORS?)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, In every clime, from Lapland to Japan; To fix one spark of beauty’s heavenly ray, The proper study of mankind is man. Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise, Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain! “The man of Ross,” each lisping babe replies, And drags, at each remove a length’ning chain. Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb Far as the solar walk, or milky way? Procrastination is the thief of time, Let Hercules himself do what he may. ’Tis education forms the common mind, The feast of reason and the flow of soul; I must be cruel only to be kind, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. Syphax! I joy to meet thee thus alone, Where’er I roam, whatever lands I see; A youth to fortune and to fame unknown, In maiden meditation, fancy free. Farewell! and wheresoe’er thy voice be tried, Why to yon mountain turns the gazing eye? With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, That teach the rustic moralist to die. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose beard descending, swept his aged breast; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, Man never is, but always to be blest.
AND ANOTHER MEDLEY.
The moon was shining silver bright, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, When freedom from her mountain height, Exclaimed, “Now don’t be foolish, Joe!” An hour passed by; the Turk awoke, Ten days and nights with sleepless eye, To hover in the sulphur smoke, And spread its pall upon the sky. His echoing axe the settlers swung, He was a lad of high degree; And deep the pearly caves among, Sweet Mary, weep no more for me. Loud roars the wild, inconstant blast, And cloudless sets the sun at even; When twilight dews are falling fast, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven. Oh, ever thus, from childhood’s hour, By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Beneath yon ivy-mantled tower, They lingered in the forest shade. My love is like the red, red rose; He bought a ring with posy true; Deep terror then my vitals froze; And, Saxon, I am Rhoderick Dhu!
LIFE.
Why all this toil for triumph of an hour?
[Young.
Life’s a short summer—man is but a flower;
[Dr. Johnson.
By turns we catch the fatal breath and die—
[Pope.
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.
[Prior.
To be is better far than not to be,
[Sewell.
Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy:
[Spencer.
But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb—
[Daniel.
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
[Sir Walter Raleigh.
Your fate is but the common fate of all;
[Longfellow.
Unmingled joys may here no man befall;
[Southwell.
Nature to each allots his proper sphere,
[Congreve.
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;
[Churchill.
Custom does often reason overrule,
[Rochester.
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
[Armstrong.
Live well—how long or short permit to heaven;
[Milton.
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven,
[Bailey.
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face—
[French.
Vile intercourse where virtue has no place,
[Sommerville.
Then keep each passion down, however dear.
[Thompson.
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear;
[Byron.
Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay,
[Smollet.
With craft and skill to ruin and betray,
[Crabbe.
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise,
[Massinger.
We masters grow of all that we despise.
[Cowley.
Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem;
[Beattie.
Riches have wings; and grandeur is a dream.
[Cowper.
Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave,
[Sir Walter Davenant.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave,
[Gray.
What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat.
[Willis.
Only destructive to the brave and great.
[Addison.
What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown?
[Dryden.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.
[Francis Quarles.
How long we live, not years but actions tell;
[Watkins.
That man lives twice who lives the first life well.
[Herrick.
Make then, while yet you may, your God your friend.
[William Mason.
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.
[Hill.
The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just;
[Dana.
For live we how we may, yet die we must.
[Shakespeare.