Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

bosom. The fever had tainted his sweet veins also, and I had soon to lay him shivering on his bed. In another day, he too was delirious, and too plainly chasing his brother into the grave.

+

4. "Never in the purest hours of their healthful happiness, had their innocent natures seemed to me more beautiful, than now in their delirium. As it increased, all vague fears of dying left their souls, and they kept talking as if to each other, of every thing here or in England, that was pleasant and interesting. Now and then, they murmured the names of persons of whom I had not formerly heard them speak; friends who had been kind to them, before I had known of their existence, and servants in their mother's or their father's household. Of their mother they spoke to themselves, although necessarily kept apart, almost in the very same words, expecting a visit from her at the Manse, and then putting out their little hands to embrace her. All their little, innocent plays were acted over and over again, on the bed of death. They were looking into the nests of the little singing-birds, which they never injured, in the hedge-rows, and the woods. And the last intelligible words that I heard Edward utter were these-'Let us go, brother, to the church-yard, and lie down on the daisies, among the little, green mounds!'

5. "They died within an hour of each other. I lifted up Henry, when I saw he too was dead, and laid him down beside his brother. There lay the twins, and had their mother at that hour come into the room, she would have been thankful to see that sight, for she would have thought that her children were in a calm and refreshing sleep!"

6. My eyes were fixed upon the sculptured images of the dead, lying side by side, with their faces turned to heaven; their little hands folded, as in prayer, upon their bosoms, and their eyelids closed. The old man drew a sigh, almost like a sob, and wept. They had been intrusted to his care; they had come smiling from another land; for one summer they were happy, and then disappeared, like fading flowers, from the earth. I wished that the old man would cease his touching narrative, both for his sake and my So I rose, and walked up quite close to the monument, inspecting the spirit of its design, and marking the finish of its execution. But he called me to him, and requesting me to resume my seat beside him on the grave-stone, he thus continued:

own.

7. “I had written to their mother in England, that the children were in extreme danger; but it was not possible that she could arrive in time to see them die; not even to see them buried. Decay was fast preying upon them, and the beauty of death was beginning to disappear; so we could not wait the arrival of their

+

mother, and their grave was made. Even the old, gray-headed sexton wept; for in this case of mortality, there was something to break in upon the ordinary tenor of his thoughts, and to stir up in his heart, feelings that he could not have known existed there. There was sadness, indeed, over all the parish for the fair English twins, who had come to live in the Manse after all the other boys had left it; and who, as they were the last, so were they the loveliest of all my flock. The very sound, or accent of their southern voices, so pretty and engaging to our ears, in the simplicity of childhood, had won many a heart, and touched, too, the imaginations of many with a new delight; and, therefore, on the morning when they were buried, it may be said there was here a fast-day of grief.'

[blocks in formation]

8. "The next day their mother arrived at the Manse. She knew, before she came, that her children were dead and buried. It is true that she wept, and at the sight of the grave, for they both lay in one coffin,-her grief was passionate and bitter. But that fit soon passed away. Her tears were tears of pity for them, but, as for herself, she hoped that she was soon to see them in heaven. Her face pale, yet flushed; her eyes hollow, yet bright; and a general languor and lassitude over her whole frame, all told that she was in the first stage of a consumption. Soon, other duties called her back to England, for the short remainder of her life. She herself drew the design of that monument with her own hand, and left it with me when she went away. I soon heard of her death. Her husband lies near Grenada, in Spain; she lies in the chancel of the cathedral of Salisbury, in England; and there, sleep her twins, in the little burial-ground of Auchindown, a Scottish parish."

WILSON.

LESSON CLXXVII.

THE WIDOW.

1. SHE said she was alone within the world;

How could she but be sad!

She whispered something of a lad,

With eyes of blue, and light hair sweetly curled;
But the grave had the child!

And yet his voice she heard,

When at the lattice, calm and mild,

The mother in the twilight saw the vine-leaves stirred.

[ocr errors][merged small]

I love thee;

[ocr errors]

When thou dost by the side of thy lone pillow pray,
My spirit writes the words above thee;

Mother I watch o'er thee; I love thee!

2. Where was the husband of the widowed thing, That seraph's earthly sire?

A soldier dares a soldier's fire;

The murderous ball brought death upon its wing;
Beneath a foreign sky

He fell, in sunny Spain;

The wife, in silence, saw him die,

But the fond boy's blue eyes gave drops like sunny rain. "Mother!" the poor lad cried,

66

'He's dying!

We are close by thee, father, at thy bleeding side;
Dost thou not hear thy Arthur crying?
Mother! his lips are closed; he 's dying!"

3. It was a stormy time, where the man fell
And the youth shrunk and pined;
Consumption's worm his pulse entwined;
Prepare his shroud!" rang out the convent bell,
Yet through his pain he smiled,

To soothe a parent's grief;

Sad soul! she could not be beguiled;

She saw the bud would leave the guardian leaf! "Mother!" he faintly said,

Come near me;

Kiss me, and let me in my father's grave be laid;
I've prayed that I might still be near thee;
Mother! I'll come again and cheer thee."

EDWARDS.

LESSON CLXXVIII.

MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

1. O THAT those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly, since I heard thee last.
My mother, when I learn'd that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss;
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss:
Ah, that maternal smile! it answers- -Yes.
2. I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day;
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away;

And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu.
But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone,

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
And, if I meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more.
3. Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return;
What ardently I wish'd, I long believed,
And disappointed still, was still deceived;
By expectation, every day beguiled,
Dupe of tomorrow, even when a child.
Thus many a sad tomorrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learn'd at last, submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplore thee, ne'er forgot.

4. My boast is not, that I declare my birth
From loins tenthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise
The son of parents passed into the skies.
And now, farewell. Time tunrevoked has run
His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done.
5. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seemed t'have lived my childhood o'er again;
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;

And while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this +mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft;
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

COWPER.

LESSON CLXXIX.

THE EVENING WIND.

1. SPIRIT, that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild, blue waves, till now

Rough'ning their crests, and scattering high their †spray, And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

2. Nor I alone; a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fullness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier at coming of the wind of night;

And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!
3. Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest;

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning from the innumerable boughs,
The strange, deep +harmonies that haunt his breast;
Pleasant shall be thy way, where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And 'twixt the o'ershadowing branches and the grass.
4. The faint, old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;
And they, who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains, to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

5. Go; but the circle of eternal change,

That is the life of nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more;
Sweet todors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, list'ning to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf, and running stream.

BRYANT.

LESSON CLXXX.

SHAKSPEARE.

1. Ir has been said, by some critic, that Shakspeare was distinguished from the other dramatic writers of his day, only by his wit; that they had all his other qualities but that; that one writer had as much sense; another, as much fancy; another, as much knowledge of character; another, the same depth of passion, and another, as great power of language. This statement is not true; nor is the inference from it well-founded, even if it were. This person does not seem to be aware, that, upon his own showing, the great distinction of Shakspeare's genius was its virtually including the genius of all the great men of his age, and not its differing from them in one accidental particular.

« AnteriorContinuar »