Class V -S 9-C^'^ 3 Book J-V^z— COraUOHT DKPOSOl GEMS FROM GEORGE H. MILES. THE POET'S PRAISE. Hail to the bard! whose peerless song On duty, beauty, love and truth, Though heard at first in careless youth. Rings still in memory clear and stron>' . ..^c^^* gems from George H. Miles ANNOTATED AND EDITED By THE A UTHOR of " The Pillar and Ground of the Truth ' ' % «>■.-' ' > 3,5 CHICAGO J. S. HYLx^ND (St* company 1901 THE LIBRARY OF QC-MGRESS, Two Cuf-iEd RECHfveO NOV. 8 1901 COPV«»OHT ENTRY CLASS cu KXa No coPY a re? 2.313 Introduction, Notes, Illustrations and New Matter Copyrighted by THOMAS E. COX igoi c c c c t * e t ' INTRODUCTION. The purpose of this volume is to present, in popular form, a few characteristic selections from the poems, the plays, the novels, the essays and the orations of George H. Miles. It is hoped that these " Gems " may give pleasure to our readers, while proving beyond cavil our author's title to immortality. Some of the purest pearls of thought, some of the sweetest songs and most ennobling sentences, in the whole range of Eng- lish literature flowed from his gifted pen. Vivid imagery, refined sentiment and natural tender- ness characterize everything he wrote. George Henry Miles was born in Baltimore July 31, 1824. His genealogy on the paternal side goes back to Puritan and English stock. On the maternal side we find Scotch and Hebrew-Ger- man blood. His father, William Miles, some time United States Consul at Hayti, was a native of New York. His grandfather was Captain George H. Miles. His great-grandfather, the first of his ancestors of whom we have definite 5 6 Introduction. account, was Col. Thomas Miles, an officer In the British army, whose body lies buried at Walling- ford, near New Haven. The mother of George H. Miles was Sarah Mickle — " a great woman," says one who knew her well. " She loved good literature and taught her children to love it. . . . She had good sense, good humor, and good looks." Her father was Robert Mickle, the son of a Scotch settler in Baltimore. Her mother was Elizabeth Etting, of Philadelphia, whose ancestors were of Hebrew extraction. To this Elizabeth Etting Alickle, Miles' grandmother, who lived till her ninetieth year, the following lines refer : " Here, too, a relic of primeval ways And statelier manners, mingled with the grace Of Israel, in the evening of her days Baptized at fourscore, strongest of her race." Miles received his Bachelor's degree from Mount St. Mary's College, Maryland, on June 28, 1843, ^'^'^^ ^ f^w months later began the study of law in his native city, in the office of John H. B. Latrobe. On completing his legal studies, he formed a partnership with Edwin H. Webster, Introduction. 7 who afterwards became a member of Congress. Miles found the practice of his profession uncon- genial and irksome. Some one has said, " No great love existed between them at first, and it pleased Heaven to diminish it as they got better acquainted." His first novel, " The Truce of God," was pub- lished as a serial about 1848. In 1849 ^is '' Loretto, or The Choice," won a prize offered by a Baltimore paper for the best serial story. The next year Edwin Forrest offered one thou- sand dollars for the best drama produced by American talent, and Miles' tragedy in five acts, entitled '' Mohammed," carried off the honors from a hundred competitors. In 1851 Mr. Miles became the bearer of certain diplomatic messages from President Fillmore to the Spanish Court at Madrid. In 1864 he visited Europe agam, and soon after his return he wrote " Glimpses of Tus- cany," which was published in 1868. His best known long poem, " Christine," appeared in 1866. His five-act blank-verse tragedy, ^' De Soto," was written for James E. Murdock, and was played by Murdock in 1851-52, and also by E. L. Daven- 8 Introduction. port as late as 1855. But the supreme effort of Miles' literary life is his " Cromwell, a Tragedy," which remains in manuscript to this day, a monu- ment to unappreciated genius. Besides the works already mentioned, IMiles is the author of a charming little story, *' The Governess ; " the comedies, " Seiior Valiente," *' Mary's Birthday," " Abou-Hassan," and many others; also a long satirical poem, "Aladdin's Palace," and an unfinished series of critiques on Shakespeare. The only one of these as yet pub- lished, " A Study of Hamlet," has attracted much attention on account of the singular beauty of the language and the clear insight into the character of the Danish prince. In 1859 Miles accepted the chair of English Literature in his Alma Mater. On the 22d of February, of the same year, he married Miss Adeline Tiers. Soon he took up his residence at his beautiful country-seat near Emmitsburg, Md., to which he gave the name '' Thornbrook." " The house where he dwelt," writes one of his pupils,^ " has been unoccupied for many years, 1 Thomas W. Kenney, M. D., LL. D., of Philadelphia. Introduction. 9 and the once beautiful grounds and smiling gar- den are no longer cared for. Yet even now Thornbrook is a delightful spot, and one can im- agine how happy Mr. Miles' life must have been in so pleasant a home. A short distance from the main road, at the end of a little wood, we see the poet's handsome cottage gleaming through the trees. It stands in a small grove. Pine-trees and a few silver maples, together with thick bushes, almost hide it from sight. Back of the cottage are many fruit trees, a broken grape- arbor and a long-neglected garden. Here in his quiet home George H. Miles enjoyed the solitude which he needed and loved. His teachers were the delly woods and rills, The silence that is in the starry sky, The sleep that is among the lonely hills." Prof. George Henry Miles, poet, dramatist, novehst and critic, died at Thornbrook July 23, 1 87 1. All that was mortal of him sleeps in the mountain churchyard, within a mortuary chapel which his own pen had consecrated to the Muses : — lO Introduction. " Holding the very summit of the slope, A pointed chapel, girt with evergreen And frailer foliage — still as hope — Watches the east for morning's earliest sheen : Within it slumbers one For whom the tears of unextinguished grief still run. " The sunset shadow of this chapel falls Upon a classmate's grave : a rare delight Laughed in his youth, but, one by one, the halls Of life were darkened, till, amid the night, A single star remained — Bright herald of the paradise by tears regained. THE POET S GRAVE. High in the bending trees the north wind sings, The shining chestnuts at my feet are rolled ; The shivering mountains, bare as bankrupt kings, Sit beggared of their purple and their gold : The naked plain below Sighs to the clouds, impatient of its robe of snow. CONTENTS. Page. Introduction 5 Christine ^5 Note i6 The Castle of Miolan (From ist Canto) 17 The Baron's Tale (From ist Canto) 19 The Funeral Room (From 2d Canto) 27 The Barons Tale — Con. (From 2d Canto). 30 Pilate's Peak (Frofn 3rd Canto) 3^ The Prelude (From 4th Canto) 42 The Tournament (From 4th Canto) 43 Flight of Christine (From 4th Canto) 53 The Resuscitation (From jth Canto) 63 A Provencal Sonnet (From 5th Canto) 68 The Knight's Song (From 5th Canto) 69 Aladdin's Palace 73 Inkermann 79 Amin 95 Egypt .' • 95 The Soldier's Banquet Song 9^ Art Poems loi Note 102 Raphael Sanzio 103 San Sisto i ^7 Note 120 The Ivory Crucifix 121 Minor Poems 129 Note 130 The Devil's Visit to 131 An Ambrotype 132 II 12 Contents. Page. An Album Piece 133 The Reverse 134 Said the Rose 135 The Albatross 140 Beatrice 143 Partings 147 There was a time 148 Manuscript Facsimile (From "Amin ") 149 On the Death of Dr. 150 Tragedies 153 Notes 154 Mohammed 155 Author's Preface 155 The Founding of Islam 158 De Soto 172 The Death of De Soto 172 Cromwell 182 The Execution of Charles 1 182 Comedies 191 Note 192 Author's Preface (Sc}~ior Valicntc) 193 Senor Valiente 195 Mary's Birthday 199 Abou Hassan 205 Echo Song 210 Essays, Orations, Etc 211 Note 212 A Study of Hamlet 213 Reverence 221 The Pilgrims 226 Glimpses of Tuscany 229 The Governess 232 Loretto 246 Sentences, Phrases, and Figures 252 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. George H. Miles (facing page) 2 The Poet's Grave (on page) 10 Flight of Christine (map page) 56 The Santo Sudario (on page) 61 Transfiguration (facing page) 104 Sistine Madonna (facing page) 120 Manuscript Facsimile (from "Amin ") 149 Burial of De Soto (on page) 181 Echo Song (from "A Picture of Innocence"). 210 CHRISTINE. 1 6 Christine. NOTE. " Christine " contains a story within a story, or a song within a song. The enveloping part carries one back to Palestine, at the beginning of the third Crusade, August, 1 191. The inner part, which is the real "Christine," is a romance, in five cantos, connected with the first Cru- sade. The scene is laid in Southern France. (See map on page 56.) The poem is full of spirit and action. The Fourth Canto, which tells of the tournament and of the flight of Christine, is not surpassed in descriptive power or thrill- ing interest by any similar production in our language. The story of " Christine " proper concludes with a sonnet constructed after a form peculiar to Provence, where the sonnet originated. Christine. ^ 7 THE CASTLE OF MIOLAN. (From First Canto.) Ye have heard of the Castle of Miolan And how it hath stood since time began, Midway to yon mountain's brow, Guarding the beautiful valley below : Its crest the clouds, its ancient feet Where the Arc and the Isere murmuring meet. Earth hath few lovelier scenes to show Than Miolan with its hundred halls. Its massive towers and bannered walls. Looming put through the vines and walnut woods That gladden its stately solitudes. And there might ye hear but yestermorn The loud halloo and the hunter's horn, 1 8 Christine. The laugh of mailed men at play, The drinking bout and the roundelay. But now all is sternest silence there, Save the bell that calls to vesper prayer ; Save the ceaseless surge of a father's wail, And, hark ! ye may hear the Baron'-s Tale. Christine. ^9 THE BARON'S TALE. (From First Canto.) " Come hither, Hermit ! — Yestermorn I had an only son, A gallant fair as e'er was born, A knight whose spurs were won In the red tide by Godfrey's side As Ascalon. " But yestermorn he came to me For blessing on his lance, And death and danger seemed to flee The joyance of his glance. For he would ride to win his Bride, Christine of France. " All sparkling in the sun he stood In mail of Milan dressed, A scarf, the gift of her he wooed, 20 Christine. Lay lightly o'er his breast, x^s, with a clang, to horse he sprang With nodding crest. '* Gaily he grasped the stirrup cup Afoam with spicy ale, But as he took the goblet up Methought his cheek grew pale, And a shudder ran through the iron man And through his mail. " Oft had I seen him breast the shock Of squire or crowned king ; His front was firm as rooted rock When spears were shivering: I knew no blow could shake him so From living thing. " 'Twas something near akin to death That blanched and froze his cheek, Yet 'twas not death, for he had breath, And when I bade him speak, Christine. 2 ] Unto his breast his hand he pressed With one wild shriek. " The hand thus clasped upon his heart So sharply curbed the rein, Grey Caliph, rearing with a start, Went bounding o'er the plain, Away, away with echoing neigh And streaming mane. " After him sped the menial throng ; I stirred not in my fear ; Perchance I swooned, for it seemed not long Ere the race did reappear. And my son still led on his desert-bred, Grasping his spear. " Unchanged in look or limb, he came, He and his barb so fleet, His hand still on his heart, the same Stern bearing in his seat. And wheeling round with sudden bound Stopped at my feet. 2 2 Christine. " And soon as ceased that wildering tramp, ' What ails thee, boy ? ' I cried — Taking his hand all cliill and damp — 'What means this fearful ride? Alight, alight, for lips so white Would scare a Bride ! ' " But sternly to his steed clove he, And answer made me none. I clasped him by his barbed knee And there I made my moan ; While icily he stared at me. At me alone. " A strange, unmeaning stare was that, And a page beside me said, ' If ever corse in saddle sat, Our lord is certes sped ! ' But I smote the lad, for it drove me mad To think him dead. " What ! dead so young, — what ! lost so soon. My beautiful, my brave ! Christine. 23 Sooner the sun should find at noon In central heaven a grave ! Sweet Jesu, no, it is not so When Thou canst save! " For was he dead and was he sped, When he could ride so well, So bravely bear his plumed head ? Or, was't some spirit fell In causeless wrath had crossed his path With fiendish spell? " Oh, Hermit, 'twas a cruel sight, And He, who loves to bless, Ne'er sent on son such bitter blight. On sire such sore distress. Such piteous pass, and I, alas, So powerless ! " They would have ta'en him from his horse The while I wept and prayed ; They would have lain him like a corse 2 4 Christine. Upon a litter made . Of traversed spear and martial gear, But I forbade. " I gazed into his face again, I chafed his hand once more, I summoned him to speak, in vain — ■ He sat there as before. While the gallant Grey in dumb dismay His rider bore. " Full well, full well Grey Caliph then The horror seemed to know ; E'en deeper than my mailed men Methought he felt our woe ; For the barbed head of the desert-bred Was drooping low. ***** " A sudden clang of armor rang, My boy lay on the sward, Up high in air Grey Caliph sprang, Christine. 25 An instant fiercely pawed, Then trembling stood aghast and viewed His fallen lord. Then with the flash of fire away Like sunbeam o'er the plain, Away, away with echoing neigh And wildly waving mane, Away he sped, loose from his head The flying rein. I watched the steed from pass to pass Unto the welkin's rim ; I feared to turn my eyes, alas, To trust a look at him ; And when I turned, my temples burned And all grew dim. Sweet if such swoon could endless be, Yet speedily I woke And missed my boy : they showed him me 26 Christine. Full length on bed of oak, Clad as 'twas meet in mail complete And sable cloak. " All of our race upon that bier Had rested one by one. I had seen my father lying there, And now there lay my son ! Ah ! my sick soul bled the while it said ' Thy will be done ! ' * :K :i: * * *' I sent for thee, thou man of God, To watch with me to-night ; My boy still liveth, by the rood, Nor shall be funeral rite ! — But, Hermit, come : this is the room : There lies the Knight ! " Christine. 2 7 THE FUNERAL ROOM. (From Second Canto.) They passed into an ancient hall With oaken arches spanned. Full many a shield hung on the wall, Full many a broken brand, And barbed spear and scimitar From Holy Land. And scarfs of dames of high degree With gold and jewels rich, And many a mouldered effigy In many a mouldering niche, Like grey sea shells whose crumbling cells Bestrew the beach. The sacred dead possessed the place. The silent cobweb wreathed The tombs where slept that warrior race, With swords forever sheathed : 28 Christine. You seemed to share the very air Which they had breathed. Oh, darksome was that funeral room, Those oaken arches dim, The torchhght, struggHng through the gloom, Fell faint on effige grim. On dragon dread and carved head Of Cherubim. Of Cherubim fast by a shrine Whereon the last sad rite Was wont for all that ancient line. For dame and belted knight — A shrine of Moan which death alone Did ever light. But light not now that altar stone While hope of life remain, Though darksome be that altar lone. Unlit that funeral fane. Save by the rays cast by the blaze Of torches twain. Christine. 2 9 Of torches twain at head and heel Of him who seemeth dead, Who sleepeth so well in his coat of steel, His cloak around him spread — The young Knight fair, who lieth there On oaken bed. One hand still fastened to his heart, The other on his lance. While through his eyelids, half apart. Life seemeth half to glance. '' Sweet youth awake, for Jesu's sake, From this strange trance ! " 30 Christine, THE BARON'S TALE — CONTINUED. (From Second Canto.) Not yet ! " the Baron gasped, and sank As if beneath a blow, With Hps all writhing as they drank The dregs of deepest woe ; With eyes aglare, and scattered hair Tossed to and fro. So swings the leaf that lingers last When wintry tempests sweep, So reels when storms have stripped the mast The galley on the deep, So nods the snow on Eigher's brow Before the leap. Uncertain 'mid his tangled hair His palsied fingers stray, Christine. He smileth in his dumb despair Like a sick child at play, Though wet, I trow, with tears eno' That beard so grey. Oh, Hermit, lift him to your breast. There best his heart may bleed ; Since none but heaven can give him rest, Heaven's priest must meet his need : Dry that white beard, now wet and weird As pale sea-weed. Uprising slowly from the ground, With short and frequent breath. In aimless circles, round and round. The Baron tottereth With trailing feet, a mourner meet For house of death. Till, pausing by the shrine of Moan, He said, the while he wept. Here, Hermit, here mine only one, 32 Christine. When all the castle slept, As maiden knight, o'er armor bright, His first watch kept. " This is the casque that first he wore, And this his virgin shield. This lance to his first tilt he bore, With this first took the field — How light, how lache to that huge ash He now doth wield ! '* This blade hath levelled at a blow The she-wolf in her den. With this red falchion he laid low The slippery Saracen. God ! will that hand, so near his brand, V Ne'er strike again? " Frown not on him, ye men of old, Whose glorious race is run; Frown not on him, my fathers bold, Though many the field ye won : Christine. 33 His name and fate may with yours mate Though but begun ! " Receive him, ye departed brave, Unlock the gates of Hght, And range yourselves about his grave To hail a brother knight, Who never erred in deed or word Against the right! " But is he dead and is he sped Withouten scathe or scar? Why, Hermit, he hath often bled From sword and scimitar — I've seen him ride, wounds gaping wide, From war to war. " And hath a silent, viewless thing Laid danger's darling low, When youth and hope were on the wing And life in morning glow? Not yonder worm in winter's storm Perisheth so! 3 34 Christine. " Oh, Hermit, thou hast heard, I ween, Of trances long and deep, But, Hermit, hast thou ever seen That grim and stony sleep. And canst thou tell how long a spell Such slumbers keep? " Oh, be there naught to break the charm, To thaw this icy chain ; Hath Mother Church no word to warm These freezing lips again; Be holy prayer and balsams rare Alike in vain? . . . *' A curse on thy ill-omened head ; Man, bid me not despair ; Churl, say not that a Knight is dead When he can couch his spear; When he can ride — Monk, thou hast lied. He lives, I swear! " Up from that bier ! Boy, to thy feet ! Know'st not thy father's voice? Christine. . 35 Thou ne'er hast disobeyed . . . is't meet A sire should summon thrice? By these grey hairs, by these salt tears, Awake, arise ! *' Ho, lover, to thy ladye flee. Dig deep the crimson spur; Sleep not 'twixt this lean monk and me When thou shouldst kneel to her ! Oh 'tis a sin, Christine to win And thou not stir ! " Ho, laggard, hear yon trumpet's note Go sounding to the skies, The lists are set, the banners float, Yon loud-mouthed herald cries, ' Ride, gallant knights, Christine invites, Herself the prize ! ' '' Ho, craven, shun'st thou the melee. When she expects thy brand To prove to-day in fair tourney A title to her hand ? 36 Christine. Up, dullard base, or by the mass I'll make thee stand ! " . . . Thrice strove he then to wrench apart Those fingers from the spear. Thrice strove to sever from the heart The hand that rested there ; Thrice strove in vain with frantic strain That shook the bier. Thrice with the dead the living strove, Their armor rang a peal. The sleeping knight he would not move Although the sire did reel: That stately corse defied all force. Stubborn as steel. " Ay, dead, dead, dead ! " the Baron cried ; " Dear Hermit, I did rave. O were we sleeping side by side ! . . . Good monk, I pardon crave For all I said. . . . Ay, he is dead, Pray heaven to save ! Christine. 37 " Betake thee to thy orisons And let me while I may Rain kisses on these frozen cheeks Before they know decay. Leave me to weep and watch and keep The worm at bay. '* Thou wilt not spare thy prayers, I trust ; But name not now the grave — I'll w^atch him to the very dust ! . . . So, Hermit, to thy cave, Whilst here I cling lest creeping thing Insult the brave ! " 38 Christine. PILATE'S PEAK. (From Third Canto.) Fronting the vine-clad Hermitage, — Its hoary turrets mossed with age, Its walls with flowers and grass o'ergrown, — A ruined Castle, throned so high Its battlements invade the sky, Looks down upon the rushing Rhone. From its tall summits you may see The sunward slopes of Cote Rotie With its red harvest's revelry ; While eastward, midway to the Alpine snows, Soar the sad cloisters of the Grande Chartreuse. And here, 'tis said, to hide his shame, The thrice accursed Pilate came ; And here the very rock is shown. Where, racked and riven with remorse, Mad with the memory of the Cross, He sprang and perished in the Rhone. Christine. Tis said that certain of his race Made this tall peak their dwelling place, And built them there this castle keep To mark the spot of Pilate's leap. Full many the tale of terror told At eve, with changing cheek, By maiden fair and stripling bold, Of these dark keepers of the height And, most of all, of the Wizard Knight, The Knight of Pilate's Peak. His was a name of terror known And feared through all Provence; Men breathed it in an undertone, With quailing eye askance. Till the good Dauphin of Vlenne, And Miolan's ancient Lord, One midnight stormed the robber den And gave them to the sword ; All save the Wizard Knight, who rose In a flame-wreath from his dazzled foes ; All save a child, with golden hair, 39 40 Christine. Whom the Lord of Miolan deigned to spare In ruth to womanhood. But who is he, with step of fate, Goes gloomily through the castle gate In the morning's virgin prime? Why scattereth he with frenzied hand The fierce flame of that burning brand, Chaunting an ancient rhyme? The eagle, scared from her blazing nest, Whirls with a scream round his sable crest. What muttereth he with demon smile. Shaking his mailed hand the while Toward the Chateau of La Sone, Where champing steed and bannered tent Gave token of goodly tournament, And the Golden Dolphin shone? " Woe to the last of the Dauphin's line. When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine Round the towers of Pilate's Peak! Burn, beacon, burn ! " — and as he spoke From the ruined towers curled the pillared smoke, Christine. 41 As the light flame leapt from the ancient oak And answered the eagle's shriek. Man and horse down the hillside sprang And a voice through the startled forest rang — " I ride, I ride to win my bride. Ho, Eblis ! to thy servant's side ; Thou hast sworn no foe Shall lay me low Till the dead in .arms against me ride." * * >K * * But hark ! the cry of the clamorous horn Smites the bright stillness of the morn. From moated wall, from festal hall. The banners beckon, the bugles call; Already flames, in the lists unrolled O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold. A hundred knights in armor glancing, Hurry afield with pennons dancing, Each with a vow to splinter a lance For Christine, the Lily of Provence. 42 Christine. PRELUDE. (From Fourth Canto.) Amid the gleam of princely war Christine sat like the evening star, Pale in the sunset's pageant bright, A separate and sadder light. O bitter task To rear aloft that shining head, While round thee, cruel whisperers ask — Marry, what aileth the Bridegroom gay? The heralds have waited as long as they may, Yet never a sign of the gallant Grey. Is Miolan false or dead ? " Christine. 43 THE TOURNAMENT. (From Fourth Canto.) The Dauphin eyed Christine askance: " We have tarried too long," quoth he ; '^ Doth the Savoyard fear the thrust of France ? By the Bride of Heaven, no laggard lance Shall ever have guard of thee ! " You could see the depths of the dark eyes shine And a glow on the marble cheek. As she whispered, " Woe to the Dauphin's line When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine Round the towers of Pilate's Peak." She levelled her white hand toward the west. Where the omen beacon shone; And he saw the flame on the castle crest, And a livid glare light the mountain's breast Even down to the rushing Rhone. 44 Christine. Never braver lord in all the land Than that Dauphin true and tried ; But the rein half fell from his palsied hand And his fingers worked at the jewelled brand That shook in its sheath at his side. For it came with a curse from earliest time, It was carved on his father's halls, It had haunted him ever from clime to clime, And at last the red light of the ancient rhyme Is burning on Pilate's walls ! Yet warrior-like beneath his feet Trampling the sudden fear, He cried, " Let thy lover's foot be fleet — If thy Savoyard would wed thee, sweet, By Saint Mark, he were better here ! " For I know by yon light there is danger near. And I swear by the Holy Shrine, Christine. 45 Be it virgin spear or Miolan's heir, The victor to-day shall win and wear This menaced daughter of mine ! " The lists are aflame with the gold and steel Of knights in their proud array, And gong and tymbalon chiming peal As forward the glittering squadrons wheel To the jubilant courser's neigh. The Dauphin sprang to the maiden's side. And thrice aloud cried he, ' Ride, gallants all, for beauty ride, Christine herself is the victor's bride, Whoever the victor be ! " And thrice the heralds cried it aloud, While a wondering whisper ran From the central lists to the circling crowd, For all knew the virgin hand was vowed To the heir of Miolan. 46 Christine. Quick at the Dauphin's pUghtecl word Full many an eye flashed fire, Full many a knight took a truer sword, Tried buckle and girth, and many a lord Chose a stouter lance from his squire. Back to the barrier's measured bound Each gallant speedeth away ; Then, forward fast to the trumpet's sound, A hundred horsemen shake the ground And meet in the mad melee. Crimson the spur and crimson the spear, The blood of the brave flo\vs fast; But Christine is deaf to the dying prayer, Blind to the dying eyes that glare On her as they look their last. She sees but a Black Knight striking so well That the bravest shun his path; His name or his nation none may tell. Christine. 47 But wherever he struck a victim fell At the feet of that shape of wrath. "'Fore God," quoth the Dauphin, "that un- known sword Is making a merry day ! " But where, oh where is the Savoyard, For low in the slime of that trampled sward Lie the flower of the Dauphinee ! And the victor stranger rideth alone, Wiping his bloody blade ; And now that to meet him there is none. Now that the warrior work is done, He moveth toward the maid. Sternly, as if he came to kill. Toward the damsel he turneth his rein; His trumpet sounding a challenge shrill. While the fatal lists of La Sone are still As he paces the purple plain. \ Christine. A hollow voice through the visor cried, " Mount to the crupper with me. Mount, Ladye, mount to thy master's side, For 'tis said and 'tis sworn thou shalt be the Bride Of the victor, whoever he be." At sound of that voice a sudden flame Shot out from the Dauphin's eyes, And he said, " Sir Knight, ere we grant thy claim, Let us see the face, let us hear the name, Of the gallant who winneth the prize." " 'Tis a name you know and a face you fear," The Wizard Knight began ; " Or hast thou forgotten that midnight drear, When my sleeping fathers felt the spear Of Vienna and Miolan? Christine. 49 " Ay, quiver and quail in thy coat of mail, For hark to the eagle's shriek ; See the red light burns for the coming bale ! " And all knew as he lifted his aventayle The Knight of Pilate's Peak. From the heart of the mass rose a cry of wrath As they sprang at the shape abhorred, But he swept the foremost from his path, And the rest fell back from the fatal swath Of that darkly dripping sword. But up rose the Dauphin brave and bold, And strode out upon the green, And quoth he, " Foul fiend, if my purpose hold, By my halidome, tho' I'm passing old. We'll splinter a lance for Christine. *' Since her lovers are low or recreant, Her champion shall be her sire ; 5© Christine. So get a fresh lance from yonder tent, For though my vigor be something spent, I fear neither thee nor thy fire ! " Swift to the stirrup the Dauphin he sprang, The bravest and best of his race : No bugle blast for the combat rang ; Save the clattering hoof and the armor clang, All was still as each rode to his place. With the crash of an April avalanche They meet in that merciless tilt ; Back went each steed with shivering haunch. Back to the croup bent each rider staunch, Shivered each spear to the hilt. Thrice flies the Baron's battle-axe round The Wizard's sable crest ; But the coal-black steed, with a sudden bound, Hurled the old Crusader to the ground. And stamped on his mailed breast. Christine. 51 Thrice by the vengeful war-horse spurned, Lowly the Dauphin lies; While the Black Knight laughed as again he turned Toward the lost Christine, and his visor burned As he gazed at his beautiful prize. Her doom you might r.ead in that gloating stare, But no fear in the maid can you see ; Nor is it the calm of a dumb despair, For hope sits aglow on her forehead fair. And she murmurs, " At last — it is he! " Proudly the maiden hath sprung from her seat, Proudly she glanceth around, One hand on her bosom to stay its beat, For hark ! there's a sound like the flying feet Of a courser, bound after bound. Clearing the lists with a leopard-like spring, Plunging at top of his speed. 5 2 Christine. Swift o'er the ground as a bird on the wing, There bursts, all afoam, through the wonder- ing ring, A gallant but riderless steed. Arrow-like, straight to the maiden he sped. With a long, loud, tremulous neigh, The rein flying loose round his glorious head. While all whisper again, " Is the Savoyard dead? " As they gaze at the riderless Grey. One sharp, swift pang thro' the virgin heart, One wildering cry of woe. Then fleeter than dove to her calling nest, Lighter than chamois on Malaval's crest, She leaps to the saddle bow. Christine. 53 THE FLIGHT OF CHRISTINE. (From Fourth Canto.) Away ! " He knew the sweet voice ; away, With never a look behind ; Away, away, with echoing neigh And streaming mane, goes the gallant Grey, Like an eagle before the wind. They have cleared the lists, they have passed her bower, And still they are thundering on ; They are over the bridge — another hour, A league behind them the Leaning Tower And the spires of Saint Antoine. Away, away in their wild career Past the slopes of Mont Surjeu; Thrice have they swum the swift Isere, And firm and clear in the purple air Soars the Grand Som full in view. 54 Christine. Rough is their path and sternly steep, Yet halting never a whit, Onward the terrible pace they keep, While the good Grey, breathing free and deep, Steadily strains at the bit. They have left the lands where the tall hemp springs, Where the clover bends to the bee ; They have left the hills where the red vine flings Her clustered curls of a thousand rings Round the arms of the mulberry tree. They have left the lands where the walnut lines The roads, and the chestnuts blow ; Beneath them the thread of the cataract shines, Around them the plumes of the warrior pines, Above them the rock and the snow. Thick on his shoulders the foam flakes lay. Fast the big drops roll from his chest. Christine. 5 5 Yet on, ever on, goes the gallant Grey, Bearing the maiden as smoothly as spray Asleep on the ocean's breast. Onward and upward, bound after bound, By Bruno's Bridge he goes ; And now they are treading holy ground, For the feet of her flying Caliph sound By the cells of the Grande Chartreuse. Around them the darkling cloisters frown, The sun in the valley hath sunk ; When right in her path, lo ! the long white gown. The withered face and the shaven crown And the shrivelled hand of a monk. A light like a glittering halo played Round the brow of the holy man ; With lifted finger her course he stayed. All is not well," the pale lips said, " With the heir of Miolan. Christine. 5 7 But in Chambery hangs a relic rare Over the altar stone : Take it, and speed to thy Bridegroom's bier; If the Sacristan question who sent thee there, Say, ' Bruno, the Monk of Cologne.' " She bent to the mane while the cross he signed Thrice o'er the suppliant head : Away with thee, child ! " and away like the wind She went, with a startled glance behind. For she heard an ominous tread. The moon is up, 'tis a glorious night, They are leaving the rock and the snow, Mont Blanc is before her, phantom white, While the swift Isere, with its line of light. Cleaves the heart of the valley below. But hark to the challenge, " Who rideth alone?" — " O warder, bid me not wait ! — 58 Christine. My lover lies dead and the Dauphin o'er- thrown — A message I bear from the Monk of Co- logne " — And she swept thro' Chambery's gate. The Sacristan kneeleth in midnight prayer By Chambery's altar stone. " What meaneth this haste, my daughter fair ? ' She stooped and murmured in his ear The name of the Monk of Cologne. Slowly he took from its jewelled case A kerchief that sparkled like snow, And the Minster shone like a lighted vase As the deacon unveiled the gleaming face Of the Santo Sudario. A prayer, a tear, and to saddle she springs, Clasping the relic bright ; Away, awa}^, for the fell hoof rings Christine. 59 Down the hillside behind her — God give her wings ! The fiend and his horse are in sight. On, on, the gorge of the Doriat's won, She is nearing her Savoyard's home, By the grand old road where the warrior son Of Hamilcar swept with his legions dun. On his mission of hatred to Rome. The ancient oaks seem to rock and reel As the forest rushes by her, But nearer cometh the clash of steel, And nearer falleth the fatal heel, With its flickering trail of fire. Then first her hopeful heart grew sick 'Neath its load of love and fear, For the Grey is bi*eathing faint and quick, And his nostrils burn, and the drops fall thick From the point of each drooping ear. 6o Christine. His glorious neck hath lost its pride, His back fails beneath her weight, While steadily gaining, stride by stride, The Black Knight thunders to her side Heaven, must she meet her fate? She shook the loose rein o'er the trembling head, She laid her soft hand on his mane, She called him her Caliph, her desert-bred, She named the sweet springs where the palm trees spread Their arms o'er the burning plain. But the Grey looked back and sadly scanned The maid with his earnest eyes — A moment more and her cheek is fanned By the black steed's breath, and the demon hand Stretches out for the virgin prize. Christine, 6i But she calls on Christ, and the kerchief white Waves full in the face of her foe : Back with an oath reeled the Wizard Knight 62 Christine. As his steed crouched low in tne wondrous light Of the Santo Siidario. Blinded they halt while the maiden hies, The murmuring Arc she can hear, And, lo ! like a cloud on the shining skies. Atop of yon perilous precipice, The castle of Miolan's Heir. " Fail not, my steed ! " — Round her Caliph's head The relic shines like the sun : Leap after leap up the spiral steep. He speeds to his master's castle keep, And his glorious race is won. Christine. ^3 THE RESUSCITATION. (From Fifth Canto.) " Hither, hither, thou mailed man With those woman's tears in thine eyes, With thy brawny cheeks all wet and wan, Show me the heir of Miolan, Lead where my Bridegroom lies." And he led her on with a sullen tread, That fell like a muffled groan, Through halls as silent as the dead, 'Neath long grey arches overhead. Till they came to the shrine of Moan. What greets her there by the torches' glare? In vain hath the mass been said ! Low kneels the Hermit in silent prayer, Low kneels the Hermit in silent prayer. Between them the mighty dead. 64 Christine. No tear she shed, no word she spoke, But gliding up to the bier, She took her stand by the bed of oak Where her Savoyard lay in his sable cloak, His hand still fast on his spear. She bent her burning cheek to his And rested it there awhile, Then touched his lips with a lingering kiss, And whispered him thrice, " My love, arise, I have come for thee many a mile ! " The man of God and the ancient Knight Arose in tremulous awe ; She was so beautiful, so bright. So spirit-like in her bridal white, It seemed in the dim funereal light 'Twas an angel that they saw. " Thro' forest fell, o'er mount and dell, Like the falcon, hither I've flown. For I knew that a fiend was loose from hell, Christine. 65 And I bear a token to break this spell From Bruno, the Monk of Cologne. =' Dost thou know it, love? When fire and sword Flamed round the Holy Shrine, It was won by thee from the Paynim horde, It was brought by thee to Bruno's guard, A gift from Palestine. " Wake, wake, my love ! In the name of Grace, That hath known our uttermost woe, Lo! this thorn-crowned brow on thine I place!" [face And, once more revealed, shone the wondrous Of the Santo Sndario. At once over all that ancient hall There went a luminous beam ; Heaven's deepest radiance seemed to fall, The helmets shine on the shining wall, And the faded banners gleam. And the chime of hidden cymbals rings To the song of a cherub choir ; 5 66 Christine. Each altar angel waves his wings, And the flame of each altar taper springs Aloft in a luminous spire. And over the face of the youth there broke A smile both stern and sweet ; Slowly he turned on the bed of oak, And proudly folding his sable cloak Around him, sprang to his feet. Back shrank the sire, half terrified, Both he and the Hermit, I ween; But she — she is fast to her Savoyard's side, A poet's dream, a warrior's bride. His beautiful Christine. Her hair's dark tangles all astray Adown her back and breast ; The print of the rein on her hand still lay, The foam flakes of the gallant Grey Scarce dry on her heaving breast. She told the dark tale and how she spurred From the Knight of Pilate's Peak ; Christine. 67 You scarce would think the Bridegroom heard, Save that the mighty lance-head stirred, Save for the flush in his cheek ; Save that his gauntlet clasped her hair — And oh, the look that swept Between them ! — all the radiant air Grew holier — it was like a prayer — And they who saw it wept. E'en the lights on the altar brighter grew In the gleam of that heavenly gaze ; The cherub music fell soft as (lew, The breath of the censer seemed sweeter, too, The torches mellowed their requiem hue. And burnt with a bridal blaze. And the Baron clasps his son with a cry Of joy as his sorrows cease; While the Hermit, wrapt in his Rosary, Feels that the world beneath the sky Hath yet its planet of peace. 68 Christine. A PROVENCAL SONNET. (From Fifth Canto.) When the moon rose o'er lordly Miolan That night, she wondered at those ancient walls : Bright tapers flashing from a hundred halls Lit all the mountain — liveried vassals ran Trailing from bower to bower the wine-cup, wreathed With festal roses — viewless music breathed A minstrel melody that fell as falls [laughed, The dew, less heard than felt; and maidens Aiming their curls at swarthy men who quaffed Brimmed beakers to the newly wed : while some Old henchmen, lolling on the court-yard green Over their squandered Cyprus, vowed between Their cups, " there was no pair in Christendom To match their Savoyard and his Christine ! " CJiristine. 69 THE KNIGHTS SONG. (From Fifth Canto.) And art thou, art thoii dead ? — Thou with front that might defy The gathered thunders of the sky, Thou before whose fearless eye All death and danger fled ! My Khalif, hast thou sped Homeward where the palm-trees' feet Bathe in hidden fountains sweet, Where first we met as lovers meet, My own, my desert-bred ! Thy back has been my home; And, bending o'er thy flying neck. Its white mane waving without speck, I seemed to tread the galley's deck, And cleave the ocean's foam. 70 Christine. Since first I felt tliy heart Proudly surging 'neath my knee, As earthquakes heave beneath the sea, Brothers in the field were we; And must we, can we part ? To match thee there was none ! ' The wind was laggard to thy speed : O God, there is no deeper need Than warrior's parted from his steed When years have made them one. And shall I never more Answer thy laugh amid the clash Of battle, see thee meet the flash Of spears with the proud, pauseless dash Of billows on the shore? And all our victor war. And all the honors men call mine, Were thine, thou voiceless warrior, thine My task was but to touch the rein — There needed nothing more. Christine. 71 Worst danger had no sting For thee, and coward peace no charm ; Amid red havoc's worst alarm Thy swoop as firm as through the storm The eagle's iron wing. more than man to me ! Thy neigh outsoared the trumpet's tone, Thy back was better than a throne. There was no human thing save one 1 loved as well as thee ! O Knighthood's truest friend ! Brave heart by every danger tried, Proud crest by conquest glorified, Swift saviour of my menaced Bride, Is this, is this the end ? — Thrice honored be thy grave ! Wherever knightly deed is sung. Wherever minstrel harp is strung. There, too, thy praise shall sound among The beauteous and the brave. 7 2 Christine. And thou shalt slumber deep Beneath our chapel's cypress sheen; And there thy lord and his Christine Full oft shall watch at morn and e'en Around their Khalif's sleep. There shalt thou wait for me Until the funeral bell shall ring, Until the funeral censer swing, For I would ride to meet my King, My stainless steed, with thee! Alaci ill's Palace. 73 ALADDIN'S PALACE.i Aladdin's Palace, in a single night, From base to summit rose ere morning light, A pillared mass of porphyry and gold, Gem sown on gem, and silk o'er silk unrolled ; So from the dust our young Republic springs. Before the dazzled eyes of Eastern Kings. Not like old Rome, slow spreading into state, The century that freed, beholds us great, Sees our broad empire belt the western world, From main to main our starry flag unfurled ; Sees in each port where Albion's sea kings trail Their purple plumes, Columbia's snowy sail. Three deep the loaded deck our long wharves line, Three deep on buoyant hoops fast flounces shine. 1 This poem, which contains in all about three hundred and fifty lines, was read by its author at a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Mt. St. Mary's College. Rarely have the foibles and follies of our national life met with a more powerful presentation or a more scathing criticism. 74 Aladdin's Palace. While thrice three-story brown stone proudly tells The tale of Mammon's modern miracles, Marking full fifty places in a square Where the born beggar dies the Millionaire. But yet remember, glorious as we are, Aladdin's Genie left one window bare; And we, perchance, upon a close review. May find our Palace lights unfinished too, — Some slighted panel in the stately hall. Some broidered hangings stinted on the wall. Nay, e'en some jewels gone, that graced us when All men were free here — even gentlemen. i{; ^ ^ ;!; >ic Qf all the slaves in social bondage nursed, Pater-familias stands supremely first : Proud of his bondage, tickled with his chains, The parent cringes while the stripling reigns. Down with the Dotard ! consecrate the Boy ! Since Age must suffer, let bright Youth enjoy. Drink morning in ! — old eyes were meant to wake ; Aladdin's Palace. 75 Shake hands with ruin! — old hearts never break. Welcome the worst — 'tis but to close the door And pack the outlaw to some College-Cure. Alas! the tutor apes the parent fool, The idle birch hangs rotting in the school. Touch the young tyrant — like Olympian Jove The avenging sire defends his injured love; Clutches a cowhide, contemplates a suit, Talks wildly of a martyr and a brute. The worst disgrace his free-born son can know Is not to merit, but receive a blow. jK * ;1: * * ^ Your boy secure, what next ? Go home and rear That up-town palace? — Why, you're never there. Down by the docks your home is o'er the desk From morn till night, curled like an arabesque, Spinning the rich cocoon for child and wife. Though, like the worm, the tribute cost your life. Crawl home at midnight, to the basement go, 76 Aladdin's Palace. Hug the lit fender, toast the sUppered toe ; One well-earned moment rest the throbbing head, Though all the ceiling own the waltz's tread. Or dare the ballroom, you'll not spoil the feast, 'Tis the old story — Beauty and the Beast. ^ -i* jjc ^ ^ ^ Better be dead than ope those honest eyes To half your marble mansion's mysteries. Press your lone pillow, scheme to-morrow's pelf, Your daughter, trust her, can protect herself: Dread neither foreign Count nor native Fool, Her heart was buried at a Boarding School. 5i= * * 5|: 5i= * From private morals pass to pubHc taste ; One jewel missing, can the next be paste? A race of readers, we can surely claim A dozen writers with a world-wide name, — One drama that can hold the stage a season. Two actors that confound not rant with reason, — A minstrel equal to an average air. An artist that has brains as well as hair ? Aladdin's Palace. 77 Alas ! the river where the milHons drink Flows from a Helicon of tainted ink, Lower and lower the darkening stream descends, Till, lost in filth, the sacred fountain ends. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Kings rule the East, the Merchant rules the West. Save round his hearth, supreme his high behest. For him the captive lightning rides the main, For him rent mountains hide the creaming train. For him the placer spreads its golden sands, The steamer pants, the spicy sail expands ; For him the quarry splits the moaning hill, For him Laborde imports her newest trill. Submissive science smooths his lordly path, States court his nod and Senates dread his wrath. Erect, undaunted, eager, active, brisk, A front for ruin, nerve for any risk ; Shy of the snare, impatient of the chance, The world a chess-board 'neath his eagle glance, Armed with a Ledger — presto pass — he carves And spends ten fortunes where a genius starves. 78 Aladdin's Palace. No robber knight that ever drove a-field Bore braver heart beneath his dinted shield. Atilt with fortune, if he win the prize, The turnpike trembles, marble cleaves the skies. O land of Lads, and Liberty, and Dollars ! A Nation first in schools and last in scholars ! Where few are ignorant, yet none excel. Whose peasants read, whose statesmen scarcely spell ; Of what avail that science light the way, When dwindling Senates totter to decay?" Of what avail the boast of steam and cable, If doomed to grovel 'neath the curse of Babel ? Low droops our Eagle's eye to find us still Cowed 'neath his wing — by Albion's gray-goose quill. Why boast of Britain foiled on Bunker crest, Her pen still rules the Rebel of the West. Inkcrmann. 79 INKERMANN.^ In marble Sebastopol The bells to chapel call: Our outposts hear the chanting Of monks within the wall. Why meet they there, with psalm and prayer ? — 'Tis some high festival. By the old Achaian ruin Why groan those heavy wheels ? Some forage-freighted convoy Toward the leaguered city steals. Sleep ! — will the serfs twice routed Dare the freeman's steel again ? Will the slaves we stormed from Alma Beard the lion in his den ? One of the principal battles of the Crimean War, fought Nov. 5. 1854. 8o Inkermann. 'Tis a drizzling Sabbath daybreak, Cheerless rings the reveille, Through the shroudlike mists around us Not a stone's throw can we see : Feebly up the clouded welkin Toils the morning bleak and gray, Dim as twilight in October, Dawns that dark and dismal day. The camp once more is sounding, Slowly putting on its strength. As a boa, starved from torpor. Half uncoils its lazy length. Some are drying their damp muskets. Others gloss the rusted steel, Some are crouching o'er the watch-fires At the hurried matin meal : Some are bending o'er their Bibles, Others bid the beads of Rome, Many, still unwaken'd, hearken To the Sabbath bells of home. Inker mann. 8i The mountain and the valley With the hoary haze are white, Sea and river, friend and foeman. Town and trench are hid from sight : And the camp itself so softly With the snowy mist is blent, Scarce the waving of the canvas Shows the outline of the tent. Hark, the rifle's hawkhke whistle! But we stir not for the din, Till with sullen step the pickets From the hills are driven in, — Till the river seemed to thunder Through its rocky pass below. And a voice ran through the army, " Up to arms ! — it is the foe ! " Up with the Red Cross banner, Out with the victor steel, " Up to battle," the drums rattle, " Form and front," the bugles peal. — S2 Inhcrmann. From the tents and from the trenches, From the ramparts, from the mine, We are groping for the bayonet. We are straggHng into Hne ; Half attired and half accoutred. Spur the officers headlong, And the men from slumber starting, Round their colors fiercely throng. Then the lit artillery's earthquake Shook the hills beyond the gorge — Mute were then a thousand hammers Smiting hard the sounding forge. Full upon us comes the ruin, — They have ranged the very spot, — Purple glares the sod already. As the storm falls fast and hot, At our feet the earth foams spray-like 'Neath the tempest of their shot. Crouched like caged and fretted lion, For the unseen foe we glare, — Not a bayonet, not a sabre Through the rolling mists appear. Inkennaiin. ^3 Yet full sure the slaves are on us, For along the river's bed Tolls the low and measured thunder Of a mighty army's tread. The hearts beneath our bosoms Swell high as they would burst, We know not what is coming, But we nerve us for the worst : Fast our shoulders grow together, Firm beneath that iron hail. The thin red line is forming. That was never known to quail. Up from the slopes beneath us Nearer thrills the muffled hum, They are stepping to the onset. Without trumpet, without drum, And we clutch our pieces tighter,— Let them come ! The fog before us deepens : — Like a dark spot in a storm. Along the mist-wreathed ridges. Their crowded columns form : 84 Inkermann. The helmets and the gray-coats Scarce pistol-shot ahead, — They are on us — let us at them — Unavenged we have bled! Steady! The eager rifle Is warming at our cheeks ; Yon column's head is melting As the levelled minie speaks. Forward, forward, form and forward ! Fast as floods through river sluice. The yeomanry of England On the Muscovite are loose. What, bide they there to meet us, That phalanx of gray rock? In vain ! No human bulwark Can breast the coming shock. At them — on them — o'er them — through them, The Red Line thunders still ; A cheer, a charge, a struggle, And we sweep them from the hill. Inkermamu 85 Not a man had we left living Of the masses marshalled there, But their siege-guns in the gorges Stay our conquering career. Then, as we breathe from slaughter, And ere we close our ranks. The foe, one column routed, Hurls a fresh one on our flanks. Unappalled and unexhausted. We welcome the new war. Though like locusts in midsummer Swarm the legions of the Czar. Fifty thousand men are on us, Scarce a tithe of them are we, — Well might they swear to drive us Ere nightfall to the sea. Yet, St. George for merry England ! A volley, and we close, 'Neath the martyr cross of bayonets. Redder yet the Red Line grows. 86 Inkermann. Tliese are not the men of Alma, Who are now so well at work ; On the Danube, at Silistria, They have schooled them 'gainst the Turk; O'er the mountains of Circassia Their black eagles they have borne, And the children of their High Priest Lead the stern fanatics on. Point to point and breast to bosom. Hand to hand we madly clinch, And the ground we win upon them Is disputed inch by inch. The warrior blood of Britain Never rained so fast a tide, Man and captain fall together, Peer and peasant, side by side. We have routed thrice our number, Still their front looms thrice as vast, While our line is thinned and jaded And our men are falling fast. Inkermann. 87 Upon them with the bayonet ! — Our powder waxes scant — What more with foe so near him Does British soldier want? Once more — once more, borne backward, Their stubborn legions fly, And we saw our brave commander, With his staff, come riding by ; Calmly he dared the danger, But a gloom was in his eye, For the mounds of his dead soldiers Lay around him thick and high. God knows his thought ! — It might be Of other mounds, I ween, — Of parapets, which, mounted, Such havoc had not been. But in brunt of battle ever Was the Saxon bosom bare. So we hailed him, as he passed us. With a hearty English cheer ; 88 Inkermann. And as the nobles round him Were falHng, did we pray, That his hero Hfe amid the strife, Might be spared to us that day. O dark the cloud that rested On our chieftain's anxious brow : He has staked him all on the Spartan wall It must not fail him now ! Then, as waveless in the tempest Broods the white wing of a gull. O'er the hurricane of battle Swept a momentary lull. Countless lay the dead and dying, Few and faint the living stood, Every blade of grass beneath us Had its drop of hero blood. To our knees the stiffening bodies Of our fallen comrades rose. But higher, deeper, thicker, Lay the holocaust of foes. Inkermann, • And so fast the gore of Russia From the British bayonet runs, TrickHng down our dinted rifles, That our hands shp on our guns. Far along the scarlet ridges Looming dim through mist and smoke, In scattered groups, divided By coppice and dwarfed oak. Rests the remnant of our army. Rests each motley regiment, Coldstream, Fusileer, and Ranger, Line, and Guard together blent,— To the charge still sternly leaning, Undismayed, undaunted still. Grimly frowning o'er the valley. Proven masters of the hill. A wind gust from the mountain Swept the driving rack away, And we saw our battling brothers For the first time that dark day. But as up the white shroud drifted. go Inkermann. St. George, what sight beneath ! — 'Twas as when the veil is Hfted From the stony face of death. Right before us, right beneath us. Right around us, everywhere, The fresh hordes of the Despot On flank and center bear : Around us and about us The armed torrent rolls. As around a foundering galley Glance the fins of bristling shoals. O never, England, never. Though aye outnumbered sore. Has thy world-encountering banner Faced such fearful odds before ! On they come, like crested breakers That would whelm us in their wrath, Or the winged flame of prairies Whirling stubble from its path. But with cheer as stout as ever Inkermann. 91 To the charge again we reel, Again we mow before us Those harvests of stiff steel. Too few, alas ! the living These hydra hosts to stem. But our comrades lie around us. We can sleep at last with them. Rally, Britons, round your colors, And if no succor near, Then for God, our Queen, our country. Let us proudly perish here ! Each hand and foot grows firmer As they yell their demon cry, Each soldier's glance grows brighter As his last stern task draws nigh ; By the dead of Balaklava We will show them how to die! . . . Heard ye not that tramp behind us? . . . If a foeman come that way. We may make one charge to venge us. And then look our last of dav. 92 Inkermann. As the tiger from the jungle, On the bounding column comes; We can hear the footfall ringing, To the stern roll of their drums ; We can hear their billowy surging, As up the hill they pant, — O God ! how sweetly sounded The well-known "' En avant! " With their golden eagles soaring, Bloodless lips and falcon glance, Radiant with the light of battle. Came the chivalry of France. Ah ! full well, full well we knew them, Our bearded, bold allies, All Austerlitz seemed shining Its sunlight from their eyes. Round their bright array dividing, We gave them passage large. For we knew no line then living, Could face that fiery charge. One breathing space they halted — Inker man n. 93 One volley rent the sky, — Then the pas de charge thrills heavenward " Vive VEmpereur! " the cry. Right for the heart of Russia Cleave the swart Gallic braves, The panthers of Alma, The leopard-limbed Zouaves. The cheer of rescued Britain One moment thundered forth. The next — we trample with them The pale hordes of the North. Ye that have seen the lightning Through the crashing forest go, Would stand aghast, to see how fast We lay their legions low. They shrink — they sway — they falter — On, on ! — no quarter then ! Nor human hand, nor Heaven's command Could stay our maddened men. A flood of sudden radiance Bathes earth and sea and sky, 94 Inkermann. Above us bursts exulting The sun of victory. Holy moment of grim rapture, The work of death is done, The Muscovite is flying, Lost Inkermann is won ! Arnin. 95 EGYPT. {From Aminl) Beyond the wall, the Nile and Desert wag"e Their elemental war, from age to age Enduring, symboling the ceaseless strife 'Twixt sin and innocence, 'twixt death and life. Prophetic of the conflict first begun And lost in Eden, but on Calvary won. Land of the mighty, province of the base. Dark, mouldering coffin of a wondrous race, Whose books are pyramids, where in a glance The present reads its insignificance — What tho' the baffled and despairing sage Explore in vain the secrets of thy page, These everlasting piles that smile on fate And dare both man and time to mutilate 1 This poem contains nearly fourteen hundred lines in the first two Cantos. The third Canto can not be found. The poem was written in Mr. Miles' twenty-fifth year. 96 Amin. The record they are lifting to the sky, Compose the noblest human history : Authentic as the stars their self-proved truth Attests the majesty of Egypt's youth, Still chaunting in an universal tongue The grandest epic that was ever sung. 'Twas there the fruit of knowledge first began To mitigate the curse it stained on man ; Twas there primeval science proudly sent Her glance aloft and read the firmament ; There first the mason from the quarry brought The stolid rock and shaped it into thought, And breathing beauty in the living mass, Bade it endure to rival or surpass Nature herself. — Twas there the o'erlearned priest Explored the skies — and deified a beast ; Along that burning stream, that baking sod, A Moses floated and a Joseph trod. There flocked a thousand kings in scorn or awe To break a sceptre or receive a law ; Amin. 97 'Twas there the Greek in wondering reverence learned The mental mastery of the power he spurned, And stole the light that round her altars shone To burn with softer lustre on his own. O what are Persian spire and Grecian dome, The shafts of Baalbec and the pomp of Rome, The true Promethean marbles that remain To spur our genius and to spur in vain ; And all that bard or tourist can rehearse In forced antithesis or flowing verse ! — They seem as if their authors were at play, — Things meant for time, frail flowers of yester- day. Beside the monuments here strewn around, A new creation on the mother ground. That notched with epochs through all time extend And link the world's beginning with its end. 98 Amin. THE SOLDIER'S BANQUET SONG. (From Amin.) Let wearied hind and fainting slave Their solace find in sleep, That blessed foretaste of the grave, Where they may cease to weep, — But the soldier sleeps beneath his shield, Or staggering from the battle field. Rests where the beaker flashes bright, Where star-eyed beauty scatters light, And mirth and music make the night A sweeter solace yield. Then cleanse the hand. And sheathe the brand, And dip the shafts of sorrow In light divine From the blood of the vine, For our own may flow to-morrow ! Amin. 99 The slumbering lovelorn swain may deem His darling hears his sighs, And win the rapture from a dream That morning still denies — But the warrior wakes to ward or feel The actual point of tested steel : — No filmy fancy sketch for him, — But the wine that beads the goblet's brim, And the lustrous eyes that sink or swim In light, must all be real ! Then heap the board And let the sword A wreath from Venus borrow, For the fearless eye, Now flashing high. May be dim enough to-morrow ! We'll feast until the Midas sun Has turned the earth to gold, For many, ere his race be run, Must stiffen pale and cold. LofC. Amin. Then shake the flaming cup on high And gild the moments as they fly ! And while the foaming nectar streams, And beauty o'er the goblet gleams, What care we whether morning beams Bring death or victory. Then sheathe the brand And, hand in hand, Aw^ay with fear and sorrow ! For many an arm, Now lithe and warm, May be cold enough to-morrow. ART POEMS. I02 NOTE. Raphael Sanzio di Urbino, "the prince of painters," was born March 28, 1843, and died Good Friday, April 7, 1520, aged thirty-seven years. Giiilio Romano was his favorite pupil, while Pietro Perugino was his first art master and Michael Angelo his contemporary and rival in fame. The last work of Raphael's brief but busy life is the " Transfiguration," which he did not live to finish. Car- dinal Giuliano de Medici, wishing to give the town of Narbonne a token of his piety and munificence, ordered (1517) two altar-pieces for the Cathedral. One, the "Transfiguration," he entrusted to Raphael; the other, " the Resurrection of Lazarus," to Sebastiano del Piombo — "that pack-horse colorist," the assistant of Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo composed the design of " their Lazarus," while Sebastiano finished it. Both pictures were publicly exhibited together, and the palm of victory adjudged to Raphael in composition, in design, in expression, and in grace. At the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration are the Disciples, endeavoring in vain to expel an evil spirit from a possessed youth. The various emotions of doubt, anxiety, and pity portrayed in the different figures present a pathetic and powerful conception. Still, the "miracle on the Mount" is the one most apt to fix our attention. This great painting is now in the Vatican Gallery. Art Poems. io3 RAPHAEL SANZIO. Keep to the lines — strain not a hair beyond : Nature must hold her laws e'en against Hell. There! You o'ershoot the mark an inch — you paint A lie a minute. Giulio/ keep the lines — The lines — my lines ! They tell the very worst The devil can do with flesh — let Angelo ^ Do more. I want no second Spasimo,^ No miracles of muscle : on the Mount * Is miracle enough — the radiant change Of man' to Deity : no need to make The boy a fiend outright — for see you not Though God's own likeness lives there in his Son, Our is not lost ? So keep the lines, nor hope To mend their meaning. Wrong again ! Hence- forth Giulio Romano. - Michael Angelo Buonarotti. - . j r *u- 3 " Lo Spasimo," the Madonna of Sorrows, painted for the Monks of Santa Maria dello Spasimo, Palermo, Sicily. * The upper part of the Transfiguration. I04 Art Poems. Reserve your brush to gild the booth, or deck Street corners. Friends, forsooth — yoii Rapha- el's friend — And yet you will not keep my lines — the last This hand shall ever trace? — By Bacchus, Sir, It had made the hot blood of old Pietro ^ boil Had I e'er crazed his purpose so. Have done With this : your lampblack darkens all the air. Must you o'erride me with that wild, coarse soul Of yours ? My hand is still upon the rein : There's time enough to run your fiery race When I am gone. Why, what a burst of tears ! I am not dying ? Wherefore do you stare With such a frightened love into my face. Your hand all palsied ? Ah, I see it now — You feel too much for me, to feel for art. Forgive my first unkindness : by and by, When I am out of sight, and manly grief Has done with tear and tremor — then, some day. When your good hand is steady and you feel Pietro Vannucci Perugino, Raphael's teacher. TRANSFIGURATION — Raphael. Art Poems. 105 The stirring of the true God — to your brush, And keep my Hues ! This is my birthday/ Giulio ; The last one here — the first, perhaps, in Heaven, With our dear Angels.- 'Twas a grain too much. That brief about restoring ancient Rome : ^ His Holiness ■* and I, we both forgot Raphael was human. Princely favor, sometimes, Fall overheavy, like the Sabine bracelet.^ For those damp vaults ^ — their chill struck to my heart Like the sharp finger of a skeleton, While all the caverned ruin whispered out, " Behold the end! " Too soon, I thought,— but God Thinks best. I do not wish to die — should like To last a little longer, just to see 1 Good Friday. - Raphael is known especially as the " painter of Madonnas and Angels." 3 It was proposed to attempt an ideal reconstruction of the great capital of the Caesars. * Leo X. ^ Under which Tarpeia was crushed. 6 Some assert that Raphael was carried off by a violent, fever- ish cold which he caught while engaged in his excavations and sur- veyings in the old city. io6 Art Poems. That picture finished, and to have our work Judged in the peopled halls, swung side by side, Michael's and mine! But do not turn your head — Sit closer. Giulio, men have said I slumbered Over those later frescoes ^ and the walls Of Agostino ■ — they are right, I did. But slumbering there in whitest arms, I learned, 'Mid all those Nymphs and Graces, this one truth — The inspiration of the nude is over: The Christian Muse is draped. — Tell Michael so, When next you find him busy with his Torso.^ How then that bare Demoniac,"* do you ask? Was't not an artist's thought — the double change Of man to God above, to fiend below ? And then the instant the redeeming foot 1 The representations from the fable of Cupid and Psyche in the Loggia of Agostino Chigi's villa in Trastevere (the Villa Farnesina). - Agostino Chigi. •' The Torso Belvidere, in the Vatican Museum. Michael Angelo made this statue his special study. ■* The boy in the Transfiguration. Art Poems. X07 Forsakes the earth, to loose the naked devil Flaunting the scared Apostles ? Who shall say Art called not for my boy ? Yet thrice as loud As art, called Raphael ! For myself alone I drew him, every quivering muscle mapped By the infernal strain, that I might hush Those sneers of Angelo's, — for I had plucked His surgeon secrets ^ from the grave, and meant To mate him where he's matchless. I have waited The coming of that moment when we feel The hand is surest, the brain clearest — when Our dreams at once are deeds — when upward goes The curtain from the clouded soul, and art Flames all her unveiled Paradise upon us. Patiently, trustingly that well-known hour I've waited — and, at last, it comes — too late ! For now, you see, 'tis hard to reach my hand 1 Raphael excelled in painting the soft and tender; he lacked in portraying the masculine. Whereas Michael Angelo, who had spent twelve years in the study of anatomy, was matchless in his delineation of muscular strength and vigor. io8 Art Poems. To your sleek curls, and my poor head seems chained To this hot pillow. Had I now a tithe Of half the strength wasted on Chigi's walls, ^ I'd make the demon in that youth discourse Anatomy enough to cram the schools Till doomsday. Heaven, how plainly there Your work stands off from mine ! - Quick with your arm — I feel the ancient power — give me the colors — I and my picture, let us once more meet ! God, let me finish it ! Can you not stir My bed with those stout shoulders? Then lift me — Child's play you'll find it — my weak, woman's frame Never weighed much — a breath can float it now. Do as I bid you, boy, I am not mad : 1 Raphael's connection with this wealthy patron of art began soon after the painter's arrival in Rome. The works ordered of him by Chigi are so numerous and important that they merit special study. - Giulio Romano's work is easily distinguished from that of Raphael by. darker coloring and less freedom of execution. Art Poems. 109 'Tis not delirium, but returning life. for the blood that barber's lancet stole ! ^ — So — nearer — nearer — — I was dreaming, Giulio, That I had finished it, and that it hung Beside their Lazarus ; ^ I and Angelo Together stood — a little farther off, That pack-horse colorist of his from Venice.^ There stood we in the light of yonder face, 1 and my rival, till, asudden, shone A look of love in the small hazel eyes. And down the double-pointed beard a tear Ran sparkling ; and he bowed his head to me — The grand, gray, haughty head — and cried aloud, Thrice cried aloud, "Hail Master !" — Why, 'tis strange — How came I here — these colors on my fingers — This brush? Stop — let me think — I am not quite 1 During his illness, Raphael submitted to bleeding. - The Resurrection of Lazarus. 3 Sebastiano del Piombo. no Art Poems. Awake. Ah, I remember. Swooned, you say? How long have I been lying thus ? An hour Dead on your breast ? Wheel back the bed — put by These playthings ! I can do no more for man ! And God, who did so much for me — 'tis time Something were done for Him. A coach? Per- haps The black mules of the Cardinal? ^ No? Well, Good Friday is the prayer day of the year — That keeps him. Who ? — What ! Leo's self ^ has sent To ask of Raphael ? Kindly done ; and yet The iron Pontiff,^ whom I painted thrice, Had come. No matter, these are gracious words, — " Rome were not Rome without me/' My best thanks Back to his Holiness ; and dare I add A message, 'twere that Rome can never be * Probably the Cardinal from Santa Maria Rotonda. 2 Leo X. ^Julius II, Art Poems. ii^ Without me. I shall live as long as Rome! Bramante's temple ^ there, bequeathed to me To hide her cross-crowned bosom in the clouds — San Pietro — travertine and marble massed To more than mountain majesty — shall scarce Outlast that bit of canvas. Let the light in. There's the Ritonda - waiting patiently My coming. Angelo has built his chape In Santa Croce," that his eyes may ope On Ser Filippo's Duomo.'^ I would see — What think you ? — neither dome ^ nor Giotto's shaft/ Nor yon stern Pantheon's solemn, sullen grace, But Her,'^ whose colors I have worn since first I dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shades Of Umbria — Her^ for whom my best of life ^ St. Peter's, of which Bramante was the first architect. In accordance with the dying desire of Bramante, Leo X appointed Raphael architect of St. Peter's. - The Pantheon, or St. Mary of the Martyrs, Rome, in which Raphael is buried. 3 Church of Santa Croce, Florence, where, in the chapel of the Buonarotti family, rests the body of Michael Angelo. * The Duomo or Cathedral of Florence, desig led and built by Filippo Brunelleschi. , r , j 5 The glory of the Florentine cathedral is its wonderful dome. « The detached bell-tower or campanile of the Duomo. ■^ The Madonna. 112 Art Poems. Has been one labor — Her, the Nazareth Maid, Who gave to Heaven a Queen, to man a God, To God a Mother. I have hope of it ! — And I would see her — not as when she props The babe slow tottering to the Cross amid The flowering field,^ — nor yet when, Sybil-eyed, Backward she sweeps her Son from Tobit's Fish,- — Nor e'en as when above the footstool angels, She stands with trembling mouth, dilated eyes, Abashed before the uncurtained Father's throne,-'^ — But see her wearing the rapt smile of love Half human, half divine, as fast she strains Her infant in the Chair.^ — — There is a step Upon the staircase. Has she ^ come again ? — ^ The Virgin of the Meadow, now in the Belvidere Gallery at Vienna. - The Madonna del Pesce, or Madonna of the Fish, now in Madrid Gallery. ^ Sistine Madonna, in Dresden Gallery. * Madonna della Sedia. Over the altar near which Raphael is buried was placed a statue of the Virgin designed and executed in accordance with this request by one of his favorite pupils, the sculptor, Lorenzetto. This statue still exists under the name of the Madonna del Sasso. ^ The Fornarina. Art Poems. 113 She must not enter. Take her these big pearls Meant for the poor dead bride ^ I strove to love. Teii her to wear them, when the full moon fires The Flavian arches, and she w^anders forth To the green spot — she will remember it — A little farther on. No more of this. Say but the word, too long delayed, — Farewell. We said it oft before, meaning it, too, — But life and love were with us — so we met. This time — we part in earnest. Not a word ? — She bent her head and vanished, leaving me These flowers? No tears — not one? So like her ! Set The buds in water — leave me one — this one — We'll fade together. Giulio, in my \n\\\ Her name stands next to yours: I would not have Those dark eyes look on want, that looked on me So long, so truly. Do not shake your head :^ She'll fin4 her wav to Heaven, if I am there 1 His betrothed, Maria di Bibbiena, whose death occurred before their union. 114 Art Poems. Before her. Jealous ? — Brother, I will die Upon your bosom — yon shall close these eyes, Eyes that have lived above this city's towers, Up where the eagle's wing hath never swept : Eyes that have scanned the far side of the sun, And upward still, high over Hesperus, Have climbed the mount where trembling angels bow, And stolen the shining forms of beauty niched Fast by the Eternal throne. I pray you hold Those roses something nearer. Shall we send Francesco for the Cardinal? You see The shadow of the pines slopes eastward now — Santa Maria's ^ empty : — he may come Too late — there's a strange hush about my heart Already. Still, a word before the last. Long silence comes. I do not think to leave An enemy behind me. Angelo Has sometimes wronged me, but I can not hate — Doubtless Santa Maria Rotonda. Art Poems. 115 I have that weakness — so I pitied him. GiiiHo, the artist is not he who dreams, But he who does ; — and when I saw this man/ Hewing his way into the marble's heart For the sweet secret that he dreamed was there, Till the fast-fettered beauty perished, killed By the false chisel and imperious hand, That held no Heaven-commissioned key to ope The prison gate — I pitied him, I say ; And once I wept, as by me once he stalked Beneath the stars, in either eye a tear. Groaning beneath his load of voiceless beauty. I knew his mighty sorrow — I had felt it, — And who that soars has not ? No wing that fans The sun, but sometimes burns ! O grandest Greek, - Not thine alone to ravish fire from Heaven, Nor thine alone the rock : in every age. The vulture's beak is in the artist's soul ! 1 Michael Angelo. -' Prometheus. ii6 Art Poems. In this, wc are brothers. Give him my last greet- ing When next you meet. — The Cardinal, at last ? Before he enters, Giulio, lay this flower Among the others. — You may leave us now. Art Poems. 117 SAN SISTO. Three hundred years the world has looked at it Unwearied, — it at Heaven ; and here it hangs In Dresden, making it a Holy City. It is an old acquaintance : you have met Copies by thousands, — Morghens ^ here and there, — But all the sunlight withered. Prints, at best, Are but the master's shadow — as you see. I call that face the holiest revelation God ever made to genius. How or why, When, or for whom 'twas painted, wherefore ask? Enough to know 'tis Raphael, and to feel His Fornarina was not with him, when Spurning the slow cartoon he flashed that face. ^ Raffaello Sanzio ]Morghen, the celebrated engraver, was born at Naples June 19, 1758, and died at Florence April 8, 1833. He made engravings of several of Raphael's works. ii8 Art Poems. That Virgin Mother's half-transfigured face, On canvas. Yes, they say, 'twas meant to head Some virginal procession : — to that banner Heaven's inmost gates might open, one would think. But let the picture tell its story — take Your stand in this far corner. Falls the light As you would have it? That Saint Barbara,^ — Observe her inclination and the finger Of Sixtus : ^ — both are pointing — zvheref Now look Below, — those grand boy-angels ; — watch their eyes Fastened — on whom? — What, not yet catch my meaning? . . . Step closer, — half a step — no nearer. Mark The Babe's fixed glance of calm equality. Observe that wondering, rapt, dilated gaze, 1 Virgin and martyr. According to Baronius, St. Barbara was a pupil of Origen and suffered martyrdom at Nicomedia during the sixth general persecution, about 235. - A priest of the Roman clergy, chosen Pope in 432. Died March 28, 440. The Benedictine Church at Piacenza was dedi- cated to St. Sixtus. Art Poems. 119 The Mother's superhuman joy and fear, That hushed — that startled adoration ! Watch Those circled cherubs swarming into light, Wreathing their splendid arch, their golden ring, Around the unveiled vision. Look above At the drawn curtain! — Ah, zve do not see God's self, but tlicy do : — they are face to face With the unveiled Omnipotent ! NOTE. The San Sisto was the last Madonna painted by- Raphael, as the Transfiguration was his last composi- tion. It was painted at the request of the Benedictine monks of the Church of San Sisto in Piacenza, who had asked for a picture which should contain the Virgin and- Child, St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, to be used as a pro- cessional standard. It was executed on canvas and en- tirely finished by Raphael himself. No previous drawing or study was made, no model posed. '* Spurning the slow cartoon," as if by a single inspiration, the red chalk struck the outline of the woman of the Apocalypse. In this work the genius of Raphael is most directly ex- hibited. Into it he concentrated every excellence which he had previously attained. The San Sisto is full of spirituality and marvelous in its sublimity, and yet a more simple arrangement could scarcely be conceived. Augustus III, Elector of Saxon}'-, -purchased this paint- ing (1753) for the Dresden Gallery. 120 SISTINE MADONNA — Raphael. Art Poems. 121 THE IVORY CRUCIFIX. Within an attic old at Genoa, Full many a year, I ween, Had lain a block of ivory. The largest ever seen. Though wooing centuries had wiled Its purity away. Gaunt Time had made a slender meal, So well it braved decay. ■ If we may trust Tradition's tongue, Some mastodon before The wave kissed Ararat's tall peak, The splendid trophy wore, Art Poems. Certes, no elephant e'er held Aloft so rich a prize, Not India's proudest jungle boasts A tusk of half the size. A monk obtained and to his cell The relic rare conve3'ed, And bending o'er the uncouth block This Monk, communing, said : — Be mine the happy task by day And through the midnight's gloom, To toil and still toil on until This shapeless mass assume " The form of Him who on the Cross For us poured forth his blood : Thus man shall ever venerate This relic of the flood. Art Poems. 123 Though now a witness to the wrath Of the dread God above, Changed by my chisel, it shall be The emblem of His love." That night when on his pallet stretched, As slumber o'er him stole, A glorious vision brightly broke Upon his ravished soul. He sees his dear Redeemer stand On Calvary's sacred height, The Crucifixion is renewed Before his awe-struck sight. He sees his Saviour's pallid cheek With pitying tears impearled. He hears His dying accents bless A persecuting world : 124 ^ft Poems. Sees the last look of love supreme Conquering each aching sense, Superior to agony Its deep benevolence. The matin bell has pealed — the Monk Starts from his brief repose; But still before his waking eye The vivid dream arose. His morning orisons are said, His hand the chisel wields, Slowly before the eager steel The stubborn ivory yields. The ancient block is crusted o'er With a coating hard and gray, But soon the busy chisel doffs This mantle of decay. Art Poems. 125 And now, from every blemish freed, Upon his kindhng eye. In all its pristine beauty, dawns The milk-white ivory. The sun arose, the sun went down, Arose and set again, But still the Monk his chisel plies ■ Oh, must he toil in vain ? Not his the highly cultured touch That bade the marble glow, And with a hundred statues linked The name of Angelo. Perchance some tiny image he Had fashioned oft before, But art had ne'er to him unveiled Her closely hoarded lore. 126 Ai't Poems. A faithful hand, an eye possessed Of genius' inborn beam, Or inspiration's loftier light, IMust body forth his dream. The moon has filled her fickle orb, The moon is on the wane, A crescent now she sails the sky, And now is full again. But bending o'er that ivory block The Monk is kneeling there. Full half his time to toil is given, And half is spent in prayer. Four years elapsed before the Monk Threw his worn chisel by; Complete at last before him lies The living ivory. Art Poems. 127 His dream at last is bodied forth, And to the world is given A sight that well may wean the soul From earth awhile to heaven. The dying look of love supreme Conquering each aching sense, Unquenched by burning pain, reveals Its vast benevolence. Behold that violated cheek With pitying tears impearled, The parting lips that seem to bless A cold and faithless world. Has not the light of Word inspired A true reflection here, Does not the sacrifice of love In ivory reappear? 128 Art Poems. Is not the Evangel's sacred page Translated here as well As any human alphabet Its glorious truths can tell ? The mystery recorded there Is here but told anew. Let those who would my gaze forbid Conceal the Gospel, too. MINOR POEMS. NOTE. There seems to be a dearth of short pieces in the writ- ings of Mr. Miles. When we consider the volume and character of his more sustained efforts, we should rea- sonably expect a much larger number of minor poems from his pen. The few selections presented here are like flashlights, revealing the mind and manner of the author. The one entitled " Said the Rose " possesses poetry enough to immortalize any name. 130 Minor Poems. 13^ THE DEVIL'S VISIT TO—. The Devil told the damned one day, To take some recreation, For he had a visit of state to pay To a certain corporation. So he tucked up his tail and combed his hair, And went to a certain town, And says he — " Mister Mayor, it's pretty clear That my friend, the Plague, is coming here." — " Pretty clear," says the Mayor, '' sit down." The Devil sat down : — " My good sir," says he, " Your streets are as dirty as dirty can be." — Here the Mayor gave a wink and said "Well?" And the Devil resumed, " Don't disturb the re- pose 132 Minor Poems. Of the mud whose aroma is sweet as the rose, And — I'll soften your pillow in Hell ! " The bargain was struck and the Devil made Tracks back to his old domain; While the Mayor, grinning, said, " Tho' I'm half afraid To stir a scraper or lift a spade, — I think I may pray for a rain." AN AMBROTYPE. Great Jove, let old Prometheus have relief, And put a bolder robber in his place, — The sun — long-fingered thief ! — Stole Heaven from earth in taking that sweet face. Minor Poems. 133 AN ALBUM PIECE. Long — long- ago I ceased to sing And hung up lute and lyre, For want had clipped the poet's wing And tears put out his fire. In vain you threaten — " write, sir, write, Refuse me if you dare ! You find my eyes so very bright. Catch inspiration there." No, miss: — my muse and you, my dear, May both go — where you ought ; I catch it when I look at her, And when at ygu — I'm caught. 134 Minor Poems. THE REVERSE. Be still, my heart, beneath the rod, And murmur not; He too was Man — the Son of God — And shared thy lot. Shared all that we can suffer here. The wrong, the loss. The blopdy sweat, the scourge, the sneer. The Crown, the Cross, The final terror of the Tomb, — His guiltless head Self-consecrated to the doom We merited. Then languish not for Edens lost Or vanished bliss ; The heart that suffers most, the most Resembles His. Minor Poems. ^35 SAID THE ROSE. I am weary of the Garden, Said the Rose ; For the winter winds are sighing, All my playmates round me dying, And my leaves will soon be lying 'Neath the snows. But I hear my Mistress coming. Said the Rose; She will take me to her chamber. Where the honeysuckles clamber, And I'll bloom there all December Spite the snows. 136 Minor Poems. Sweeter fell her lily finger Than the bee! Ah, how feebly I resisted, Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted As all blushing I was twisted Off my tree. And she fixed me in her bosom Like a star; And I flashed there all the morning, Jasemine, honeysuckle scorning, Parasites for ever fawning That they are. And when evening came she set me In a vase All of rare and radiant metal, And I felt her red lips settle On my leaves till each proud petal Touched her face. Minor Poems. 137 And I shone about her skimbers Like a light; And, I said, instead of weeping, In the garden vigil keeping, Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping Every night. But when morning with its sunbeams Softly shone, In the mirror where she braided Her brown hair I saw how jaded. Old and colorless and faded, I had grown. Not a drop of dew was on me. Never one; From my leaves no odors started, All my perfume had departed, I lay pale and broken-hearted In the sun. 138 Minor Poems. Still, I said, her smile is better Than the rain; Though my fragrance may forsake me, To her bosom she will take me. And with crimson kisses make me Young again. So she took me . . . gazed a second . Half a sigh . . . Then, alas, can hearts so harden ? Without ever asking pardon, Threw me back into the garden There to die. How the jealous garden gloried In my fall ! How the honeysuckles chid me, How the sneering jasmines bid me Light the long, gray grass that hid me Like a pall. Minor Poems. 139 There I lay beneath her window In a swoon, Till the earthworm o'er me trailing Woke me just at twilight's failing, As the whip-poor-will was wailing To the moon. But I hear the storm-winds stirring In their lair ; And I know they soon will lift me In their giant arms and sift me Into ashes as they drift me Through the air. So I pray them in their mercy Just to take From my heart of hearts, or near it. The last living leaf, and bear it To her feet, and bid her wear it For my sake. I40 Minor Poems. THE ALBATROSS. Think of me often " — With a smile You said it, fair Lady, for you knew That everywhere and everywhile I think of you. Have you forgotten, though years ago, A summer evening's walk of ours. When earth was vocal and aglow. With birds and flowers? The sun was printing his parting kiss On the cross of the Chapel spire. The brook bounded by with a laugh of bliss And eyes of fire. Minor Poems. 141 The lark slid lazily to his nest, His matin music still, The mourner minstrel wooed in the West — The Avhip-poor-will. A star stole timidly to its place, And stood fast in the deepening blue, And you bent your head, while over your face An arch smile flew r For my love was born with that tell-tale star In the holy hush of even. Timidly stealing to earth from afar — The far, high Heaven. Ah, you knew it well, for the proud lip curled At a love, mute, hopeless, true ; You knew that I wearily walked the world, Thinking of you : 142 Minor Poems. Thinking of you these long, lost years Of penury, peril, pain : Thinking of you through sunshine and tears Thinking in vain ! White, lonely, changeless, beautiful. Amid life's tempest-toss, Your image tranquilly sleeps on my soul — Its Albatross. Minor Poems. 143 BEATRICE. Sleep on, My lost one, — each will walk the world alone, Since Heaven so wills it : with thy daily cares Thou wilt deal calmly, and thy guardian prayers Shall follow me, that I may sometimes find Grandeur in nature, fragrance in the wind, Beauty in woman, gentleness in man ; For O, it seems as if the stream that ran Beside my soul were dry, and all things have A withered look : the sunbeam in the wave No longer dances, — the cold clouds refuse Their sunset glow, — the unsought roses lose Their perfumed blushes, — dimly wandereth The moon amid the tree-tops, pale as death, Weary and chill, — and I can scarce rejoice In music's benediction, and the voice 144 Minor Poems. Of friendship sounds like solemn mockery. Why, e'en the tingling cheek and soaring eye Of genius, visioned with some splendid dream, Seem scenic tricks : — unwooed, unwelcome gleam The plumed thoughts, — nor have I heart to win The broidered butterflies we catch and pin To poet desks, in boyhood. Yet fear not The future : I shall bravely front my lot. With the one rapture manhood ne'er forgoes. The stately joy of mastering its woes. No eye shall see me falter, — I shall ask No respite on the wheel, — whate'er the task The circling days appoint, I humbly trust For strength to do it : — there shall be no rust On sword or shield, — howe'er the heart may ache Beneath the goad ; yet, sweet, for thy dear sake I'll wear the yoke, until the furrow opes A little deeper, — then we'll end it, hopes And fears. Minor Poems. i45 Yet sometimes, when the old desire Of rhyming comes, and the famihar choir Of cherub voices, with returning song, Makes my sad chamber musical ; when throng The cloistered faces, with uplifted veil, Each with remembered smile, — serene and pale. As those stone priestesses that walk in Rome And Florence, shall thy living image come And stand before me, motioning the rest Away. And I believe — O ! stir not, lest Waking bring utter anguish — that when years. The morning years of life, have passed, and tears And time and sorrow shall have so o'erthrown The temple of thy beauty, that unknown We two may walk the ways where now, alas ! The finger follows, and false whispers pass 'Twixt smiling friends,— when perished youth's last charm, E'en they who blamed us most, exclaim, What harm 146 Minor Poems. In their nozij meeting? — let me, love, believe This parting not for ever — that some eve Like this, I may approach thee, kneeling, smooth Thy loose brown hair, warm thy cold fingers, soothe Thy aching bosom, lay my hand upon Thy brow, and touch these dear lips — thus — Sleep on! Minor Poems, 147 PARTINGS. I will not say that I have knelt, That I have looked and loved in vain, Nor will I say that I have felt A love I may not feel again : There beats no fever in my breast, There burns no madness on my brow, But only a dull, strange unrest About my heart — unknown till now. I will not say that I have nursed. Beneath thine eye, the morning fire That once from youth's warm bosom burst To rage an instant — then expire : But as they told us we must part, And that our placid dream was o'er, I felt a shadow cross my heart, — A void T never felt before. 148 Minor Poems. THERE WAS A TIME. There was a time she rose to greet me, But what, alas! cared I? For well I knew she flew to meet me, Yet met me with a sigh. I left her in her deep dejection, And laughed with merry men; What cared I for her true affection? I did not love her then. But now I wander weak and weary, And what, alas ! cares she ? I lost her love, and life grew dreary. She scarce remembers me. In vain, in vain I now implore her, She spurns my tearful vow ; Too late, too late, I now adore her. She does not love me now. Minor Poems. ^49 MANUSCRIPT FACSIMILE. (From Amin.) t^^, '^^'^-^'^ ^£^^^^^ 4;t^^^*^ ^ .3^^^. ;5^ •'ci^ <.*,^ ^.«..v<^^_ -^- A-^ ''^*-' ^.r^ ,v^^^. ^J^ ^^.*«-^ o^^-!3^^ '*~^^ ^S^ -^ ^. >^^^ z^--- -7^-^ 15° ' Minor Poems. ON THE DEATH OF DR. Mute are the mountains now ! No more that cry Of the full chase by all the breezes borne Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply Speeds the loud chorus ! Nevermore the horn Of our lost chief will shake Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled brake ! Scarcely twelve hours have passed since, at my gate, Beneath the over-arching oaks we met ; Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate, A horseman every inch : I see him yet, His morning mission done, His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, onQ bv one. Minor Poems. 151 Dying-? along the trembling mountain flies The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot; Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes Melt as their white lips stammer, " Not, oh ! not Him of all others? Nay, Not him who from our hearth so oft drove death away ? " Well may those pale groups gather at each door, Well may those tears that dread the worst be shed. The hand that healed their ills will move no more, The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled ; And while they pray and weep, Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep. I've known him oft, by anguish chained abed, Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan, And meekly ride wherever pity led, To heal a sorrow slighter than his own ; 152 Minor Poems. Or rich or pCMDr the same — It mattered not : let any sorrow call, he came. A sad and sudden death ! This very morn He rode amongst us : sick men woke to hear The steps of his black pacer ; the new-born Smiled on him from their cradles. Many a tear On faces wan and dim He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet for him. TRAGEDIES. NOTES. Mohammed. A blank verse tragedy in five acts, written in 1849, won from nearly a hundred competitors the prize offered by Mr. Edwin Forrest. The reading and research necessary as a preparation for producing Mohammed have given a tinge of orientalism to much of Mr. Miles' later writings. De Soto. Was written for James E. Murdock, and acted by him 1852, and E. L. Davenport 1852-1855. The play was revised by the author in 1856, but not given to the public in printed form. Cromwell. This tragedy has to do with English his- tory from the defeat of Essex to the death of Charles I. The manuscripts of this play, although much crossed and corrected by the author, can be deciphered perfectly. It is hoped that the public will not have to wait long to see the plays of Miles published in complete form. :54 Moll am in ed. 155 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The design of this play is to explain the life of Mohammed, from the age of forty till his death, a period of twenty years. Many a single fact, in his extraordinary career, furnishes ample material for a play. . . . The love and apostasy of AH and Fatima, breaking Abu Taleb's heart, — Ayesha betrothed to Omar, but wrested from him by her father, and consigned to the Prophet's arms, — Omar's hypocrisy for the sake of revenge ; — plots like this, sparkling with brilliant scenes, occurred to tempt me from my original design. A- M; >!< t^ ;!: After all that has been said, the true character of the great founder of Islam is but imperfectly understood. Had he not sincerely believed in the Unity of God, had he not detested idolatry, 156 Mohammed. had he not most fervently wished to redeem Arabia from her slavish superstition, had he not been in earnest in all this, he could not have ac- complished such great and permanent results. Yet at the very outset of his career, when his motives were purest, his fidelity to Cadijah un- impeached, we know that he was guilty of willful deceit and imposture. For, admitting that the appearance of Gabriel and the Mesra were de- lusions of zealot fancy or of the devil, yet surely he could not dupe himself so far as to believe that the angel handed him the Koran, which he either wrote himself, or received from a hired scribe. Here is the difficulty : not only have we to recon- cile truth and falsehood, sincerity and deceit, — for, in most historically great men, there is more or less of this, — but we are dealing with one, who, believing himself a Prophet, asserts it by imposture, — the messenger of Allah preparing mankind by a deliberate lie for the reception of Eternal Truth. Mohammed. 1 5 7 From this point of view, the play was written. The brevity required in representation on the stage (at which I aimed) compelled me to omit much that might support my interpretation of this " sincere impostor." Truth rarely floats on the surface of history ; it is only by looking long into the stream, that we see the jewel lurking in the bed. The lesson conveyed by the life and death of the Arabian impostor, is the inability of the greatest man, starting with the purest motives, to counterfeit a mission from God, without be- coming the slave of hell. 158 Mohammed. THE FOUNDING OF ISLAM. {From Mohammed.) Act I. Scene i. Night of At Kadir. — Cave of Hara, three miles from Mecca. — Mohammed is seen prostrate upon the slope of a rock, resembling a rude pedestal, his face concealed by his turban. Enter Cadijah. Cadijah (looking timidly around). He bade me meet him here, before the moon Had silvered half the night ; — but, as he spoke. His flashing eyes were full of mystery ; His words were few, and stern, and tremulous. And, knotted on his brow, the laboring vein So fiercely swelled, that in his nervous grasp I quivered like a leaf, — and still my heart Seems not to beat, but, with my creeping flesh. To shudder. Yes — I tremble still. (She sees him.) Asleep? (She approaches, and bends over him.) Asleep ! — O, sweet surprise — I breathe again ! (She embraces him.) Mohmmned. 159 Son of Abdallah and Amina, hear ! Mohammed, wake! {She tries to arouse him.) 'Tis strange ! — his slumbers ever Fled at the gentlest whisper of my voice, Or at the faintest murmur of his babes. {Slie tries again to zvake him.) Awake! Awake! Tis thy Cadijah calls thee! (She starts up.) Alas, this is not sleep! Some evil spirit O'ershadows thee ; — and, with prophetic soul. Thou didst invoke Cadi j ah 's presence here, To share thy danger or avert the spell. (She falls upon her knees, zvith her back to him.) Hear, great Taala! gleaming Sirius, hear! Al Uzza, Hobal, guardian gods of Mecca, Assist me now ! (At the mention of these idols, Mohammed lifts his head: as she pronounces the last zvords, he rises, zvith his eyes fixed on the top of the rock.) Mohammed. Gone! — Gone! — Celestial mes- senger ! Angel of light ! — Whence came those damned sounds ? Cad. My own dear lord ! i6o Mohammed. MoH. What ! — thou ? — Begone ! Away ! The ground is holy ! — Yes 'twas there — 'twas there The angel stood, in more than mortal splendor, Before my dazzled vision ! — I have heard thee. Ambassador from Allah to my soul. Have heard, and will obey ! (He bows reverently before the rock.) Cad. Alas, he raves! My lord, what aileth thee ? MoH. Cadi j ah ! — Tell me, — Was it from thy most pure and cherished lips Those names accursed fell? Cad. What names, dear lord? MoH. Al Uzza, Hobal, Sirius — Pah! they choke me — The names by which the idols are invoked ! Cad. Yes, I did ask our gods to bless thee. MoH. Hush ! — Call them not gods — those blind and monstrous things, Those crude deformities, misshapen lumps Of lifeless clay ! — There is no God but One, — Mohammed is his Prophet! Mohammed. i6i Hear me, Cadi jab. Thou rememberest well When first I led to fruitful Syria Thy caravan: my fifteenth summer still Was blooming in my cheeks. I there beheld The rites of Jew and Christian, and oft heard The precepts of their sacred volumes. Then The unknown truths, of which my pining soul Had vaguely dreamed, began to dawn in beauty. In solitude and silence, years rolled by : Scorning idolatry, mistrusting all The subtle heresies of monk and Jew, Mine eye, unsatisfied, was ever raised To its Creator, asking light ! light ! light ! It came, at last, Cadijah — here ! — this night ! — This very hour ! * He * * * I was here alone. Expecting thee, when, suddenly, I heard My name pronounced, with voice more musical Than Peri warbling in the dreamy ear. Ravished, I turned, and saw upon that rock, Resplendent hovering there, an angel form: I knew 'twas Gabriel, Allah's messenger. Celestial glories compassed him around ; 1 62 Mohammed. Arched o'er his splendid head, his gUstening wings Shed Hght, and musk, and melody. No more I saw, — no more my mortal eye could bear. Prone on my face I fell, and, from the dust, Besought him quench his superhuman radiance. " Look up ! " he said : I stole a trembling glance ; And there, a beauteous youth, he stood and smiled. Then, as his ruby lips unclosed, I heard — '' go_, teach what mortals know not yet There is No God but One, — Mohammed is his Prophet ! " ^ ^ jjj ;jj My mission is to all mankind, but first To thee ! Dost thou believe ? Cad. My lord ! MoH. My wife! Believe! — for though thy breath is half my life, And though I hold thy deep maternal love Dearer than all the wealth that lines the sea, Or decks the Persian priest, or tyrant Greek, — Dearer than all the beauty in the world Mohammed. 163 Gathered and moulded into one fair woman, — Yet, by the throne of Allah, whose commands Possess my soul, if thou believest not, With thy whole heart and mind, thou shalt expire, A victim to thy infidelity! (She falls upon her knees.) Who will believe, if thou art recreant? Who will receive, if thou dost turn away? Who will adore, if thou shalt still refuse To bend thy stubborn knee ? 'Tis writ above. By angel fingers, with a pen of light, Upon the mystic tablets, which contain Th' eternal scheme fulfilled and unfulfilled. Thou shalt believe, and shalt be blest forever ! Blest in the shadow of the Tuba tree — Blest in the pearl-paved garden of Al Jannat — Blest at the sweet and fragrant fount of Tas- nim — Blest in the midst of Allah and his angels ! — Exalt thy heart in praise and gratitude ! — Confess ! confess there is no God but One, — Mohammed is his Prophet! Scene IL Square before the Temple, at sunrise. Enter Omar, buried in thought. 164 Mohammed. Omar. Where shall I find a stepping-stone to power ? — Men laud my wisdom — could my wisdom win Authority, a diadem of pearls Should ornament and recompense my brains. What's wisdom, if it cannot benefit Its master? (He folds Jiis arms on his breast, and muses. Enter Abubeker.) Abubeker (touching Omar). Thinking, Omar, — ever thinking? Omar. Thought's an infirmity to which I'm subject. Abub. a pestilence that blackens you all over. Thinking of what? Om. The future! Abub. (bowing, in mock reverence.) Prophesy. Om. Our governor Abu Taleb's failing fast; The peace of Mecca hangs upon his life ; The rival lines of Hashem and Ommeya Will light their feuds around his funeral torch. Abub. Sophian, the Ommeyite, must prevail. Ali, our governor's son, is but a boy, Artless, all fire and impulse, and a poet. Mohammed. 165 As for Mohammed, he consumes his Hfe Moping in Hara's cave or housed in Mecca, Shunning all intercourse with man or God : I know not what he means. Om. He's not the man To be absorbed in nothing, Abubeker: Rely upon it, he means something. Abub. (sneering.) Means! Sophian's action's too much for his meaning. Caled, Amrou, with more than half the army. And all the Bedouin tribes, are fast Ommeyites. Two thirds of Mecca clamor for Sophian — He has the people with him. Om. And soon may have them on him. Abub. The masses make the governor. Om. And may Unmake him too. ***** (Exeunt Omar and Ahuheker. Enter Sophian.) Sophian. Old men are just as slow In dying, as in everything they do. One old man's life is all that stands between Me and that aim and summit of my hopes, — To govern Mecca ; — but he zvill not die. 1 66 Mohammed. Ah, here he is, and weaker, thank the gods ! (Enter Abu Taleb.) Hail to the honored Governor of Mecca! Hail, Abu Taleb ! I am filled with joy, To see thy cheeks still ruddy with the bloom Of youth. Abu Taleb. No, no: these thin and frosty locks. Whitened by fourscore years, are dropping down O'er cheeks as pallid as themselves. My stream Will soon be lost among the sands. Soph. The gods Forbid !. A. Tal. I thank thee. Soph. May we soon expect Mohammed, thy dear nephew, from the cave Of Hara? A. Tal. Ere the day has closed, I hope. (Exit Abu Taleb.) Soph. Ay, totter on, thou withered Hashem- ite! Soon must the grave, now gaping, close on thee ; And then, Sophian's Governor of Mecca! (Enter Caleb and Anirou.) Mohammed. 167 Soph. Caled, have you marked, of late, The sudden change in this Mohammed's man- ner — How sternly through the Caaba he sweeps, Frowning upon our venerated idols, Nor bowing e'en before the agate shafts Of purple Hobal? Caled. I have marked him oft, And thought contempt, instead of reverence, lurked Within his eye. Soph. And, Caled, did the sight Not send the indignant blood against thy cheek? Cal. No, or it would have quickly sent my hand Against my sword : but I am more offended. When, stiff with majesty, he stalks along. Hugging himself in solemn dignity, As if, perforce, he mingled with mankind, And spurned us, to commune with some wise god Within him. (Exeunt Caleb and Amron.) Soph. . . . High-reaching thoughts Shall pamper my ambition. There's young Ali, 1 68 Mohammed. A vain, romantic fool — a doting lover, — Too young to care, too weak to scheme for power, — And mad Mohammed, whose ignoble soul, Incapable of soaring, never felt Ambition's goad, — these are my only rivals: With Caled and Amrou on either hand, I feel already governor elect! {Exit Sophian.) Scene III. Apartment at Mohammed's — a table set for dinner, containing simply a lamb and a bowl of milk. — As the scenes part, Mo- hammed is discovered between AH and Fatima, who are kneeling on the right and left, each with a hand in his. Mohammed. Now, while the heavens are listening — while the tree, Whose tuneful leaves perpetual music shed O'er Paradise, is mute, — pronounce again Those blessed words ! Ali and Fatima. There is no God but One,— Mohammed is his Prophet! MoH. Lo ! the ranks Mohammed. 169 Of white-winged Cherubim indine their heads, To drink these accents. Rise, my children, rise ! (They rise.) My cousin AH, if I read aright Thy ardent soul, my daughter Fatima Will make the roseate earth a fitting path To that sweet heaven I promise thee; but faith Alone deserves, and faith alone can win her. (Raising her veil.) Dost love her, AH? All Love her ! — life has been One tribute to her ! Is there in the past A thought that was not of her ? — can the future Reflect a wish that is not burning for her ? — O, Fatima! . . . Love can make the eager foot of youth Fleet as the horse of Nejed. MOH. . . . The feast, to-day, Is for the spirit, not its clay companion. I ofifer you no soul-subduing wine. Nor grape, nor olive from the groves of Yemen, Nor meats enriched with spices that once flung Their gay aroma o'er the Indian ocean ; — (He rises.) 1 7° Mohammed. I offer you what gold can never buy, Or sabre win, or prince or priest bestow — Islam and Eden ! ( They all spring up. ) Hear me, sons of Adam ! The angel Gabriel in Mount Hara's cave Appeared, last night, and thundered in mine ear, — " Go, Prophet of the true and only God, Announce to man the glory of thy Master ! " And here, obedient to that voice divine, Now, while his touch immortal thrills my soul, — Now, when a power supernal drives me on, — I call you to the service of the true And only God ! ^ 5}i ^ >J< 5}i A. Tal. Then, canst thou ask us to fall down And worship thee? MoH. Not me, but Him who sends me. I do not say this mortal flesh is rich With God's own essence and angelic ichor. Or cry, " My right hand holds the key of heaven ! " I claim not to have scanned the hidden things Locked in the eternal breast ; — I ask but this, — Mohammed. 171 Believe what is revealed. Am. Revealed to whom? MoH. To me. Am. To thee? — but there must also be A revelation unto us, that there has been This revelation unto thee ; or else Perform a miracle, and prove thy mission. For instance, bring to life this roasted lamb. And send it bleating to that bowl of milk. (They laugh.) MoH. Laugh on — I bend my head submis- sively. Since time began, the prophet's foot has pressed The thorn,— and curses greet him from the Hps He came to bless. But tremble while ye laugh,— The past is fearful with the scoffer's doom. You ask for miracles : if Allah wills That light should reach your hearts, no miracle Is needed ; but if, wounded by your pride. He wills it not, though troops of angels came, Refulgent in celestial drapery. To win your faith, ye still would disbelieve: E'en if they built a ladder to the skies. Ye would not climb. 172 Dc Soto. THE DEATH OF DE SOTO. {From De Soto.) Act V. Scene IV. Anasco and Others. Victory ! De Soto. No ! — none whilst Tuscaluza lives. Thrice have I seen him — thrice to combat dared him — Thrice foiled by intervening fools that claimed The death designed for him. — Heav'n place him here Armed with thy dread artillery — fenced by legions — Shew me the man — the penetrable flesh That crusts his soul — and tho' the flames of Hell Wag their lithe tongues between us, they shall fail To part th' Avenger and the victim. Gallegos. Rest. The day is won. De S. My oath is unfulfilled! Dc Soto. 173 Hold out, my soul ! — if there's one warrior spark Within thee, let it kindle to a blaze. Body of mine, thou art no mate for me ! — Thy joints are supple and thy muscles clothed With power, — but the untiring spirit needs A minister immortal as itself. Not all the might that arms the lion's paw. Or seals the charger's horned hoof with death, Or swells the serpent when, erect with hate, He crashes thro' the jungle, satisfies Our restless appetite — still thirsting on The soul must have its Maker's thunderbolt Or pine as I do now. (Enter soldier oifering water in his helm.) Thou first, best gift Of Heav'n — The oath! — the oath! I cannot taste it. {Tuscalu::a passes amid the flame in the back- ground.) 'Tis Tuscaluza ! — Wert thou Mercury With all his wings fresh fledged, thou couldst not 'scape me. My horse, Gallegos. — (Exit Gallegos.) 174 De Soto. Hold him in thine eye, Gaytan, tho' Heav'n yawn to the empyrean ! {Exit De Soto. Enter Alvarado and soldiers.) Alvar. Now let our trumpets sound a pause to battle. Slaughter has done its work, let mercy reign. {Enter Goncalo.) GoN. The fleet, my Lord, the fleet is in the river. Alvar. Art sure? GoN. Their sails are whitening half the stream. Alvar. Meet them and ask of Isabella. Haste ! Thou to the fleet, and I to seek De Soto. {E.veunt separately.) Scene. V. {Night. Enter Alvarado, Porcallo.) Alvar. Hast seen De Soto ? — Speak ! — PoR. I followed them Thro' marsh and glen, until the heathen turned Grim with despair and rage, and stood at bay. At his first shaft, methought De Soto reeled — A second flew — Abdallah plunged and fell. De Soto. 175 But like a lion bounding from his lair De Soto sprang upon him : with one hand Fast on his wrist he plucked his bow away — Then took him by the throat. — My sword was raised To smite the powerless savage. " Stay thy stroke ! " De Soto cried : '* Back to the town and bid them Meet me at Ulah's grave." Alvar. But is he wounded? PoR. Ay, to the death, I fear: he had not reeled Unless the blow were mortal. Alvar. Couldst thou leave him Alone to wrestle with that brawny chief? PoR. Wounded or dying, he's an overmatch For any single foe. Alvar. I will avenge him, Tho' all this fated continent run blood. Por. For men like him, there's no revenge but tears. From youth Fve fronted all the forms of death And given my forehead to the battle axe. But never, never, sank my soul till now. 176 De Soto. Alvar. Lead on. PoR. The babe whose finger fails to crush A flower, may lead Porcallo now. — This way. {Exeunt.) Scene VI. (Night. Ulah's grave, Mississippi. Enter De Soto, Tnscahiza, grappling.) De S. {holding him a moment.) Behold her grave ! — Chief, I could smite thee now, As I have sworn — but take another chance, And use it well. {Throwing him off.) I will not touch my sword — We meet on equal footing, knife to knife. Tus. Give me a moment's rest — thy lion grasp Upon my throat has robbed me of my breath. De S. Rest — breathe — and pray — for thou hast need of all. There liveth not the mortal whose right arm Crossed mine in combat — and thou knowest, savage. That I have sometimes fought. {Goes to the grave. ) De Soto. 177 At last in Heaven ! — Sweet saint, remember me. Tus. {springing upon him.) Lie there with her! De S. {intercepting the blozv.) False heart — false hand. 'Tis thus thou shouldst have struck! {Stabs. Tuscahiza falls.) Tus. Exult not, Spaniard, — thou shalt follow soon — Beneath thy steel coat lies the arrow head — Behold that broken shaft — . Thou shalt not see The morning. {He dies.) De S. There is nothing left to conquer ! He said that I was wounded. {Feeling.) True — 'tis here. An arrow in my side — I felt it not — Tis deep. — Now, death, we're face to face at last. I fear thee not! {Looking at Tuscalusa.) How tranquilly he lies ! Shall I have peace like that? O what a joy Steals over me : before me sweeps my Hfe, Fleet and distinct : the mother smile shines out — The curate blesses me — the manuscripts Spread their black letters — Isabella steps 12 178 De Soto. From the stone chapel's fretted arch — the Usts Ring with her name — Pizarro beckons me — Ho, to the rescue ! — River of my soul, Say, wilt thou sing to sleep this brain of mine With all these memories ? O leave me one, — Endless and changeless as thy mighty song, — Love! — {Enter Porcallo, Alvarado, followed by Anasco, Gallegos, Gayton, and Spanish army.) Alvar. Art thou wounded? Where? De S. Disturb it not — Not for the universe ! Closer, Porcallo. 'Tis our last battle-field. Dost thou remember The sunset of our first? The day was won. And spent with toil, I slept : thy tears awoke me — I felt thine arms around me — heard thy voice Whispering I should be a Conqueror. Have I fulfilled that early prophecy? PoR. A Conqueror unsullied by the stain Of unresisting blood. De S. May Heav'n confirm it ! Farewell, old friend, — there's many a gallant field Before thee yet: remember me whene'er Dc Soto. 179 The cry is Santiago, and our banner Firm in the rocking war, wins victory From fate. PoR. Remember? I shall die with thee. De S. No, by my Knighthood, No! — I charge thee bear This message to my wife — to Isabella : Tell her to teach my story to my boy, That he may love the sire he scarcely knew, — Tell her to live for him: — then add but this — Amidst temptation, danger and despair, I kept our vow ! ' Alvar. The fleet is in the river. De S. Ha ! — say you so ? — War's music be their welcome, — What word? Alvar. Gonzalo brings it — lo, he comes ! {Enter Gonzalo.) De S. Is Isabella well? — I'll hear the worst. There is a curse unspoken in thy face. GoN. She's dead. De S. O, God! how desolate the earth has grown, How sweet the skies that hold her! i8o De Soto. {Taking him aside.) Well? — GoN. Thy son — De S. I am his father ! — Dost thou fear to speak, When I dare listen? GoN. Dead. De S. The cup is full ! — GoN. You bleed. De S. Ay, father, you have made me bleed. — Alvar (taking him aside), have masses said at Ulah's grave. And plant a cross of stone there, that its shadow May sometimes sweep the river. — Men of Spain, In him behold your leader — by the cross, I charge you swear to follow without question Where'er he leads. {They kneel.) Omnes. We swear! De S. {to Alvar,) Lead them to Spain. Alvar. And thou? De S. {Plucking out the arrow.) Out, min- ister of mercy, out ! Blest be the hand that sent thee. — / stay here! De Soto. i8i My children, cluster round me, — I am dying. Bright be your lot amid the groves of Spain, New honors and true loves. For me — but this : — Deep in that mighty river be my grave, Its foam my shroud, its ceaseless voice any dirge, Its everlasting wave my monument! (He dies.) BURIAL OF DE SOTO. 1 82 Cromwell. THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. (From Cromzvcll.) ActV. Scene H. Whitehall. Morning. Rnmford, Egerton. Rum. Wouldst thou believe it, Brother Eger- ton, Hugh Peters, once a shining light 'mongst us, Hath sent a Bishop to the fated Sovereign ? Eger. Thou art mistaken. Not he surely. He hath too good a grace at holding forth, Abominateth prelacy too much, For such work. Rum. Nay, man, they are closeted Together yonder, haply practicing Confession, sacrament and all such rites Of Baal. Eger. Confusion to them both ! Rum. Amen ! Eger. Does Pharaoh die to-day? Rum. His scaffold's up. Cromwell. 183 Tis a bright day. The crowd will see him well. I hope we shall be near him. Eger. Trust for that, We shall be next the scaffold. Rum. Do you think The man will bear him bravely ? It will try The royal pride. Methinks that you or I Would not look over-well upon a scaffold. Eger. Verily, Not over- well. Rum. It is an awkward testing place, E'en for the elect. What chance, then, for a sinner? (Enter Charles, leading the Bishop out, and receiving mutually his blessing.) Said I not so — the Bishop and the King? Charles. Good neighbors, leave us to our- selves awhile. Rum. Shall I discourse with him ? Eger. 'Twere unction wasted. Rum. There's something fiendish in his eye that says so. i Exeunt Runiford, Egerton.) {Enter Leslie.) 1 84 Cromwell. Charles. Where have you been? At break of day I found Your pallet empty. Les. I have been ±o walk, To breathe the morning air. Charles. You are pale and haggard. Les. To see you calmly sleeping all night long, Placidly breathing, 'tho' each breath brought nearer This fatal morn — such sights may make one haggard. Charles. My peace with Heaven is made, my foes I pardon, — All, even Cromwell. Death is very near. My hours, my minutes, numbered. I must seem As trim as may be. Am I well attired ? I have put on an under-robe, lest cold Should make me shiver, and men call it fear. Thou shalt not blush for thy lost monarch, Leslie. I feel the high, hereditary blood, the spirit of my murdered ancestors. Stir at my heart! Mark when the axe is o'er me, — Cromzvell. 185 Not an eye-lash shall quiver. Weep not, Leslie. Preserve this packet for my wife and him — The son who yet shall occupy my throne. Tell them my story, it is at its close. Les. My King, I shall not live to tell the tale. 'Round Eastern monarchs hecatombs are slain. Upon the Indian's grave his swarthy wife. Kindling a pyre, ends her brief widowhood ; And there shall be one cavalier, at least, With soul enough not to survive his king. Charles. My son! Les. {Kneeling) Thy blessing? {Enter Pearson and Hie of men.) Pear. Sire, the hour is come. Les. Give these to Pearson, he is merciful. Charles {to Pearson.) Kind sir, I ask a favor — 'tis the last And easily granted. Send this open packet Safe to my queen and children. It contains Matters that cannot hurt your Parliament, — Mere toys of love, and frail memorials. And pray you let me have a velvet pall, A leaden coffin with a leaden scroll. {Whisper) And guard my body as you would a soldier's. 1 86 CromzvclL Thou unaerstandest? Shrink not, sir, 'tis all. Charles Stuart is ready, gentlemen, move on. And now witness, England, how a king should die! {Exeunt.) Scene III. {Croinzveirs. The crozvn of Eng- land veiled upon a table. An archway cur- tained off in rear. Enter Pearson and Bess zveeping. ) Pear. Where is thy father? Bess. He hath watched all night, And sleepeth now. {Enter Cromwell.) Crom. Not now — not yet ! — to-morrow ! Up, up a hill, a hill as high as Bashan, My spirit toils. Step after step I mount. Now gleams the topmost within my grasp. Now sweeps the cloud atwixt us. Upward still Chase the illusive phantom tho' the heart Break 'gainst the beating rib. Thy business, Pearson ? Pear. Wilt thou be present at the execution? Crom. As wax before the fire, so melt the wicked : He shakes the hills, the mountains and they reel. Cromwell. 1S7 Pear. Wilt thou be present at the execution? Crom. No, not for England ! Post my Iron- sides Close to the scaffold. I shall watch from here. If Fairfax offer thee resistance, fight, Fight to the knife ! I shall be present then — A rushing like the rush of many waters ! Is that the people gathering? Pear. They come : I must away to do my duty. Crom. Do it, Tho' heaven, affrighted, open to its core. (Exit Pearson.) O, were I free among the dead, the slain, That lie in graves, whom thou no more remem- berest ! Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves, I am shut up — Thy fierce wrath sweepeth me. Lover and friend, hast thou forsaken me? Poor King, thy part is easier played than mine! (Lifting the veil from the crozvn.) Behold the crown of England! It has pressed The head of many a hoary villain — shot Dismay from every jewel! It is gold, 1 88 Cromwell. As rich and beautiful as art can make it. Where are the brows it once encircled? Dust. Where the proud head that lately wore it ? Soon A rolling thing before the pathless whirlwind ! Barbaric emblem of a barbarous age, Hast thou not had thy day — aye, and a long one? 'Tis time thy reign were over. Bess. ' They are coming. Look! Crom. Let me look upon the crown, not him ! Bess. Is that the King — that pale, that tran- quil man ? Crom. Tis he ! to haunt me to the last ! Bess. They enter The gallery. The regiments are forming Around the scaffold, driving back the throng That hem it hard. The King is on the platform. He waves his hand to speak. Crom. He must not speak. Ten words now spoken were ten thousand deaths ! Ten words would make the city one vast tomb ! He must not speak. Bess. They force the people back. Thev cannot hear him. Cromzvell. 189 Crom. Well for them they cannot! Bess. Father, this scene appalls me ! Who is he Now kneeling to the King? 'Tis Leslie ! Crom. Ay ! Here, thou pale trembler, hide thy forehead here. I'll face it, tho' the vision smite me dead! (Throws open the curtain, revealing scaffold.) The block ! The axe ! The executioner ! — Charles Stuart, thou art a king upon thy scaffold ! Thy crown and throne gave no such majesty. Calmly he bows his head unto the block — God ! can they smite him there so meekly bending ! Hold off thine axe, thou damned headsman, hold ! {Lets the curtain fall.) {Tottering forward.) O, this is worse than all the gates of Gaza ! Is it a dim, dreadful dream, or is it real ? Bess, is that scaffold stained — is the King dead ? Hark there are heavy footsteps in the lobby. {Enter Pearson and guard, with Leslie wounded.) Pear. (In a whisper.) Leslie ! As we stood He slew the headsman, ere we could prevent ; Then sternly stood at bay. Crom. It was like him. 190 Cromivcll. Peak. Rum ford and Egerton avenged the blow. Crom. a warrior of the ancient Roman mould ! {Enter Harrison and I ret on ziith guard.) Bess. Leslie ! Les. Never ! — You said there was a land Beyond the grave where we might meet again, There shall I wait for you. Farewell to foe and friend ! Farewell, sweet cousin Bess! {He dies.) Bess. Father, he's dead. {She falls insensible upon the body.) Crom. O, Bess, my young, my beautiful, my brave ! — Pearson, my eyes are dim : get me that crown. {Enter Runiford, Egerton, and Ironsides.) Ye men of England, we have lived for this. {Dashing down the crozmi.) Crash, damned symbol! Rot and crumble there! Leap, ye high hills ; ye skipping mountains, leap ! At last the freeman's foot is on the crown ! {Tableaux.) {Curtain falls.) {Exeunt onuies.) COMEDIES. NOTE. Mr. Miles left in manuscript not less than a dozen Comedies and Farces. At least five of these were written for Mr. John T. Ford, Holliday Street Theater, Baltimore, under whose management they were put on the stage with merited success. 192 Senor Valient e. 193 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. (ScTior V alien fc.) Tliere are many difficulties in the path of American Comedy. The assimilation of thought — produced by the reading of the same books and the same newspapers, and by the now almost uni- versal opportunities of travel and culture — has virtually abolished that independent personal de- velopment and those individual peculiarities upon which Comedy is partly based. Repubhcs like ours do not afford the varieties of class, costume and character so favorable to dramatic effects. It is also quite as difficult for the Stage as for the Bench to act without a precedent ; and quite as arduous to interpret a new part as to create one. There is material enough in the contrasts of East- ern, Southern and Western life — in the varieties of our European population — in the comic or tragic element abundantly furnished by the Afri- can : but the material is scarcely yet sufficiently concentrated in any one Metropolis, — New York, i94 Sefior Valiente. perhaps, excepted, — to present a perfect field for that observation and study which ordinarily pre- cede success. It is needless to apologize for the many imperfections of " Seiior Valiente," but if it prove a step in the right direction I shall not regret the labor it has cost. Sehor Valiente. 195 SENOR VALIENTE. Act I. Clem, (zmth dignity.) A spy ! I was a servant in your Father's house before you were born. I was with your Mother when she died in a for- eign land. I followed you, an orphaned child, across the sea, for I had sworn to watch over you. Lille (sharply). You have kept your oath. You do watch me with a vengeance. You watch me when I sit with Pa — you watch me when I walk with Manny — you watch me when I eat — you watch me when I sleep — watch me when I wake — you're watchman enough for this whole Metropolis. I'm sick of it. I might as well be in Spain or Turkey, with a hook-nosed duenna, or a thick-lipped blackamoor. A pretty state of things for Fifth Avenue. Clem, (very significantly.) Some folks need watching, Mistress Lille, even though they live in Fifth Avenue. 196 Scfwr Valiente. Lille. (Rings a hell.) So you have passed from impertinence to insult. I wish you old fam- ily servants had died out before I was born. Clem. They'll soon be gone. Lille. When? — Can't you name the day? Clem. When masters and mistresses have lost the little likeness they still keep to gentlemen and ladies. i]i Jjc If; jjc Lille. How shall I ever tell him? I know I'm blushing dreadfully. It's strange I should, too, in my second winter — few girls do in their first. (Enter Flintleigh zvith his hat on, putting on his gloves.) Flint. Well, Lille, what it is? — (a pause.) Speak quick. It's noon now — there's a meeting of the Salt River Railroad at two, and of the Can- nibal Conversion Society at three. You know I'm President of the one and Treasurer of the other — so speak quick. Besides, the devil's to pay in Wall Street, and between gambling and the Gospels I've a tough time of it. Scnor Valient c. 197 Lille. Is he worth having? Flint. He drives his two trotters — hunts his two Spanish pointers — carries his two bottles — keeps his two — ahem ! — yachts — sports a moustache a rEinpcreur — sonnetizes in the Home Journal — wears yellow kids, and owes from Grace Church to Castle Garden. That's a woman's idea of a man worth having — isn't it ? (They cross.) Lille. (Rubbing her hands.) Yes — delight- ful — and then his family. A i, you know — General Caverly. Flint. American families are very like Amer- ican firms — A I to-day — B flat to-morrow. Are you going to have him ? Lille. Well — he loves me — dreadfully. I'd marry him to escape his attentions. * * * * Lille. Why, you're his bosom friend. Man. There's one little difference between bosom friend masculine and bosom friend femi- nine — we hear secrets, you tell them. 19^ Sefior Valiente. Man. Excuse me, but why do all yoil women run mad after men who scorn you? Lille. Because we'd rather have masters than slaves. * * * * Lille. What can I say? If the old people don't come down, what could we live on — love and lyrics ? Man. Why not? If more dared venture that diet, it would be a better world. Lille. What, — sit still and have you count- ing your fingers — tearing your hair — staring at the ceiling — dashing convulsively at the ink- stand day and night ? Or should I do the prose of our establishment, by trying my hand at your stockings, when my anms were not at war with the wash-tub? Man. Brava, Lille ! That's the true twang of the times ! Wouldn't it be monstrous for two young hearts to go on beating abreast through God's beautiful world, without old people to help them ? The turtle doves do it — but we poor human things dare not. Mary's Birthday. i99 MARY'S BIRTHDAY. Lord. I beg you, my clear Mr. Hawthorne Haw. Yes, sir ; I feel that whenever I put my name to paper, I put my hand into your pocket ; but in spite of all, when the test comes, and the needy beg in the name of the Owner of all things, it seems to matter little from whose wallet the crust is drawn. -M * Haw. Mistress Alice, although an act of love and an act of charity are synonymous in our church service, yet it is wiser not to confound them in common practice. Lord. (Taking Vernon aside.) Vernon, in mercy to Mary Stillworth —in justice to your own honor — let this little episode with Alice die to-day. Whatever vows — Ver. There are none. It was our misfortune to meet, our folly to love, and it is now our duty to part'. But, to borrow your own language, 200 Maryys Birthday. brother, — the flowers do not cease to bloom be- cause the plowshare must soon pass over them. \'er. And before spring you will have coaxed another fool to lay his heart at your feet. Alice. And is there any better resting-place for a man's heart than at a true woman's feet? * * * * Ver. (Returns.) George Lordly, you have won. Your manhood and gold against my pov- erty and youth. You have won a battle, but take care lest you lose a heart — a brother's heart at that. Lord. Pshaw, Vernon, I am used to losing hearts. I once even went so far as to lose my own — but it was picked up and sent back a little bruised and broken. Don't threaten nic with the loss of a heart — a human heart. Why, brother, I should miss it less than a sparrow from yonder tree top. Titus fretting over his lost day was less contemptible than a man of my age fretting over a lost heart. >K ^ ^: ^ Alice. (In tears.) ]\Iore than that ; I have taught him to despise me. Haw. And if he should despise you? Look Mary's Birthday. 201 up, my child. Yonder bounds the sun above the hills, as if the Grand Master himself had come to watch his world awhile, and sent his sentinel stars to sleep. Tears, like the rain, are followed by the sunshine. The hand of the Great Con- soler is sure to paint his promised rainbow on the clouds, a sign for the deluge to cease. .ic >K * * Jane. If fathers' heads all turned with their daughters' heels Beale. Well, Jane Jones? Jane. ^ladmen would be dreadfully in the majority. Jane. Have you ever witnessed a romance in real Uf e ? Mary. There is no romance worth naming out of real life. -^c * >i= =^ Lord. He is here. This match-making's a very heart-breaking business— that's why women like it, I suppose. ^ ♦ * * Mary. Has she stung you, Vernon ? Has she driven you from her side, that you fly to me for comfort? Your cheek is flushed — your eye is 202 Mary's Birthday. flashing. Beware how you urge, in a momentary pique, a step, that, once taken, is irrevocable. Ver. I am sick of these " bewares." (Rises.) It seems to be my brother's pecuhar function to mutter ''Beware! beware!" wherever I go, or whatever I do, and you have learned to echo him. I am not a child, to be scared by a raven's croak- ing. Yet even he would change his note for once, and sing — " Marry, Marry! " And know, Mary Stillworth, that it is to-day or never — Mary. Never! let it be then. (Rises.) By what right dare you propose to-day or never? Suppose I should prefer to-morrow or next day, or a week hence. Suppose I should like a new gown, or a new head-dress. Suppose I should like a month to test our reconciliation? Would not your sublime majesty accord me one of those feminine prerogatives ? * * * * Mary. Why, Beale, you are ill ? You seem to have the ague. Beale. I ham hovercome. Mary. By what ? Beale, Hovercome by a crisis — a crisis in Mary's Birthday. '203 the 'istory of this 'ouse. Something's 'appened, Miss Stillworth. I'll be shot if I do tell what's 'appened, and I begin to be hafraid I'll be shot if I don't. ^ ^ ^ ^ Lord. (Rising.) What has happened?^ You are pale as a ghost. Mary. I have heard a voice from the grave. Lord. What has shaken you so terribly ? Mary. (Controlling herself.) There was nothing terrible in this voice from the grave, this music from the other world; it is but a sweet, strange story. Lord. You have been dreaming. Mary. Then interpret the dream. (They sit again on the sofa.) There was once a man who held an office of trust, who lived beyond his means, who gambled in the vain hope of retriev- ing his fortunes, who once, in a moment of de- spair and want, defrauded the bank over which he presided. Lord. (Aside, communingly.) Has Haw- thorne betrayed the whispered trust of dying peni- tence? (Laughing.) Well, girl, it needs no 2 3-1 Mary's Birthday. ghost from the grave to tell us that. Bank rob- bery is no miracle. Mary. The miraculous part has yet to come. Hear me on. The president was the true crim- inal, but the clerk, who had been the dupe, was the only rictim — the victim by his own free choice and act. It needed but his own word to dear him — that word was never spoken. It needed even all his intellect to conceal his inno- cence, and he tasked his ingenuity to prove his guilt. Innocent, unasked, unbought, silencing the confession of the contrite thief with a reckless laugh that seemed amlntious of disgrace, he stqiped between the culprit and his doom, and sacrificed his own hcMior to save his friend's. (Rising as he rises, and sinking slowly to her knee.) The president of that bank was my father — the clerk who saved him was you, George Abou Hassan. 205 ABOU HASSAN. ^loTH. yi. Who keeps open house, when the day comes to lock it, Must look for the key in a creditor's pocket. The miser exults in his gold bags, The sage in his wisdom is blest ; But in purple and gold, or in old rags, Abou Hassan's chief joy is his jest. Abou. We'll say that you're suddenly sick — indigestion. Convulsions, hysterics, cramp-colic, congestion. Moth. 'M. Xo, the Queen would be sure to send after her pet. And so we'd be caught in a nice little net. Send word that Fm dying — nobody will fret. She can nurse me to-night and to-morrow report That T've suddenly rallied to comfort the court. 2o6 Abou Hassan. Mes., (loftily.) No possible pain that a man ever felt, No possible blow that a girl ever 'dealt, Compares with the extract of agony wrung From a woman when forced into holding her tongue. (Goes to table. Carousal.) Zara, (taking Mother M. apart.) I know these gentlemen, Ma ; it won't hurt them If we get up some nice little game to divert them. Let's be at it ; and soon that big bully shall know What a man may expect when a woman's his foe. M. OF C. An embassy from India in the hall Craves audience. Abou. Indians ? Kill them all ! We'll have no peace until the last one's shot. On with the dance. Ohe ! the coffee's hot ! A general amnesty. Omnes. That's what we wantf Abou. Let us have peace all round, and no more bother; A rebel once won back is tzvice a brother. Aboil Hassan. 207 Abou. Zara. Abou. Zara. Abou. Duo. Will you wed me. love, at e'en ? Where, O where shall we meet? Where the willows weeping lean O'er the fountain at their feet ; Where our morn of love was spent 'Mid the myrtles and the flowers Where the violet never bent Under other steps than ours. Atiibo. Fail not, love, to meet me there, At the twilight's purple close, When the dew-drop's virgin tear Gilds the lily and the rose. Zar. I hear and obey. (Aside.) Poor Abou, I'm really tired of teas- ing him, I'd rather be thinking of wedding and pleasing him. My curse on all Princes ! Hurrah for the day When Caliph and King shall have both passed awav ! GiAF. The first step will be to provide Retribution in kind. Mes. Make him marry some witch Who will carefully keep him in check with her switch. Some desperate she-devil, lame, ugly, and old. 2o8 Aboti Hassan. With a claw that can scratch and a tongue that can scold. Mes. (to Giaf., sotto voce.) Shall I punch in his head ? Shall I give him a cuff? Giaf. Let him marry, that's punishment, surely, enough. Mes. But she's pretty ; and what I detest is to see A pretty girl marry any other than me. Chorus. What's the matter, Abou Hassan, Roaring like a bull of Bashan, What has put you in a passion ? Abou. Fiends attacked me, Woolled and whacked me, Hewed and hacked me, Wronged and racked me. Chorus. It's a shame, a mortal shame, sir. Come and tell us what their names were They'll be made to answer soon. Abou. Take me, friends, unto your keeping, Tho' I'm nearly blind with weeping, Let me see the great Haroun. Aboil Hassan. 209 Solo and Chorus. Let j j^jj^ [ see the great Haroim. Bis. What's the matter, Abou Hassan, What has put him in a passion ? Chorus. Tell us, tell us why you're battered, Why your dress is torn and tattered, Why your face with blood is spattered? Abou. Demons found me, grinned around me, Beat and bound me, then discrowned me. Chorus. It's a shame, a mortal shame, sir. Come and tell us what their names were; They'll be made to answer soon. Abou. Am I dreaming, am I waking? Every bone in me is aching. Let me see the great Haroun. Solo and Chorus. Let ] j^^ [ see the great Haroun. Bis. What's the matter, Abou Hassan, Bis. Roaring like a bull of Bashan? Solo and Chorus. Let \ J^^ I see the great Haroun. 2IO ESSAYS, ORATIONS, ETC. NOTE. Mr, Miles was a constant contributor to the best American reviews of his time, although his articles were seldom signed. His name has been kept before the public chiefly by his novels, which, though quite respect- able, are by no means his highest work. His power as a literary critic was of the first order ; his essays are full of force and grace. The one, a study of Hamlet, has every element of an English classic. A Study of Hamlet. 213 A STUDY OF HAMLET. In all of Shakespeare's finer plays, there is sure to be, at least, one master mind among the char- acters. Lear, even in grotesque dilapidation, is a master mind, lago is another, Macbeth, or rather his Demon Lady, is another; but the tragedies themselves are far from owing their chief dra- matic force and interest to this individual ascend- ancy. In the calm, vindictive envy of lago, in the rage and desolation of Lear, in the remorse of Macbeth, passion or plot is the governing motive of interest ; but there is never a storm in " Ham- let " over which the " noble and most sovereign reason " of the young prince is not as visibly dominant as the rainbow, the crowning grace and glory of the scene. Richard is the mind near- est Hamlet in scope and power; but it is the jubilant wickedness, the transcendent dash and courage of the last Plantagenet, that rivet his hold on an audience ; whereas, the most salient phase 214 ^4 Study of Hamlet. of Hamlet's character is his superb intellectual superiority to all comers, even to his most dan- gerous assailant, madness. The fundamental charm of Hamlet is its amazing eloquence; its thoughts are vaster than deeds, its eloquence mightier than action. The tragedy, in its most imposing aspect, is a series of intellectual en- counters. The Crusaders of Ashby de la Zouche, engaging all the challengers, is not more pictur- esque than this Desdichado of Denmark con- secutively overthrowing every antagonist, from Polonius in the Castle to Laertes in the grave. But the difficulty of representing this ! The enormous difficulty of achieving a true tragic suc- cess, less by the passions and trials than by the pure intellectual splendor of the hero! The al- most superhuman difficulty of imparting dra- matic interest to a long war of words — for the part of Hamlet is well nigh twice the length of any other on the stage, — the almost superhuman power whereby the prince, instead of degenerat- ing into a mere senior wrangler, is so exalted by the witchery of speech, that the lit brow of the young academician for once outshines the war- A Study of HaniJef. 215 rior's crest, for once compels a more than equal homage from the masses ! Perhaps Shakespeare never asked himself the question, never precisely recognized the difficulty. But, as the vision of the unwritten Drama loomed vaguely before him, he must have been conscious of a summons to put forth all his strength. With a central figure of such subtle spirituality, with a plot subordinating action to eloquence, or rather substituting eloquence for action, the great dram- atist instinctively employed a Saracenic richness and variety of detail. The structure of Macbeth is Egyptian, massive as the pyramids, or Thebes ; of Othello, unadorned, symmetrical, classic; of Lear, wild, unequal, fantastic, straggling as a Druid Grove ; but Hamlet resembles some limit- less Gothic Cathedral with its banners and effi- gies, its glooms and floods of stained light, and echoes of unending dirges. I never read " Act I. Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. Francisco at his post. Enter to him Ber- nardo/' without, somehow, beholding the myriad- minded poet at his desk, pale, peaceful, conscien- tious, yet pausing as in the Stratford bust, with 2i6 • A Study of Hamlet. lips apart, and pen and eye awhile uplifted, as organists pause that silence may settle into a deeper hush, — the longest pause at such a mo- ment that Shakespeare ever made. But though not embarrassed by the difficulty, he must surely have been awed by the immensity of his under- taking. For the fundamental idea of the tragedy is not only essentially non-dramatic, but pecul- iarly liable to misinterpretation ; since any marked predominance of the intellectual over the animal nature is constantly mistaken for weakness. The difference between a strong man and a weak one, though indefinable, is infinite. The prevalent view of Hamlet is, that he is weak. We hear him spoken of as the gentle prince, the doomed prince, the meditative prince, but never as the strong prince, the great prince, the terrible prince. He is commonly regarded as more of a dreamer than a doer; something of a railer at destiny; a blighted, morbid existence, unequal either to forgiveness or revenge ; delaying action till action is of no use, and dying the victim of mere circumstance and accident. The exquisite metaphor of Goethe's about the oak tree and the A Study of Hamlet. 217 vase predestined for a rose, crystallizes and per- petuates both the critical and the popular estimate of Hamlet. The Wilhelm Meister view is, prac- tically, the only view; a hero without a plan, pushed on by events alone, endowed more prop- erly with sentiments than with a character, — in a word, zveak. But the Hamlet of the critics and the Hamlet of Shakespeare are two different per- sons. A close review of the play will show that Hamlet is strong, not weak, — that the basis of his character is strength, illimitable strength. There is not an act or an utterance of his, from first to last, which 'is not a manifestation of power. Slow, cautious, capricious, he may sometimes be, or seem to be; but always strong, always large- souled, always resistless. * * iK ^ With too much reason, Hamlet had lost all trust in his mother; and when we cease to trust our mothers, we cease to trust humanity. Hamlet belonged to that middle circle of the Sons of Light, who became cynics, instead of villains, in adversity. Characters of perfect sincerity, of exhaustless tenderness, of ready trust, when once 2i8 A Study of Hamlet. deceived by the few that were dearest, become irrevocably mistrustful of all. Your common- place neighbor who knows himself a sham, ac- cepts, perhaps prefers, a society of shams ; has no idea of being very true to anybody, or of anybody's being very true to him ; leads a sham life and dies a sham death, as near as the latter achievement is possible, leaving a set of sham mourners behind him. But your heart, whose perfect insight was blinded only by its perfect love, once fooled in its tenderest faith, must be either saint or cynic ; must belong either to God or to doubt forevermore. A blighted gentleness is as savage in the expression of its scorn as your born misanthropist or your natural villain ; save that the hatred of the one is for vice, and cant, and cunning, of the other for credulity and vir- tue ; save that the last is cruel in word and deed, the first in word alone. * ij: * * By the inexorable logic of events, Hamlet is ranged against the throne, the conspicuous head and front of a moral opposition, an inevitable, though passive, rebel. If Horatio is loyal, no A Study of Hamlet. 219 matter what their previous friendship, they are thenceforth foes. One must have Hved through civil war to appreciate the dexterous nicety with which Hamlet feels his former friend. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student ; I think it was to see my mother's wedding. HoR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. Even this little, from a man like Horatio, is enough; they are on the same side, rebels both. Quick as lightning the glance is given and re- turned ; he can trust Marcellus and Bernardo, too, and bares his heart to them with a fierce sigh of relief. Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in Heaven Ere ever I had seen that day, Horatio. My father, — methinks I see my father. * >!C if. >fc Whatever may be thought of the words, the action — that doomed figure, crouching over its tables in the dim midnight, — is a flash of positive madness, brief as lightning, but as terrible, too. In this moment of supreme trial, his mind gives way : the remainder of the act is a struggle to 2 20 A Study of Hamlet. restore the lost equilibrium. And in all the an- nals of tragedy, there is nothing half so frightful as this tremendous conflict of a godlike reason battling for its throne against Titanic terror and despair. 'i* ^ 't* ^ The walking ghost of a murdered king, fresh from the glare of penal fires, swearing an only son to vengeance, must be quite as trying to the soul of innocence as the chimeras of remorse to the nerves of guilt. If Hamlet's reason is mo- mentarily dethroned, it is only to reassert its supremacy — only to pass triumphantly through the ordeal of delirious reaction. ^ ^ *}* 'F* The future is vague and hopeless, but, come what may, he means to be master of the situation. His manner must necessarily change, but he will mask the change with madness — an easy mask for one whose whole life is spent in holding real madness at bay, — whose reason would be lost in dark abysses of despair, but for the quenchless truth and splendor of an imagination which en- circles and upholds him like an outstretched angel's wing. Reverence. 221 REVERENCE.! The Philomathean Society, by whom I am invited here, must be, in part, responsible for the demands I am about to make on your patience and attention. In their wilHngness to honor me, they were sHghtly deficient in charity to you ; and — if such a stale profession may be believed — I really feel much embarrassed. There was a time, in days gone by, when I appeared with more confidence on these very boards. For then, it seems to me, there was a remorseless critic, armed with a pen, sharp as the sword of Saladin, with which whole pages were swept away, and half the young brain's harvest cut down, again and again, until by repeated shearing, like little girls' hair, it sprouted forth in proper strength and thickness. And, though I am assured this veto power is not exercised nowadays, I must lament, in chorus with you, 1 From an Oration before the Philomathean Society. 22 2 Reverence. that I have not still the benefit of it. I feel pretty sure, by way of sample, that the Httle girl's hair, the young brain's harvest, and the sword of Saladin itself would not have escaped that same unsparing and avenging goose-quill. The exem- plary obedience with which we submitted to those awful inroads, brings me to the subject I have chosen for my remarks — I mean. Reverence. ^K ^ 'K ¥ We are dependent beings, born to revere : — something to reverence, is the necessary craving of our souls, and we are incomplete unless that craving is gratified. But, undirected by inspira- tion, our fallen nature is almost as prone to rever- ence vice as virtue. Temptation advances with civilization, until, yielding to the enchantment of sin, the idol is dignified and beautified to justify admiration. '' lo Bacche ! " resounds at the feast of the Eleusinian Ceres — the orgies of Cotytto eclipse the pale revels of the Cyprian Queen, and the mysteries of the Pyramids are renewed for the Epicurean. And after this desecration of Olympus has taken place, the nation may flourish, Anacreon sing, Demosthenes speak, and Plato Reverence. 223 spin his phantom Repubhc ; and Cicero may thun- der against Catiline and Mark Antony — and Virgil and Horace may embalm or corrupt an Augustan age, but the spirit of true Reverence is expiring, and the worm of decay is already at work. * * * * It is the religious element in us, reverencing God in the beauty and majesty of his works, that produces whatever is beautiful in literature, art, and society. It was the spirit of Reverence that drew the Troglodytes from their caves and adorned the banks of the Nile, from Meroe and the Isle of Flowers to the Delta, with forms of everlasting beauty. It was the spirit of Reverence that made the Jews God's chosen people, and built them a city which Jehovah alone had power to overthrow. It was the spirit of Reverence that gave energy to the indolent Hindoo, and displayed the mon- strous bulk of the Varahavatar and the vast ex- cavations of Canarah. It was the spirit of Reverence that peopled every mountain and valley in Greece with the 2 24 Reverence. fair creations still invoked by modern rhymers. Amidst the silence and loveliness of nature they thought that spirits of equal beauty must be lurk- ing — guardian genii of the scene — gods. And who are father ^neas, Romulus and Egeria but the children of Reverence? The wild scenery of the North brought forth gods of stern might and majesty: Odin, Thor, — dark, icy creatures, the fathers of Alaric and At- tila. Yet the Scandinavian deity was but another form of the somber Buddha, the fantastic Fo, and the graceful Jupiter. It is the spirit of Reverence that has been the mother of heroes in all ages. . . . There never was true painter, true poet, true sculptor, true musician, true architect, who was not her child. The false artist may feign an invocation to the muse, but cannot soar unless he feels her divinity. Though our divines think they cannot be elo- quent in less than two hours, our lawyers in less than four, our Senators in less than six ; and though the excellence of a book or a speech is usually measured by its length, yet the nation Reverence. 225 is not utterly insensible to the charm of brevity and elegance. For not long since, when those admirable letters and dispatches came from the Rio Grande, and Monterey, and Buena Vista, we were scarcely more delighted with the victories themselves than with the style which announced them. The following election proved that General Taylor had conquered two nations at once — the enemy's with his sword, his own with his pen. After such an instance of public good taste, we are inclined to think that we may yet have a national literature. With all its faults, there is something noble and generous in the American character. The blessings we enjoy under our Constitution are calculated to nourish a free, bold, manly nature, which wants only the humility of Reverence to make it the mother of genius. 1-5 226 The Pilgrims. THE PILGRIMS. Though there be something of human weak- ness in pride of ancestry, there is much of filial reverence ; — a lively contemplation of noble ac- tions is a strong incentive to equal exertion ; — the memory of the American Revolution is, next to religion, the best guardian of our liberties. ;|; ;!; >|: ^ The history of a colony is always so interwoven with that of its parent country, that the career of the one can only be fully explained by the conduct of the other. You must be familiar with the character of James I, since it is well drawn by Hallam, Lin- gard and Bancroft, and its brighter side happily sketched in the fortunes of Nigel. Forgetting Elizabeth in four days, the nation anxiously awaited a sign of the future from her successor. The Catholic hugging a faint hope that James might by chance have inherited the inclinations of his mother : — the Puritan half believins: that a The Pihrims. --7 Scottish education had secretly swayed him to the principles of the kirk ; — the regular clergy con- fidently tempting the approaching monarch with the golden bait of arbitrary power. The king yielded to the allurements of the Bishops. Then began, in earnest, the struggle between Preroga- tive and Privilege. The insolence of the Court was inflamed by the stubbornness of the Com- mons, and every fresh stretch of power awakened a corresponding burst of opposition. Zeal for prerogative had reached an alarming height under Elizabeth, when Heyle and Cecil insisted that her ability to convert her subjects' property to her own use, was as clear and perfect as her right to any revenue of the Crown ; but it fell far short of the madness for despotism that raged under James. * ^« >i= * It was natural for men who denied the divine rights of kings, and smarted under the tyranny which such a system is sure to engender, to seek an asyluni where its rigor would be softened or unfelt. The Puritan was painfully convinced that James and his Church were steeled against 2 28 The Pilgrims, him ; — that to question the prerogative onlv imped its malignity. In 1608, the disciple of Robinson escaped to Amsterdam, where, freed from the petty annoyance and stern severity of bigotry, he enjoyed the blissful immunity of obey- ing unmolested the voice of conscience. But there was something beyond this, for which the exile sighed. The Puritan believed himself the chosen of God, favored above all men by the new light poured down upon his soul; he panted for seclusion from all intercourse with less favored mortals, and longed to build up a Church State to shine as a beacon light to the world, where none but the clean and godly might minister. Glimpses of Tuscaify. 229 GLIMPSES OF TUSCANY. Grecian life, in its highest aspect, was an at- tempt to reproduce the perfections of a lost Eden ; Christian life, in its highest aspect^ is purifica- tion, self-denial, self-immolation, for a paradise which can never be reached in this world, and only in the next after life-long fear and trembling. And although we strive more or less successfully to substitute the joys of the spirit for those of the flesh, yet '' Even we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body." After the knowledge of good and evil, our paradise must have no walls. The broad expanse of which each one of us may chance to be the center, bounded by the horizon and vaulted by the sky — the whole visi- ble landscape, with its fitful Hght and shade, its changing blight and lloom, its alternating sigh and song, whether subdued into use or wild as 230 Glimpses of Tuscany. on the morning of the first Sabbath — this whole visible tmiverse is the only garden in harmony with the vast aspiration, the ceaseless yearning of Christian life. Our opened eyes would weary of the walled Eden, as Rasselas wearied of the Happy Valley. It is a pure and paramount joy to grapple with the rugged earth and bend it to your will ; a joy to pierce the forest to your liking and smooth a bare expanse into velvet lawn : of mortal joys perhaps the purest and most enduring. But when all is done? — Take your stand behind the Pitti Palace almost anywhere high up the hill, on the observatory itself, if you choose. All the wide valley of the Arno, with its circumference of cultured hills and woodless mountains, is before you. For thou- sands of years industrious generations have been at work on that fair panorama. Yellow villas are dotting all the heights ; olive trees are wrap- ping all the slopes in pale monotony ; the vines are trailing everywhere in endless procession over mutilated mulberries ; the long gray walls are solemnly parcelling out the small Tuscan farms. Glimpses of Tuscany. ^31 All Florence is beneath you, with its domes and towers and spires, its streets and bridges, its memories and suggestions. The atmosphere is so transparent, the cultivation so perfect, that the area described by half the radius of vision seems to inclose only a vast kitchen garden. But farther on, the mist and haze are settling ; the enchantment of distance is falling; Vallambrosa, gleaming on its mountain's breast, turns into some mysterious opal ; the records traced by man through all those centuries are gradually erased by the quiet al- chemy of nature, and the same eternal story reap- pears as vividly as if the superscription were but the shadow of a dream. Turn to the Boboli at your feet. Do you won- der it is a failure — that Florence never goes there? They love their own little gardens dearly and the flowers in their windows ; for these are but sweet thefts from nature to embellish home. But for these attempts to compress universal beauty into a given space, for this overprizing, overadorning of the near^ only to be lost, or merged, or overlooked in the glory of the far, the Christian heart can have but little relish. 232 The Governess. THE GOVERNESS. '' Now, Mrs. Fairface, I'll hear your ideas about that young woman who was recommended to me for governess." And saying so, Mr. Felix Fairface applied his slippered toes tenderly to the fender and planted his hands before him, in the attitude of one who is willing to listen. " She was of good family, so I was told," con- tinued Mr. Fairface, '' well bred, well educated, and all that sort of thing, which makes her pov- erty odious to her and agreeable to us. Have you seen her ? What does she look like — ugly, or otherwise ? " " Why, otherwise, decidedly. I was, in fact, rather favorably impressed with her personnel," replied Mrs. Fairface, who was in all respects, as the world goes, an elegant woman. Mrs. Fair- face was a tall brunette, with dark hair and a flashing eye. A shawl flung over her shoulders couldn't help falling gracefully. She v/rote a neat The Governess. 233 note and knew how to seal it, and was just suffi- ciently traitorous to the King's English to spice it with ever so little of the President's French. '' I was also struck," pursued Mrs. Fairface, " with the extreme beauty and justness of her pronunciation, with that exact nicety of intonation almost peculiar to the best English families." Here Mr. Fairface shrugged his left shoulder : he always shrugged that shoulder when his wife waxed eloquent. '' Just give me a two-minute daguerreotype of her, my dear," he interposed — " I mean of her person. One can't tell what one's mind is until one knows them some time. I hope she's brains enough to be a good governess : in the present advanced stage of civilization, intelli- gence is so much commoner than either beauty or virtue, that one expects it as a matter of course. Go on." " Well, then," returned the lady, in perfect good humor, '' she's about the size of our Edith (who was middle-sized) — a trifle taller, per- haps — pale, thin, gray eyes, long lashes, light hair, straight nose, good mouth, excellent teeth, white hands, well made, and little feet." 234 The Governess. " Rather a romantic creature, then," ejaculated the husband. " How does she dress ? " " Very plainly, yet with some taste. She would not be an ornament here," pursued the wife, glancing complacently around the elegant draw- ing-room, " yet she will certainly not disfigure it." "You think we can trust her at table?" " Oh, certainly. I have not seen her eat, but I feel sure that she can do so gracefully. In fact, there is only one objection to her, she, as you know, is a ." Mary Lorn, the governess, and her mother lived in two second-story rooms hired from the Dutch confectioner, who occupied the basement with his shop and kitchen, and the attic with his family. Mr. Lorn, the father, had been one of those whole-souled, high-bred men who live be- yond their incomes, die in debt, and leave a score of creditors, yet not a single friend. The widow's descent from her handsome establishment to her present quarters was gradual, but inevitable ; and there she seemed fixed forever, without the hope or wish to rise. Despised by her rivals, neglected The Governess. 235 by her friends, she was thoroughly disgusted with rich people, and preferred the poor confectioner's wife to the best of the magnates who knew her once, to scorn her now. . . . Mary was sixteen at her father's death, and had been educated chiefly by her mother, who was every way equal to the task. She was expected to create a sensation, when the sudden loss of wealth of course blighted her prospects and her charms. Nothing — not even the smallpox — disfigures a belle so soon as poverty. >(: ^ ^ ^ ^ We need not say how Mary's heart trembled as the burnished equipage glided rapidly from street to street. A thousand hopes and a thou- sand fears crossed her mind in such rapid succes- sion that the ride seemed a troubled dream. She checked her tears at the sight of Fairface House, and entered it, pale, but outwardly calm. Mrs. Fairface, who was determined to be civil and pat- ronizing, met her in the passage, and kissed the trembling creature. '' What are you afraid of, my dear ? " she said, and, passing her arm around Mary's waist, led 236 The Governess. her into an apartment adjoining the breakfast- room. Mr. Fairface was there, diligently reading the morning paper, that modern substitute for morning prayers. He gently lowered his spec- tacles as the governess entered, and, courteously rising, bowed and took her hand. The instant he met her eye a shudder passed over him, and his florid cheek grew, in an instant, as white as hers on whom he gazed. Mary was embarrassed, and Mrs. Fairface could not but discern some rare emotion in the ever-placid face of her spouse. ''Your name?" asked Fairface, remembering himself and recovering. " Mary Lorn." " Lorn enough," he sighed, after a short pause, during which a watery film gathered in his eye. This awkward state of things was suspended by the entrance of Edith. She was one of those fresh, fascinating characters, all bloom and joy, — in appearance, all that is good and fair ; in reality, nothing. She came stealing in with a bright, happy, loving smile, and advancing straight to Mary, without introduction or other preface, put her arms around her neck and emraced her ten- derly. The Governess. 237 The large, warm tears gushed from Mary's eyes at this unexpected mercy. She could not raise her head from Edith's shoulder, but hung there and wept. " Keep her on any terms/' whispered Fairface to his wife, and he bolted from the room, as if to save himself from suffocating. Why Mary wept so long may easily be guessed ; the gratitude of a true woman's heart sparkles only in the mute tear that loads the eye. And yet, there might have been in that poor, father- less girl's heart a sense of shame in needing the affectionate support of a stranger, who, by the exhibition of sympathy, testified a knowledge of her distress. Edith and Mary were of the same age, and yet how different. Mrs. Fairface, whose kind heart was disposed to magnify the pretensions of her protegee, had rather overestimated her charms. There was nothing striking or capti- vating in her person, face or address to attract the great mass of mortals. We rarely find out true beauty, either of mind or matter, unless there is some good critic or a finger-board to point it 23^ The Goz'crness. out. No one could ever arrive at the gems of an opera or a novel unless there were newspapers to select them. But Edith was one of those uni- versal charmers, admired alike by good and bad, wise and silly, old and young — whom no one can cherish without having a host of rivals just as able to appreciate her excellence as he is him- self. There they stood : Edith rich, happy, healthy — Mary poor, sad, and almost prema- turely old. It was a contrast that might tempt a better pencil. Such is the tenderness of the female heart that it naturally inclines to relieve misfortune, until years of fashion or sin have weakened or destroyed the propensity. Edith, from her own impulses and her mother's instructions, was resolved to treat Mary as a sister at first, and to continue in that relation as long as Mary appeared to merit it. If our good resolutions cost nothing but the making of them, what a delightful world we should live in. ^ jj< j|c ;{; ^ In the meanwhile Mrs. Fairface was prepar- ing for the great interview destined to precede the The Governess. 239 temporary concession of her darlings, her two jewels, to another's partial keeping and partial influence. Mary was soon summoned to her sit- ting-room, and there the colloquy began. " My dear Alary," said Mrs. Fairface, " the sooner we understand each other the better ; and a full preliminary explanation frequently averts much subsequent misunderstanding." This exordium, which Sam Johnson himself might have envied, was received by the governess in profound silence. jjj :|: ;|c :j; jj; The door opened, and les petits bijoux ap- peared — Carry and Jessie. Carry was a cherub- faced, cherub-mouthed, rosy-cheeked creature of thirteen, in short, the ruby ; Jessie was two years younger, pale, pensive, timid, light hair and light eyes, and, as Mary thought, the pearl. Carry was like Edith, Jessie was like no one in the fam- ily. Carry was everybody's pet, Jessie nobody's, not even her father's. The introduction was in- tended to be imposing, though Mary commanded her gravity only by remembrance of her position. Carry looked up in her face and smiled sweetly, 2 40 The Governess. shaking her curls archly as she repeated the set speech, — " You must make us learn so fast, Miss IMary, that pa and ma shall be proud of us.'' Jessie hung her head, blushed and said nothing, like a good child who does nothing, because noth- ing is expected. But with the quick glance of childhood, Jessie had already recognized a friend and taken her first lesson — love. Mary stooped and kissed each — perhaps she paused a moment longer over Jessie ; but the pref- erence was imperceptible, except to Jessie herself, who scarce knew how to receive, still less to re- turn, an embrace. The child stood still, but in her face arose the flush of happiness, and all around her grew radiant at the promise of a pro- tector and a friend. " You can play to-day," said Mrs. Fairface, patting Carry's dainty head. " Saturday is a holi- day all the world over for the young, and Miss Mary will excuse you until Monday morning." Mary bowed to the mother, and the children, hand in hand, tripped away to see what the cook was making for dinner. The Governess. ^41 " What do you think of Carry ? " asked Mrs. Fairface. " She is very beautiful," repHed the governess. " As for Jessie," resumed the mother, '' she is good, but she is a queer child. It is a pity she is so unlike her sisters, but I am sure she will give you no trouble." '' On the contrary, I like her quite as well as her sister." "You do!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairface, in amaze- ment ; and Mary wondered no longer at the pale face of the neglected child. '' Pa is coming," said Edith, as she entered the room, and shortly after the prophecy pa appeared, accompanied by a young gentleman, to whom Mrs. Fairface was all attention, and before whom Edith blushed. " You are happier, I see," said Mr. Fairface, in an undertone to Mary. " Believe me, you are not amongst strangers. What were her terms ? " he continued, taking his wife aside. " Oh, you mean what she expected us to pay ? " " Why, certainly I do." " Well, really," stammered the lady, coloring, '' I omitted that." 2 42 TJie Governess. " Of course you did," said Fairface, smiling in ineffable scorn. " Of course you did, you dear, good, business-hating woman. The arrange- ment's left for me?" " Yes." " Agreed ! " Mary bowed, and they returned to the other room, where the dinner was soon announced. A governess at table, nine times out of ten, Is annoy- ing to others and a torment to herself. Annoy- ing to others, because they scarcely know how to treat her, or what to say to her; they have to hit the difficult medium between too much atten- tion and too little respect. Even a poor relation is not half so troublesome — the family at least is ascertained, and there is one point of com- munion, though the coat may not be so new nor the gown so bright. A torment to herself, be- cause she is well aware of the restraint she im- poses on the others ; because forced civility is easily told and little relished ; because she is rather tolerated than welcomed, a retainer rather than a guest. If human nature were the correct thing The Governess. 243 it is sometimes said to be, if its inherent dignity were anything more than none of the clearest starch, the case might be otherwise. But it is certain that Mary wished herself anywhere else in the world than just where she was, between Carry and Jessie, immediately opposite Edith and her accepted ; and it is equally certain that young Henry Arlington would have gratified her wish with fairy-book rapidity, and transported her to Lapland or New Zealand without so much as one regret. And even did we pry too closely into Edith's breast and her mother's heart, a shadow of the same wish might be discerned. But for Fairface, the meal would have been insufferably heavy ; but he broke the ice with the edge of his bold, broad humor, and without any apparent exertion diverted the attention from Mary to himself. The high-spirited girl — for proud she was — had accepted his liberality without a spark of gratitude, but her heart warmed to him at this mark of nobler generosity. Hitherto she had doubted Fairface ; she now felt inclined to trust him, and when they rose she felt as if her guar- dian angel, lingering at the confectioner's room, 2 44 The Governess. had just followed her, and was in the house. And who that moves into a new house has not some- times felt with Mary? Edith, the blooming, led the way to the parlor, assiduously escorted by Henry Arlington. Mrs. Fairface followed with Carry; and Jessie, the forlorn, with the governess, brought up the rear. Fairface remained at the table enjoying his cigar and his glass of wine. We are tempted to remain with him and expose the thoughts of this singular compound of delicacy and coarseness, — to exer- cise the novelist's privilege of knowing and tell- ing what passes in the minds of his characters; but let us leave him to his meditations, for Edith is singing. It may be remembered that Mary's services were not required for Edith, who was accounted perfect — finished in every respect and above tuition. :Jc ;|c * * * There is nothing in after-life approaching the utter loneliness of a neglected child. As our years advance, our resources increase; we learn to stand alone, to live in ourselves, and by gradual experience curtail our sympathies and mark the The Governess. 245 lines between ourselves and others. But a noble child cannot exist in itself ; like a luxuriant vine it shoots out a thousand tendrils, beseeching a prop to lift it from the ground ; it must have love, sympathy, support ; from within, it gathers noth- ing ; the tender flower looks up for the light and the dew of human kindness. And when those ten- drils are rudely shaken from the parent stem, when the accidental prop of an hour is torn from its bleeding clasp, what, after all, is the pang of despised love, in contrast with such bitter, hope- less suffering? 246 Loretto. LORETTO. The horses stepped of their own accord beside a httle ice-bound brook, and then walked most leisurely. The road was shut in by hiils and trees, and wound gradually from a hollow up to a high point of land, commanding a fine view of the city and the river beyond it. Mel- ville smiled sadly ; the intelligent animals were truer to the past than he. Yes, it was Lei's favorite ride! There had she been day after day with him ; in spring, when the first flowers were blooming, when the loving leaves stretched forth their tender cheeks to the soft kisses of the south winds, and decked the reviving branches for wooing birds; in summer, when the little brook babbled against the heat, when thirsting doves came to drink and peck there, when the flocks and herds slumbered in the cool shade of noble Lorctto. 247 oaks, when the bearded wheat and tasselled corn waved m green and gold; in autumn, when the mellow fruit glanced in beauty through the orchards, when every hill-top and every bot- tom glowed in gorgeous livery of a thousand dyes, as if the numberless leaves had caught and held fast the colors of the sunset clouds. After tea they took a walk down the road — Agnes with her mother, Lei with the Colonel. Lcl had never seen Loretto in summer ; the hand of a fairy seemed to have passed over the place ; all round her was beauty and repose. The lark was gliding lazily to bed ; the night- hawk was wheeling and darting through the air ; the cows were soberly walking home '* as if conscious of human affection ; " the sheep were lying down in white groups for the night ; the trees sighed in the evening wind ; and the distant spire of the convent was colored by the crimson clouds on which the sun was still shin- ing from beneath the horizon. There was a holy calm in Lei's breast, as beautiful and pro- 248 Loretto. found as the repose of the scene on which she gazed. :^ ^ -^ -^ ^f. Whilst Agnes was thus advancing in the school of the cross, Lei undertook to accomplish herself in all the departments of country life. She rose before the sun, and (gentle reader, wince not!) fed the chickens, pigeons, geese, ducks and turkeys ; she learned that corn was planted and wheat sown ; she was initiated into the mysteries of milking, creaming, churning, curds and cheese; and her rural ambition en- deared her to every hand about the place, to the dairymaid in particular. She knew the names of all the birds, and could distinguish them by their notes; the lark, the plover, the robin, the quail, the woodcock, the flicker, the blackbird, were no longer strangers, but familiar friends. She loved to take the shade with the reapers at nooning, and laugh and jest with them ; and there, with her green sun-bonnet cast carelessly aside, and her back against the rough tree, few would have recognized in our Lei the admitted leader of fashion, the reigning star of many a winter. Loretto. 249 After dinner the next day they went to the card-room together. Lei begged not to have the gas lit, so they sat and talked in the beautiful twilight — talked over old times, and Mrs. Hoity, and Sister Agnes, until, one by one, the same set began to drop in and the room was lighted. Then, for the first time, Mr. Almy observed an addition to the furniture. Lei had ordered a piano on trial ; her old one was wearing out at last; Chickering's grands were said to be so much better than hers. It was a noble instru- ment, and stood pretty well out in the room so as to have its finger-board well under the action of the gasolier. She had also bought a quantity of new music to play over for Melville, and it lay menacingly on the card-table. But she swept it away as soon as the gentlemen appeared, and, after exchanging compliments with them, began to try it over with the soft pedal down. She had kept her word, and found some other way to amuse herself, as she had promised. This was her masked battery. She touched the keys very lightly at first — just a note here and there — a Httle spirit of 250 Loretto. melody and then silence. She seemed disposed to respect the sanctity of their game ; she would doubtless go to bed soon. But two of the prin- cipal players were two of her oldest adorers ; they had petted her when she was a child, and made her sing and play for them as soon as she could strike an octave or turn a tune. They were two bachelor brothers, very fond of good living and good music — very fond of cards, too, subordinately. Lei remembered perfectly that Sam, the elder, had a weakness for '' God save the King." He considered " God save the King " the greatest mortal composition. He could whistle a light opera through after one hearing, but he stuck to '' God Save the King " for all that. After trifling with her new music an hour or more, she threw it aside and began to impro- vise. She began a very long way from the Eng- lish anthem, but Sam instantly pricked up his ears — he scented the melody afar off. He looked once or twice askant at his Brother Barnard. Now and then a dreamy suggestion of the strain came sweeping by in a swift, smothered minor, and Sam was all at sea, mistook two pairs for Loretio. 25 1 a full, and got well laughed at in the bargain ; but Barnard, although he controlled himself bet- ter, got nervous, too, and forgot to pass the knife and anti, much to the disgust of several ancient gentlemen who could not account for such ab- surd behavior. Presently, however, the full phrase was enunciated, and Lei carried the theme straight and simply through with her left hand. Then all was chaos again, with a vague purpose glimmering through it — with only a feeble, broken spiral of sunshine on the troubled waters. And then a grand let-there-be-light prelude, as she swept the scale with both hands, lashing the powerful instrument into orchestral fury, and looking herself like an inspired priestess of song. After much coughing and choking, after several suppressed indications of joining in the air, after manifold fatal discardings, and serious losses, Sam threw down his hand and burst in with the words, at the top of his voice. They tried to stop him, but it was no use ; he went through to the end. 2^2 Sentences, Phrases, and Figures. SENTENCES, PHRASES AND FIGURES. A reptile's life is poor vengeance for his sting. Dishonor must be lived down; we cannot die it out. When God deserts, let man be truer to himself. I HAVE chased These flying honors with such headlong speed, The shock of meeting them has stunned me. Heroes seem always mad to fools and cowards. War, on whose burnished wings insulted Peace Escape the ravishment of Tyranny. A hero's but the idol of a crowd : A husband worth the name — a household god. The panther crouches ere he smites his prey. A woman's smile transmutes Our sigh to transport and our tears to pearl. Her lips were arched in heaven and falsehood found no footing there. Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 253 Like two sweet springs they met and then flowed on together. To KNOW God only by reputation. To FLY at you Hke a bhnd bat. He might have said a great deal more and meant a great deal less. A FAVORABLE specimen of metallic aristocracy. He's so much better than he looks that I'm ashamed of his appearance. Light-hearted as she was, it did not require a microscope to detect the worm of grief lurking beneath the gaily tinted rind of merriment. A LIGHT manner may accompany a strong, true heart, just as exterior dignity may hide a weak one. Men may say De Soto failed ; they shall never say he faltered. If you war on woman, let your adversary be more than a girl. A LIGHT-HEARTED, flippant girl, with wit enough to amuse others, but without prudence enough to govern herself. 254 Sentences, Phrases and Figures. Let a man be his own first friend : he'll have the second one soon enough. There are sorrows in which we cling to friends for comfort ; but there are deeper ones, when our own accusing conscience inflames the wound, from which our friends, the witnesses of our weakness, are banished. A WARM fancy is often mistaken for a warm heart, because it has all the language of sorrow when feeling is dumb. The child that is dying seems of more value than all the rest. A sensitive nature, ever fearful of paining others, often introduces the subject it shrinks from in the bluntest way. Parental coldness blights the noblest child. A noble nature hves a double life, feeling an- other's rapture as well as its own. When two women meet in controversy, good- bye to a fair conclusion. Sentences, Phrases and Figures. 255 We are easily deluded into good nature, when what we know to be a failure is construed by others into success. A YOUNG lady after a ball is like a spring that has been stirfed with a stick: the skies are no longer reflected ; there is no inducement either to stop to gaze or to stoop to drink. Even the bright, gurgling laugh is but a muddy murmur. The prisoner released from his familiar cell trembles and droops in the daylight, and the existence for which he has pined is at first dreary and desolate. In moments of anguish we often think aloud. Sorrow, passion, death, were encountered by God in descending to man ; sorrow, passion, death, must be encountered by man in ascending to God. There is nothing so little valued by society as the pleasures of religion, whilst nothing is less prized by religion than the pleasures of society. So MANY acquaintances, without one friend ! 256 Sentences, Phrases and Figures. Dress makes many a fool pass current, and many a monster human. The world is never well pleased when called on to admire virtues it does not practice. A WEDDING is always one note, at least, above a funeral. C^SAR must have his Brutus, Charles the First, his Cromwell, and poets — their publishers. From the way in which innocence is seen to cleave to depravity, I am inclined to think there is a sneaking fondness for the devil in the best of us. Only by constant meditation do we compre- hend that life is but a preparation for death ; and unless this great truth is realized, where is the folly in living as if time were the main thing and eternity a trifle ? LB H 78