rM ^iScyi:^!^^^7^QZQ^'2^i^^^!j:i^S i LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, i ^ Chap. "H-S-R^-I^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA :^ ; V fr\y '-^ \ % A^ r^n ^ '£ 0' \\ Tkere axe ^"i-52jL TOeke above tliy "waters "peepiag, And the -T^zei -wa.Tre sighs lieaiTX to th.e store; Yet many a foara-Tsxeatk o'ex their roTigh. sides cTeepiag, Ha.-ve toixcied iwith "beauty- -wKstt -waa dart Tsefore . ^ Tlie'WallkUl a.t ^'aldeiL, Fizfd SS . Daiia& Corapaay, 381Broaiiwa-y, HewTbrkL. LAYS OF A LIFETIME RECORD OF ONE DEPARTED <^^ O suavis anima ! qualem te dicam bonam Antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliqioiaB! Phaed. iii. 1. §. NEW YORK: DANA AND COMPANY, 381 BROADWAY. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON AND COMPANY. 1857. -pi,^^''^ H U^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlio year 1S50. By Dana and Company, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Sontliern District of New York. BlLLlN AND Brother, Stfreoli/pers. Geo. Russell and Company, Printers. CONTENTS OUTLINED. THE LAMP STILL BURNING. I'AOE rUEFATOKY WoRDS, ............. 7 I. THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. Thk High Valley, its River and Cascade. The Dream that Brooded upon it. The Infant in the Aerie, ........ 12 School-Days, from a Journal of Flowers, ..... 21 Enigma, 29 11. KATY-UID AND KATY-DIDN'T. The Dream Lifted. Lo I a Village Incubated ! 31 Village Satires, 34 III. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. The perspective of the Soul within : — The Heart amid Home Scenes, . . 4S The Mother's Study, 50 To A Dying Infant, 53 The Mother's Prayer, 55 By-and-By, 58 The Thunder-Shower, 61 IV. " THE ROCK, THE FALL, THE WOODED-WALK, THE RIVER." The next Inner View: — Home and Heart Embowered, 65 The "Wallkill at Walden, 68 The Sunset, 71 Children in the Churchyard of St. , 77 CONTENTS. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. The Vista still further : — Irs Atmosphere of Dreams. Keality breaking warmly through, To a Faded Flower, ..... Written in an offering of Bryant's Poems, To Nina, "1 ONCE HAD Friends, a Thousand Friends," . On a Blank-Leaf of a Volume of Sermons, To , ON Accepting a Gift, .... The Twilight Hour, ..... To A Young Friend Shadow and Light. On the Death of \V. H., . On the Death of Dr. S. C, of Walden, On the Death of the Infant son of E. G. S., On the Death of W. M. W., . On the De.\th-Bed of , 79 87 89 91 93 94 95 96 98 100 103 105 107 109 VI. ECHOES OF FOOTSTEPS DEPARTING. The Golden Glory Bound- The Ending of the Vista: — ^The Overhanging Cloud. iNG IN the View, .... Sunday Evening, ...... Confirmation at Sr. . , .... The Christmas Green, . . . . . The Dream of M. F. G., . The Esquimau, ...... The Magdalen of Carlo Doloi, The Confirmation, ...... The Lenten Sabbath, Christmas Chant of the Wreath-gatherers, De.\to, Ill lis 120 123 125 127 130 134 137 141 145 vn. THE LAST OF ALL. The Parting at the Verge : — Eternity. Words over a Grave, 147 161 TO SOPHIA Why should .we mourn thee, Gifted one ! thy lyre Gave the sweet echoes of thy soul's warm lay : Strings, such as angels sweep, the golden wire That vibrates to a Seraph's touch of fire ; The Holy, Holy, Song, Immortal lips prolong ; These were thy high aspirings, and thy robe of clay Bound but thy spirit-wings, which longed to soar away THE LAMP STILL BURNING. Every lifetime has its substance and its shadow. Its substance is itself, breathing, moving, and meditating in the world : its shadow is all of it that the world remembers, and cherishes when it has gone. There seem to be, as it were, two existences given to each person : one, a life amid realities ; the other, a life amid mem- ories. In the first, he is a motion, a consciousness, and a delight to himself as well as to others ; in the second, he is a motion, stilled ; a nature, breathless ; a mirrored likeness only, fixed on the bright plates of other minds, — the unconscious object of interest and attraction to them alone. Thus shall Ave all linger after our lifetime. As we are estimated and regarded now, as our life is strong, marked, and earnest, as its circumstances combine to give it prominence ; in other words, as it is memorable, so shall we be remembered. The simple incident of our birth alone, is, ,of itself, a surety that we shall leave a shadow behind us. Then the tender affinities of nature, the inseverable ties of blood, press and centre upon us. We are assigned at once a position in the intimate mosaic of relation- ship ; and when in time, one by one, we drop out, the sense of 8 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. the liollow want lingers over the rest, till, at last, all have fallen away and given place to the beautiful connections of another gen- eration. This, if nothing else, is sure to commemorate us for a while ; but we all have, besides, more or less intrinsic power to perpetuate ourselves. This inward character can make the area of that shadow-lifetime almost boundless, and its length well nigh inter- minable. As it is strong, profound, impressive, and endearing, so will its memory be great, attractive, and complete. How powerfully some natui'es move and manifest themselves ! What a magnetism goes out from them, drawing around them heart after heart, and mind after mind, till they die amid a throng of votaries ! These are they that linger long after they are gone, but yet not forever. A lamp burns, not more from its flowing oil, than from its surrounding air. He who has impressed himself upon the hearts of his contemporaries only, will burn on, at fii'st brightly, but every year more dimly, as they " consume away," one after another, till, with the failing breath of the last of his age, he goes out into oblivion. How many a grand being, thus filled with inexhaustible oil, has so flamed awhile in the narrow chamber of its generation, and been too soon extinguished by the vacuum around it ! Unwritten minds cannot last forever. But they whose hearts have flowed forth into language, have not only an oil perennial, but an atmosphere as wide as the world. They have discovered the Rosicrucian secret ; for they have lit an ever-burning lamp. The intelligence that has sculptured into form its own inner life, has created for itself an imperishable personality, and one far nobler than the fading portraitures of memory and tradition. Mankind, in all ages, draw near to behold it. Their embrace is thrown around it. Their response to its expressive features warms them into life again ; its eyes brighten ; its mute lips speak ; the soul THE LAMP STILL BURNING. 9 of genius mantles the face ; the spirit of thoughts that can never die, and of feelings that shall be ever felt, glows once more into a vivid presence, with a beauty surpassing the original from which it sprung. What an enchantment is this, that can keep a nature warm and living among distant generations ' What a magic is in the pen I It is the wand that touches the censer of the heart with inextin- guishable fire. The grand old Temple of Time is full of these ever- swinging censers ; and the long archways of its ages are fragrant with their incense. I have before me now a lifetime in its Days of Shadow, a de- parted nature moulded into living words, a heart flaming with rich odors, a Lamp still Burning. Say, that it is now nearly a score of years since she went away ; yet here are her beautifiil lineaments, all radiant before me. What matters it, that her form lies indistinguishable in the vault of her kindred : she is present still ! I see her coming down through the night of those by-gone years ; coming, and gathering beauty, as the home-annals of her lifetime strew her way like flowers ; coming, and gathering brightness amid the loving voices that still utter her name ; coming, and charming away the shadows as she comes ; coming, bodied forth, a true, positive, authentic nature, in vesture wrought from the glistening threads she spun from her bosom to be the golden retreat of her genius; coming over her "household hills;'' her eyes still brilliant with imagery collected there ; her step still slow and dreamy, as she lingers before the by-gone castas of her mind ; her pensive presence, and her lyric movement rehearsing the former graces of her heart. I hasten to unlock the household gate, and reveal her to all who will greet her and love her. How may I help to make her real ? How, but by showing forth these home-scenes amid which she dwelt. Let her shadow-lif' 10 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. linger where her substance-life lived. The same incidents that surrounded and inspired her then, will now fill out and restore to the world her warm and distinct being. If I were to spread forth the minstrelsy of her soul, only as writ in the metred notes she left behind, their deepest meaning would remain unsung, without the lyre of circumstance on whose chords they were born. Well do I remember the fingers that swept those chords. Years ago, she appeared in the horizon of my childhood; and I can recollect looking up at her gracefi^il form, and catching the glance of her large, dark eye. She faded soon from my young day ; and yet, since then, around that memory a thousand memorials have gathered, and I see her shining, long before my time, in girlhood, fair, and bright, and loving ; then, as when I beheld her, in full womanhood, pensive, sensitive, impassioned, circled about and ener- gized by duty, receiving the fiery trials of the world, in her quiver- ing breast, yet still shining on, so sweetly, so religiously, apparently carolling away her sorrows, and, even in sequestered moments, turn- ing those harsh discords of the heart into the harmonies of verse. As she moves there with her noble form, her face almost trans- figured by the thoughts behind it ; her nature, so profound, so versatile, so earnest, so charming ; her career, touched often with romantic hues ; I feel tempted to dream of her as the beautiful personage of a romance. Indeed, were it in my power, I would eagerly seize the wide scope of a fiction as the most befitting sphere for her to move in before the world. Not that I would profane a single actual circumstance, by an alteration or an exaggeration : but I can picture her to myself, as assimilating most aptly with the air and movement of such a work ; kept modestly in shadow, only occasionally appearing, and then always to fascinate, while yet the whole plot and the chief attraction was centred in some purely ficti- tious character. Gladly, I say, would I seize such an opportunity, THE LAMP STILL BURNING. 11 if it were within mj reach, of introducing the actual scenes and occasions that inspired her verses, in order to flash them here and there across the progress of the stQry. I feel, that, even in the blaze of a dominant interest, she would not pale, and, moreover, that many things might be told in such a connection, Avhich would otherwise be Avithheld as too sacred. They could be, then, so min- gled with surrounding fable, as to baffle and tantalize all conjecture, as to what was real and what imaginary. In the absence of such a fellowship, I diffidently proceed to speak of her, alone ; but, as far as possible, still in shadow, shorn of much romantic incident, and severed from many associations that Avould have made her real and beautiful to those who will seek to know her. Sitting here, with time-stained papers scattered upon my table, with a many-voiced tradition whispering its memories, with the jewels of her mind lying clustered before me, embarrassed with difficulties of delicacy, and the paucity of available material, I can only try to interlace the modest tissues of her history, and adorn it Avith the embroidery woven by herself. Sweet Dreamer ! long gone to her slumber ! she is still here in her shadow-life, moving in the shining robes of her poesy ! Sweet Slumberer ! I see her, as if come from the shadow-couches of the other world, walking in her dreams on the cliiFs of the Wallkill, amid the music of its falling waters, Avalking on earth, and yet under the glories of heaven, waiting for her Lord, her lamp sfiJl burning. THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. This is the Age of Magic, when the great powers of nature are summoned, like the genii, from their secret habitations, and made to do the bidding of man ; when the merchant, disregarding time and space, like prince Houssain in the Arabian tale stepping upon his enchanted carpet, wings his enterprise with his wish, and trans- ports his fortunes unto the uttermost parts of the earth ; when another dreams of cities rising in the wilderness, and lo ! they have sprung up, rich with merchandise, and thronged with inhabitants, almost in a single night. It was but yesterday, that the world had never seen all this ; but, since then, there has been a leap as of a thousand years. We are prone to look curiously into those days, not of old, but of a scarcely extinct generation, as if they belonged to a primi- tive condition of the race. And yet we appreciate them too. Our gaze lingers over them with a kind of filial sentiment. We feel interested in those antique schemes of wealth, and are astonished, often, at their vastness and success. But, although really close by, they are severed from us so completely by their obsolete forms and usages, that they seem already to be melting into the past ; even THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 13 now appearing in picturesque aspects, and with the haze of a sort of romance drooping around them. It is such an enterprise, chiefly remarkable because conceived in the early years of the present century, Avhose picturesque and ro- mantic incidents gather around the brief and fragmentary story I have to tell. Its projector was a merchant of energy, spirit, and great business talents, engaged in a pi'osperous trade with the Indies. A man of high and punctilious honor in all his dealings, he yet contrived to have a free, liberal, and generous mode of doing every thing. A disposition to enlarge and idealize whatever he undertook, characterized him throughout. He could not endure a small or con- tracted idea. Indeed, the only way by which he seemed to recon- cile his peculiarly broad, generalizing, and imaginative intellect, to a mercantile life, was by habitually investing it with such relations and associations, as would have made it engaging to any one of a semi-poetic-, semi-philosophic turn of mind. He was the very one to originate a brave and an advanced thought, and the very one to execute it. This, to which I allude, changed the whole tenor of his life, leading him gladly out of the maze and snarl of city traffic. He was spending a summer among the Highlands of the Hudson. One day, he and his wife were induced to prolong their usual drive, in order to visit a region back in the country, of whose beautiful scenery they had frequently heard. The road led them into a high valley, nearly a thousand feet above the Hudson, through which flowed a young and rapid river, hastening northward to its outlet many miles away. From this point, they could see the long, rolling forms of mountains recumbent against the horizon, looming, all around them, through the blue-tinted spaces of the atmosphere, and shutting them in on every side as with huge purple walls. The river, at their feet, had wandered from its unfailing springs in a neighboring state. 14 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. streaming broadly through meadow and valley, when here it ap- proached the edge of a rocky height, and plunged downward into a gorge, washing away earth and stones in its thundering descent, and dashing furiously between its severed cliffs ; but, before it wound out of sight, subsiding into the same quiet and rippling current it was before. The roar of these falls filled the air. The hills and vales that sloped for miles down hither, from the east and west, were crowned with thick forests, and interspaced with areas of the gi'eenest vege- tation. Save here and there the smoke of a farmhouse in the dis- tance, the vast region seemed well nigh uninhabited ; and, near by, there was no sign of human presence, but a mill nestling at the very foot of the falls, shaking in its thunders, and, further down the stream, on the edge of one of its steep declivities, a cottage, almost buried in a grove of locusts. It may be imagined, how keenly the merchant and his wife en- joyed this scene, as it burst upon them. But, the mind that had been so long sharpened and disciplined by the exigencies of commerce, till every instinct was alert for a business opportunity, could not avoid its intuitions here. Whilst she in ecstasy pointed out the diversified loveliness of the landscape before her, he was gazing beyond, at what in the course of time Avould be forthcom- mg to change it. This solitude would be thronged with a busy population. Although these wild beauties might be dimmed and marred, yet the rude utilities of the day would inevitably intrude upon them ; for, no such power as was concentred in that un- tamed waterfall, could long remain unknown and unenslaved. The free waters bounding so jubilantly down those shelving rocks, would be turned aside into sluo-ffish canals, and made to fall on revolvino; wheels. Many- windowed factories would be abutted against the abrupt sides of the winding river ; and the green slopes above, be inter- THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 15 sectecl by graded streets, and covered with the dwellings of a thriv- ing communitj. Strange must it have been to the simpler instincts of the wife, to hear such a prophecy ; but no sooner was it uttered^ than its ful- filment seemed as sure as that .thoae floods resounded. It was a dream, but of one accustomed to dream of what might be. The idea from that moment filled his soul. He resolved to bear out his own prediction, and immediately himself to undertake what, if al- lowed to remain, would certainly be attempted by some one else. No sooner had he made up his mind, than he set about it. The moment he was able to do so, he closed his flourishing business in the city, and removed thither. He purchased extensive tracts on both sides of the river, making the falls the centre of the estate, as it was to be the vitalizing nucleus of the enterprise ; and, with every energy and resource he could command, he entered upon his task. Since then, he has passed away ; and I have around me the vari- ous documents which tell the history of the succeeding years, and am therefore familiar with the rare motives that led him to cling to his purpose, as long as life lasted. In a commercial point of view, it promised him a flood of wealth, as perennial as the fiills. As an enterprise, it was attended with hazard and difficulty enough to stimulate his courageous and persistent spirit ; as a conception, it reached fui'ther than mere riches or excitement, into never-ending aspects and incidents, most engaging to his imagination, and kindling to his heart. In the papers before me, I find all the evidences of his delight in it, as something to construct and adorn. Maps, showing streets liberally laid out, and broad parcels of land appropriated to purposes that could in no way have been turned to gain ; sketches of churches and glebes ; plans for schools, and innumerable other improvements ; all lying together, the relics of the life-long dream of a lofty and generous mind. 16 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. So he went there to live, while yet the waterfall flowed in un- trammelled beauty, while the foliaged river-banks remained in the i-ugged shapes into which the waters had worn them, while the Avooded hills and verdant valleys la}- still in their native Avildness. His lovely and brilliant wife also left her refined circle, to follow him. He fitted up the cottage among the locusts for a dwelling ; and she tm-ned it into a home. Of her I would draw no fiincy pictm-e, but tell Avhat was told to me. She was attractive beyond the most of her sex. In person, tall and graceful, she walked the queen. A kind of enchantment seemed to surround her footsteps ; and the wit and witchery of her tongue had made her the delight of many a social horn-. And now, in the wintry days (') of her husband's weariness and anxiety, the fii-e of that cottage hearth- stone was not more warm and bright than she ; and those summer hills, cheerful as was their bloom, did not equal the beauty she threw over his household, in its seasons of promise and prosperity. Such were the parents of Sophia ; and such was the environ- ment they had put aroimd her. She was one of their four fair daughters ; and of them all displayed the most their prominent characteristics, and was most susceptible to the natural influences amid which they had placed her. Some natures stand alone from the very first, apparently underived; but hers was curiously refer- able to the two antecedent natures from which she sprang. They seemed to reappear in her. Her soul was a rich monogram : their two characters abbreviated and interwoven into one; a throbbing, inventive brain, and a glowing heart, intricately and rarely blended into the single, mystic idiosyncrasy, genius. To me it appears a most beautiful incident, that a poetess should be thus spiritually born. In the spectacle of her young being, it was marvellous to see the two natures convergent and flowiug; to- gether. The play of their features mingled expressively in her THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 17 countenance. Tlie imagination and practical ability of her. ftither came combined with the flashing wit and impassioned heart of her mother; and with the heritage of force, energy, and spirit derived from one, she received the fine form, and the lair, pensive lineaments of the other. But these peculiar auspices did not end here. As her soul was hereditary, so it was apposite to the scenes of her in- fancy. The very bias of mind and sentiment that had been paren- tally imparted to her, assimilated at once to the circumstances that had been the parental taste and choice; The same instincts that pervaded her being had, as it were, built her a nest, high up among the hills, where she was fii^st to flutter her pinions, and warble her earliest notes. These poetic situations of her birth and childhood, must be my apology for much that I have taken pains to relate. All the as- pects of her lifetime, and all its inspirations, were so clearly attrib- utable to her parents, and to the surroundings they had built for her, that she would have lost much of the finer interest that invests her, unless they had thus been mentioned. Indeed, it seemed to be a profane indiiFerence not to do so. I could not look back into the atmosphere of those dim years, and see the infant brood nestling within the precincts of so much beauty, and amid the foliage of so much love, without seeing also the parent natures hovering near, and feeling the suggestion of their presence, that it was they who had gathered those little ones there, and who were nurturing the first motions of their lives. The child thus prefigured as well as born, herself, in miniature, foreshadowed the woman. Many Avill remember the little fairy thing, with her long, curling hair, and beaming eyes, and glowing face, as she was wont to bound over the dew-wet lawn, frolicsome as the doe, her pet and playmate. And yet this was but the outward jihase of a character unusually deep and peculiar for one so 18 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. young. She was often seen in quiet, pensive reverie, and even in playful moments, giving evidence of an intensely affectionate nature ; clinging to those she loved, yearning incessantly for their sym- pathy, and, more than once, when self-banished by some childish trouble, taking refuge before her reflection in the mirror, that "some one might be weeping with her." Behind all this again, lay the rich energy of a quick, impressible, and thoughtful intellect, which, being yet in its babyhood, unconsciously thirsted for and drank in the sentiment of things around her. A plantling, set thus amid such fertilizing scenes, she put forth the tender shoots of an unusual being. Long before it was sus- pected, her soul was covered with the buds of poesy ; each touched with the faint hues of her dawning fancy, and redolent with infant fragrance, but its little petals yet tightly closed. The other day, I found a few of these that, in the waimth of her vernal heart, had burst prematurely into bloom, and which had been eagerly preserved because of the promise that was in them of unfolding excellence. In searching among the papers of one now sometime departed, (the brother of her mother,) but well known in by-gone days of the political world, whose elegant culture and literary taste had been thrown around her girlhood, I found here and there, mingled with state documents, essays, and the correspondence of some of our nation's greatest men, letter after letter of hers, dated during her early years. It struck me as a most touching instance of amiable feeling, when I found these girlish epistles thus as carefully put away as papers that concerned the vital affairs of a long and active life. But I was still more touched, when I came at last to four or five of her first effusions, dated some time before the rest, as far back as her tenth year. Here they were, copied together on a sheet all worn and yellow with age. The trembling, uncertain child-hand, the little errors and erasures, the anxious carefulness of the rounded THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 19 letters, with the few words of infant apology underneath, give an interest and authenticity to them which I cannot reproduce in print. Of one of them I have heard this family tradition: "Her gover- ness had given her little circle a question in arithmetic. Sophia. was so absorbed, as not to notice, that the slates were being collected, when hers was suddenly taken from the hand of the blushing little culprit. The surprise of her teacher equalled her own mortifica- tion, at finding not arithmetical numbers, but those of a different kind !" They personify the rose and the violet ; and expostulate with the latter for not bearing herself so proudly as the former ; and display that passionate love of flowers, and perception of an almost human language and analogy in natural objects, afterward so noticeable in her. I feel tempted to present one of the smallest in the tiny cluster, as it gives a curious insight into a baby imagination. It was suggested by what was the greatest event of her child-life. Another sister had made its appearance, — the youngest in the fair quartette. What an intense interest she took in the little stranger! There was no limit to her admiration and delight. Whether asleep or awake, out came the baby for exhibition : of her excitement on its account, there was no end night nor day. It is a common thing in a house- hold, to see one infant toddling about under the burden of another ; and we are led to wonder what the nature of the child's sentiment is. If any are still solicitous on this point, I can now gratify them by appending the few lines, in which Sophia's irrepressible impulse to record her emotions in words and imagery, has brought the mys- tery to light. Every verse, with all its crudity, reveals a curious phase of mind, especially the amusing, moralizing strain, and pre- ceptive dignity of the last two : 20 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. " O, sweetest babe of heavenly bliss ! Thou art thy parents' future joy ; And thy fond sister's anxious wish Doth many a thought employ. •' Whilst kneeling at thy cradle, dear, My heart is always fill'd with thee, And list'ning to thy sweet complaints, Whilst thou art prattling on my knee. " Thou art, my dear, on life's wide stream, With many disappointments there; For life is nothing but a dream. And only an illusive snare. '' Seek to obtain fair virtue's cause. As on that stream you rise in love. Till Heav'n shall call thee to his laws To dwell in ecstasy above." The child developed into girlhood ; and here comes a school- episode in the city. I find these half-dozen years illuminated by her correspondence with him who so aflfectionately treasured up her childish verses. These letters are full of earnest feelings and grave aspirations, and even studies, that* scarcely any one would have sus- pected to exist in the bright, wild, wajAvard, lovely creature, as her companions only deemed her. The series is very incomplete ; but "I see allusions, now and then, to poems that had been enclosed, and trains of reflection pursued from letter to letter, where many connect- ing parts are missing. Still I can perceive, that it is a beautifiil spirit which unfolds itself in these worn, dimmed pages ; and, as T THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 21 read them, I am astonished at hearing, from other sources, accounts of a mischief-loving girl, always in pursuit of fun, sparkling Avith amusing traits, ever late at school and utterly defiant of its routine ; yet changing the frowns of her teacher into smiles, with her winning ways, and getting into favor in one quarter, without losing her popu- larity in another. She has herself given an entertaining sketch of one of these j^ranks, which, though written long after it took place, I may as well introduce here. SCHOOL DAYS. FROM A JOURNAL OF FLOWERS. " There are some faded rose-leaves on the first page of my journal, so much changed from their original beauty, that it would puzzle the herbalist to arrange the petals, or even to dignify them by name. Their bright color has long since departed, and the odorous spirit has vanished from its beautiful resting-place. I have used them, as characters to italicize a line in the dull history of a school-girl's hours ; and they are such faithful chroniclers, that if I were better read in the mysteries of the Pythagorean philos- ophy, and its ideal world, I would crave for them the same indul- gence that the believer in the sublime theory of the metempsy- chosis has awarded to souls. Flowers are amono; the brio;ht things of Paradise ; and why may not the fi-agrant spirit of these leaves, in its transmigratory state, be yet wandering over the rich gardens of ' the Fountain of Roses,' or sparklmg in the drop of ottar which the bright- eyed Persian consigns to the Haidees of her golden Sachnet ? '"There is some rust about every one at the beginning.' Mack- enzie has given it to his Man of Feeling ; and if we understand the 22 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. sentiment, it is that yielding sensibility whicli corrodes and darkens under the ordinary influences of life ; which clings to us in youth, but which a feAv hard rubs with fortune is known to dissipate. I well remember, when the gloomy oxyd first stole over my sensi- bilities, fi-om a little cloud in the atmosphere of feeling that shadowed anticipation for a moment. I was a school-girl, and, as such, still occupied that obscure unregarded nook of life, which attracts but little attention, and from which we are pennitted the glorious privilege of the poet, to view society in the distance ; 'to peep at such a world,' and to invest it with all the pageantry of imagination. I had not climbed the rocky ' Hill of Science :' yet I stood quite high enough in my own good opinion. Friendship, sincerity, lasting attachments, and all the diversified scenery of the affections, were spread like a universe around me ; and though, it is true, in some of my friendly fields, thorns were already planted, and some of my ' eternal' attach- ments had already proclaimed their evanescence, yet the love I bore to my pen and paper hung, like an unclouded firmament, over a rough and treacherous world. I never shone there a star ; and my flashes were as harmless and unnoticed as those of a mid- summer's night ; looked upon for an instant, and as instantly for- gotten. ! how often have I wandered from my playmates, during the hour of intermission, to some lonely corner of our play- grounds, where, with my pencil and the leaf of some neglected writing-book, I have poured my whole soul, as I thought, on its blue-ruled page ; unmindful, while wandering through the long and sober avenue, that the bell had rung, and all was order and quiet again in our school-room, an 1 I a mere adjective belonging to school-books and my instructor. " Yet in spite of all the abstractions and mischances it drew around me, it once redeemed me from the anathema of stupidity. Few can imagine the utter scorn with which that 'mingled yarn of THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. ^3 good and evil,' a school-class, regards the hapless individual em- phasized a dunce. I had always a strong antipathy to the name. Active faults have some redeeming colors ; but the neutral tint of stupidity even now appalls me. I remember the day well ; and a better day could not have been chosen to cloud one's hopes, and give the heart a little of that rust with which I commenced this chap- ter ; capricious and showery ; half sunshine and half gloom ; just such a day as will frolic with the nerves of the hypochondriac, and hang them, like Shakespeare's Sailor-boy, ' on the slippery clouds,' or toss them in a gale to 'teter' on a sunbeam. It was such a day, when I had gathered all the paraphernalia of rhetoric, belles lettres, etc., that crowd the requisitions of a boarding-school pro- spectus. I closed the front door, and went 'unwillingly to school.' ! how presentiment flitted over my bosom with the clouds above me ! A mist hovered over nature, and wrapped me in its shroud. It seemed as if a universal sympathy bound me, for an instant, to all creation ; yet envy clung to the assimilation, like a worm to a rose-leaf; for every thing seemed happier than I. The little mil- liner girls passed me : they were free, and I envied them, with their band-boxes on their arms, and their cares all bound up in their ribbons. Trouble seemed to have left them, and to have run to me like a pet kitten. And I saw a SAveep perched like a blackbird on the chimney-top, and I even envied him. And why not? He had risen by hook and by crook ; but then he had reached the height of his ambition, and could laugh at the trammels that at first impeded his progress. "But I had reached my school. The long rows of bonnets and shawls that were slumbering on their pegs, and the perfect quietude that reigned among them, convinced me, that it was long past the hour that tolled the death of freedom. Every thing looked reproach- ful. The dark green wall frowned, the bonnets pouted, and the very 24 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. knob of the door turned snappingly, as I entered. While making my congee, the buzz of a hundred voices rushed upon me : French rigmarole and orthography floated through the atmosphere, or flut- tered over the limhs of erudition, like so many wounded songsters. Large benches painted green, that ominous color, were ranged round the room ; and many a languid, living thought rested inert and un- employed on its mathematical line. In one corner, tall, gaunt, and toothless, sat the vicegerent, a second officer in our republic. 0, what ' a mighty little mind,' as they say in Richmond, was hers ! Its highest aspirations were bounded by a button-hole, and all she knew of ambition, nestled in a work-basket. She always occupied one corner in our school-room ; and her chair seemed to have be- longed to it. When I left her presence in the afternoon, and found her again in the same place in the morning, in the same costume, and with the same unaltered physiognomy, I used to wonder if she had been there ever since I left the room. Her favorites were gen- erally her carrier pigeons. But I, alas ! no darling, was never sent to the sanctum of her bed-room for her spectacles, nor had the envious distinction of adjusting her cushion. Sometimes, when en- tering the room with a most peculiar shuffle, (poor soul ! it was her own,) I have been stigmatized as the author of all the mischief that agitated our commonwealth. It was I who turned the blinds so often, to admit the air, and acquired so rapidly a movement she had taught my compeers, in an English quadrille, that it ever after aiFected my retreating footsteps. Although this reckless mirth made me ene- mies, there were a few laughter-loving spirits that clung closer to me, and liked me better for these very reproaches. " But, on this eventful morning, neither her prejudices nor her predilections disturbed or entered once into my speculations for the day. My anxieties were alone dependent on the master-spirit, the genius of our little world ; and now, even, from the distance of years, THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 25 would I waft a blessing on that gentle one, whose kindness fell alike on the understanding and the heart ; who, bj the influence of ex- ample, and the discipline of herself, trained each heart in ' the way it should go,' without any harsher appeal than to its own reason and affection. She was standing, when I entered, in the recess of a folding door, and my class, like the twelve signs of the zo- diac, were ranged around her. But the sign was in Libra, and the scales were poised, when I entered to be weighed and found wanting. A new theory had been started. When will theorists let the world alone ? It was urged on Mrs. , and she adopted it experimentally. Some judicious parent had suggested it, and begged the trial. Violent exercise of the memory, it was maintained, would increase its power. This might apply, where correspondent strength of mind required great exertion to develop a weight of intellect, that . called for a mighty grasp ; but as such is not the every day character of the human mind, the rule, of course, can only apply partially. A pigmy, in mind or body, can never be stretched beyond its altitude. Mrs. turned to me, in her affectionate manner : ' I will ask you a number of questions, my dear girl ; and without waiting a reply to each, I will require an answer to all, when I have finished, in the same order in which they were asked. Make the effort ; if you succeed, I shall be gratified, and you Avill be amply compensated by the improvement of your memory : ' By what names are the secular kings of Hindostan known ? To whom do the Hindoos render homage? Where are the purest pearls found? Where the richest diamonds? And what curiosity do the Tartars boast of?' I was overwhelmed. All the questions I could have answered, singly ; but to remember the question to fit the answer, — and well I knew it must appear in no homespun dress, — required a mind like 26 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Napoleon's. The girls looked to me with an appealing expression. They had in vain essayed it. Mrs. fixed her dark eye on me, but I was silent. Again were the queries repeated, but all in vain. I could have answered the first and the last ; but the others were skipping round my mind, fi^rgetting their places, like so many city belles in a contra dance. Again other questions were put, with like numerical disappointment ; and now I refused even the effort, and, dispirited and offended, we sought our seats. My place in our class had often vacillated, and I in its opinion perhaps as often ; but if I had ever queened it, my transit fi-om a throne to a very common place in their heraldry, was as sudden as any despot's on record. One of the sweetest girls in the whole world, — the only one I could see above me in the class, and yet feel reconciled, — was deputed to ask the text for our next day's composition. It was asked and answered : ' What is the use of acquiring lessons, if you do not understand them?' No kind good-bye from Mrs. ; and, sad and spiritless, we returned to our homes. " The old proser may talk of school-day happiness, and the few anxieties that hover over that green spot of existence. He has been so long a wanderer over the rough paths of life, tossed by its vicissi- tudes, and bufieted by its sorrows, that he has forgotten the sensi- tiveness of his earlier nature. It is not that pilgrim grief that walks unsandalled over the burning desert of affliction ; but childhood, with its shoes off, will show less philosophy, and feel more acutely the pebbles of its play-ground. "Was it strange, then, that I passed a sleepless night, or strange that I penned, the next morning at day- light, the following commentary on her text ? I think the oft-quoted line of Pope must have had some influence with my muse, as I per- ceive she has introduced her remonstrance with a similar commence- ment. Perhaps I was thinking, that * twigs ' should not be crushed by superabundant weight, no matter how the ' tree ' is inclined. THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 27 " 'Tis education polishes the mind, And intellect's rude ore is thus refin'd ; Ere gems are found, their sepulchre is riv'n, And mind is delv'd, ere thought can flash to heav'n. If it be sweet, through science' path to stray. To gather fragrance for life's wintry day, Then why enclose with thorns each hallow'd flow'r, And grasping blossoms, bid us feel their pow'r ? O, who would win a wreath so dearly bought. And wound the spirit for a brighter thought 1 Our wearied nature suppliant would ask Thy kindly aid, to smooth our thorny task. And beg of reason but this little boon, Ask each one question, let each answer one ; The brain tumultuous, in confusion toss'd. Thought leaves the helm, and Eeason's self is lost ; And Mem'ry flutters o'er the question-wave, And mourns the wreck she strove in vain to save. " Can we Golconda's diamond mines explore ? Then search for pearls near India's smiling shore? Then fancied homage to a Llama pay 1 Kneel to a Boodh, or tremble 'neath 'Transfaf Or view the Bootern hills, with verdure dress'd ? Compare them with chill Thibet's snowy vest ? See Nature's table spread stupendous round. As if for giants rear'd, on Tartar ground ? Thought travels fast, but education's loom Must weave its vesture, ere it finds a doom ; Let Mem'ry bring again thy youthful days. When application gain'd its meed of praise ; When no entangling question stamp'd thee dunce, Nor brain nor tongue could answer ten at once ; 28 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And recollection will restore the smile, That cheers the languor of our mental toil. When that is hidden, clouds obscure our sky, And trembling show'rs are seen in ev'ry eye : The brightest star within our little sphere. This morning veil'd its brilliance in a tear ; O, then, in reason grant this little boon ; Ask each one question, — let each answer one! ••' Homer won for himself a brilliant wreath, and leffc his poetry in the hearts of his hearers. For years, it had no other resting-place ; and all we enjoy of it was gathered from the bosoms of those who cherished it. Mine perished in a day ; but I, too, had my reward ; the renewal of our school liberties, and a kiss that was worth all the Olympic wreaths that ever were bestowed." The foregoing incident took place when she was only fourteen ; and, I need not add, occurred strictly as she relates it. The only alteration I have made in the lines, is in withholding the names of several of her classmates. Perhaps it may add to its interest, if I append the following, received from Mrs in reply : " Must I regard these lines as thine, And thou a vot'ry of the tuneful Nine ? Or, hast thou borrow'd what thou'st sent to me ? If so, such pilf ring must not, must not, be. But if thou'rt warm'd with sweet poetic fire. And thy young hand aspires to strike the lyre. O touch but seldom, 'tis enchanted ground. On which we tread while music wakes around.'' THE AERIE IN THE HILLS. 29 ENIGMA. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN. To joy I'm a stranger, to sorrow unknown, Though I mingle in mil'th, yet mis'ry's my home ; In happiness dwell, am forever in pain. And never in tears, though I ne'er cease to complain ; Affection may claim me her vot'ry from birth, And friendship adopt me, though not of this earth ; I am foster'd by malice and nurtur'd by pride. And to virtue and villainy ever allied; Yet a thought that was grov'lling I never could trace, Nor dream of a deed that was dastard or base ; I am part of the sigh that breathes woe or breathes love. And part of the spirit that wafts it above ; I dwell with the maniac, in his griefs bear a part, And am wreath'd with the smiles that encircle his heart. Where wit is I am, and without me 'tis naught, 'Twould signify nothing, no, nothing of thought; In spleen never was, in retort find no charm. Though in satire I'am harsh, yet am not known to harm ; In a passion each day I may have been seen. Yet twice in a passion I never have been : An aerial being, on the winds I am tost, In fire I exist, but in water am lost : Though my dark form is wreath'd in the shadows of night. I spring with the morning and sunshine to light ; 30 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Or, chaining the whirlwind as though it were mirth, I flash in the lightning and vanish from earth; To the world I'm a stranger, though always in view, And with all minds conversant, though never with you ; Celestial by night, yet to heaven unknown, Terrestrial by birth, though the earth's not my home, A prey to ambition, a stranger to fame, Ask the egotist quickly, he best knows my name. II. KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN'T. Meantime the dream had- become real. A thriving, busy little town had displaced the wilder beauties of the vale, and tamed the country round. The spinning-wheels were no longer seen turning before the doors of the rude farm-houses in the neigh- borhood, but thousands of spindles now whirled dizzily, in tall factories built against the steep declivities of the river. Under the auspices of an incorporated company, every thing teemed with promise and prosperity. As predicted, the free waterfall had been confined, and enslaved. From the cedar-crowned heights that overhung it on one side, might be seen a canal, hewn out of the opposite rocky cliff, carrying a sluggish stream high up in the air along its brow, m strange contrast to the sparklmg rapids that still foamed and eddied in the gorge beneath. Back of this, groups of stores and dwellings covered the broad, irreg- ular slope, which stretched from the heights about the Falls downward to the meadow banks below. Never was village more beautiful, nor more picturesque. The land lay so peculiarly, that, pJthough thick with foliage, not a house nor church-spire was hid- 32 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. den ; nor could one be built, without its wliite walls, shimng con- spicuously tlirough the green, wherever the spectator might stand. In the back-ground of these again, on the eminences that over- looked the high valley, and bounding in the scene, were the seats of the gentlemen capitalists who had come to reside there. The whole place shook with enterprise. The spirit of the Falls appeared to have entered the people, and the missing reverberations of their now subdued roar, seemed to have returned in the music of the pealing bells that rung the hours of labor, and in the machinery clattering through the live-long day. There were other signs of life. From this point, three physi- cians set out daily, in their gigs, to desolate the country round I And here also, "two infant lawyers and an old one," promoted a legal and equivocal harmony, with a success satisfactory to their ideas of a livelihood. Of course the village was ever growl- ing at the changes in the political atmosphere, for its very life- blood was a water-power, and all its stamina lay in a tariff. Singular enough, the "Doctor's Office," on whose shelves stood the whole pharmacopoeia in phials, was the constant resort of those who would save the "body politic." Here, around the fount where trickled the waters of health, and where the everlasting spray of gossip flew about, the ^-illage magnates met daily in noisy conclave, and squeezed all the questions before Congress into that tiny apartment, as easily, as the doctor rolled all the ingi-edients of a blue mass into a single pill. But there was an Upper House, where these questions received a more formal consideration. A society met weekly in the ball- room of the Hotel ; and there these same big-sounding tongues softened their uproar, and straitened their arguments into the solemn oratory of debate. The great whirlpool of public affairs, found this little corner on its outer edge, and eddied quite as im- KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 33- portantly hei'e, as it boiled about in wider circuits. Last of all, sure token of prosperity, — crest on the wave of success, — was a newspaper ! " The Republican Banner," flung its folds to the breeze. Its editor, " Crito," as he styled himself, bore it bravely and prosily in all seasons ; in time of peace, marshalling under it the awkward squad of "local items," and in time of war, wav- ing it vigorously over the fierce battles at the polls. These were blooming days ; and Sophia bloomed into woman- hood with them. I hardly know how to picture her now. As she enters the world, her connections and associations multiply, and her expanding nature becomes so blended with them, that I can scarcely describe her, without describing some one else. But though thus obliged to remove many a light which shines upon her, and to keep her more in shadow than I wish, yet I may give such an outline as any imagination can easily fill. A few years before this, she lost her mother, and grew up with- out the moulding influence of that gifted spirit. Yet every day she seemed to inherit and display her, as if she was to reign in her stead. Whether she moved in the brilliant circles of the city, or in the scenes of her country home, the same loveliness, the same gracefulness, re-appeared ; she flashed also in quick repartee, and startled while she charmed all around her with unexpected sallies, and improvisations. Such was her air and look in society, as " the gay creature of its element." From the numerous instances furnished me of this sparkling, outside phase of her character, I select the following village episode, in which she figured, as something that may bring her very interestingly before the fancy of many. It happened, one summer, that the members of the Debating Society ventured to leave the exciting field of politics, and to array before their assembled wisdom the delicate question : " Whether 3 3-i LAYS OF A LIFETIME. woman can boast equal mental power with man?" As might have been expected, such a theme raised a great excitement among the fair ones in the region round about ; and the debating hall was, on this occasion, filled with a rustling and threatening audience. " The Squire," the leading lawyer of the place, strenuously advo- cated the negative of the question. He was the literary Goliah, and all these Philistines looked up to him. The "Banner" was imder the patronage of his pen, and his voice was lifted up, as of a champion, in all affairs of state. After him, on the same side of course, followed his armor-bearer, chiefly noted for his devoted imitation of the manner and speeches of Patrick Henry. They all little thought what was to befall them ; that, with a mere pebble of satire, a woman's "mental power" was going to rout the whole of them, and make them game for the fowls of the air. Crito received an extraordinary communication for his paper. A Katy-did had become cognizant of how matters were going on ; and, after chirping satirically, first over political things in general, and then over the village, finally took up its station among the astonished members of the Debating Club. [ hi tjit ErphlirnE IBnnntr. ] Mr. Editor ; Pliny says, " There are insect vexations, which sting us and fly away," and if you catch me buzzing around the columns of youi- paper, Crito ! do not brush me aside, even if "in the ignorance of my backwood spirit," I chii'p too loudly. Crush me not with a paragraph, nor imprison me forever in a criticism. You are the only lion I fear in the mental desert ; and, from my shady KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 35 covert, let me remind you of the Chinese fable. A traveller pass- ing through a field was so annoyed by the incessant hum of grass- hoppers, that he alighted from his horse, to extirpate every one, without reflecting, that, if left to themselves, they would all perish in a day. 'Tis said, that insects have judicial rules Like man, "a long eventful history," They have their plebeian and patrician schools, And human dread of aristocracy ; Their nation's theory is equal right, — Why the)i do beetles and mosquitoes fight? 'Tis said the bee-hive has its potentate, And the wax-palace scarcely bounds its pride; Its drones are not made ministers of state, Yet it has great absurdities, — beside A nation's depot for their treasured store, — Alas ! for man the " monster " to devour. The spider has its manuflicturing village, Where webs are woven of more kinds than one, Its " Reading-room " for literary pillage, And " Doctor's office," where long yarns are spun, Beside a tottering Justice, though a bold one, Two sweet infant lawyers and an old one. And politics, among this tiny race, Rous'd all the elements of party strife ; And there was one, a squire, who lost his place, And crush'd forever his politic life, — ^ LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Becaase hs rtraetarr kad a dqr femadatkn. And lie a thnoo^i-somg antHusscn. T^ still amoi^ the Ctexarv vefa. Witk ~ just ewH^ of leaznii^ to misqpote.^ He mored. a vmlkn^ tiboii^l,— at kaet 'twas said. He pofied and critiased. and ^S^etdies" wrote; And fatai^d old pvose, duagk Brran ve^fst BBtcnded Sudi li!Kex"-wi>o45eT diooM by Mm W raienied. And those of vhcnni I write;, like all sodecr. W«e farm'd ef good and eriL fool and sige ; Some of no fimev and some of notnrietr; Some who could read, and some ne'er tnnf d a page And yet they had a fiterary qnonmL A Xewspi^ier; a Library, and Foxum! Thoe was a qn^tion once widdi they debated^ Widi "^pow^ of i^am^iL and ma^ of the iniz>a. Until Aeir Tcnr hncins were exeavated. And hot a m^hly chasm left bekond; The ieaoM qoestian was. '^ If woman can. Boast eqoal iw*w*«l povo' wttk that of AM one arcee ^ ea ch pet Aoo^ of iis bran. He hn^d £ke a ^poiTd cUld, because las own. AM nwde ibo bow. and scnpe. and ijni a i- WNna, And ^ov how vexy learned he had grown; Stntt^iii^ "^ God Aim m Bmtmmr wi& wry fMses,^ And mnrdriiig gestaire and Ae dnee swieet graces. rn ^K^ a spedmen of granite I k wi ghl, Hot left its movntaiB-bvow, and tnrnMfd down KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 37 Its human precipice, while list'ners caught Its -wordy thunder, — 'tis not very long, — ril here indite it, — "/or to" crush forever High-minded woman in each learn'd endeavor. ■ Man is the towering oak, around whose head The glo-vving light of intellect may shine ; Woman, the clinging tendril, seeks its shade, Fett'ring its branches like a poison vine ; Man's wit's the leaf, — woman's but the flower, Man's has its season, — woman's but the hour." Then Patrick Henry's parody arose, And echoed all his patron said before ; His wave of emphasis unequal flows, Now a faint murmur, — then a mighty roar ; And then like summer streams, as softly stealing As though it had not laved a single feeling. But yet go on, there's fame within thy reach, Give the mind's music but a loftier tone ; O, sink the pupil, and henceforward teach, Lean less on other minds, and trust your own, Then hope, like Henry's, in debate to wear As green a wreath as that which binds his hair. O Cicero ! fling thy mighty mantle here. And hide within its folds this simple truth,- 'Twas study bade the gems of thought appear. And perseverance delv'd the mind in youth ; 38 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Exil'd by talent, till the palm was won, I think I'm right, — if not see "Middleton," KATY-DID. The curiosity to know who was the author of this, was un- bounded. The ire of some woman evidently was fully roused ; and, as it turned out, not only the poor debaters were made to smart, but the whole neighborhood had to pay. Having once be- gun, Katy-did would not be still. From behind her "leafy cov- ert," she was heard, for weeks, chirping about their ears, going repeatedly round the village, and several times making a foray over the county, spreading astonishment and dismay wherever she went. No one was spared. Character after character was hit off. All the current gossip flowed afresh, and old jokes, long gone to their tombs, started into more pungent life than before, to scare their victims over again. I have copied the above from a faded roll of newspaper scraps, in which only a few of the series have been preserved ; but even these are so full of local and personal allusions, as to require too much explanation before they could be quoted entire. Writ- ten off with incredible rapidity, they were only intended to amuse the hour, and to die when the frost came. Little was such a fate as this dreamed for them. While all this was taking place, the unfortunate "Squire," the first to feel the weight of her " mental power," returned one day from the city with "blushing honors thick upon him." In a political speech delivered there, he had won for himself great ap- plause ; and its echoes arrived before him, to confirm his rustic reputation. Hastening to do him justice, she can compare him to nothing less than the new luminary that had just been discovered. KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 39 [ /nr tljB ErpulilirnE fmmx. ] There 're surely planets Newton never found. Worlds that his telescope ne'er wandered o'er, He said, " the waves of truth were swelling round. While he but gather'd pebbles on its shore." We're thankful, that he did not pick up there. The " Georgium Sidus" of our .hemisphere. He shines no longer as a mere abridgment; For, in a glorious cause, his mind threw by Its tinsel cloak, that dubb'd it non-existent, (Whose warp was Law, and woof was Poetry,) And clothed itself Avith strength, and swept a chord That yet is vibrating, — in the Tenth Ward, For there his eloquence has justly won The praise of all, — the true, the disaffected, — It might be such a welcome as the sun Met Monday morning, when 'twas least expected; But yet they cheer 'd him, till applause lost breath, So says the paper of the twenty-fifth. In the same piece, she introduces another member of the Club, the best speaker in it, and a great favorite with her. She would willingly have spared him, but his reserved and taciturn demeanor, and close devotion to his affairs in the Cotton Mill, piqued her into giving his dignity a sly pinch : 40 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And yet we know another hidden star, Who, soai'cely lending us a social ray, Will only flash upon us from afor, And hides itself in cotton clouds all day, Strange ! that an intellect of conscious power. Reserves its light for a forensic hour. And strange, that o'er the flow'rs of mind will creep Such insect faults as mispronunciation ; That when thoughts stii* his mind, as winds the deep, We're droicn-ded m the midst of an oration. A few dark feathers on a sky-lark's wings, — Yet Angelo thus speaks of little things : — "What have you done?" said one, "no change is made For days upon thy work;" — "Spare the reflection," Said Angelo, — •• I ve soften"d every shade A trifle, — and yet trifles make perfection. And that's no trifle" — Was he right? Ask Fame, Where in her galaxy we'll find his name. The remainder of this is a succession of amusing, political per- sonalities. The President himself does not escape, nor half-a- dozen aspirants for office nearer by ; for, recollect, this is the time when, to use her words : The body politic is out of breath ; For like Sangi-ado, skill'd in pharmacy, Vjm-Buren is warm-watering it to death. And Jackson drains its vital currency ; KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 41 And " bone and sinew" weakens by the fetter, Tliough Tory nurses whisper it is better. These exciting days have all passed away noAv ; but not before they had proved too much for the animated little village, shortly after this paralyzing its energies, and leaving it in the helpless condition in which it now lies. It was the fear of such a catas- trophe, that kindled Sophia's patriotic fire in the concluding verses : But, rouse my country ! cans't thou take thy creed, The creed of Washington, and on the soil Where his own sword wrote Freedom! stand and read Of all the danger, suftering, and toil. That mark'd its hour of triumph, and then go A willing vassal to its deadliest foe"? If we have patriots left that scorn dominion, Hearts that are lit, the watchfire of the free, — A beacon-torch, not flick'ring m opinion. Whose light and essence all is Libei'ty ! Fling by the chain, nor in the darken'd air Play with its thunders, when its lightnings glare. And Woman! let thy sacred influence bend Over the stormy torrent, take its own, Its warring purposes, and gently blend Thy nature with its elements; and zone. As with a rainbow's clasp, — all dear to thee, — And for thy children, — kneel for Liberty ! KATY-DID. The secret was well kept. All this time, no one sharing it but the four sisters. Even their father went about, innocently con 42 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. doling with the victims, and well pleased at seeing some of his own pet ideas and asperities coming forth in such buzzing words. There was a rival village a few miles oflF, directly opposed to this in politics, where a great meeting had just been held. x\fter an excursion thither, she returns laden with the following : [ liir tijj EB|iniiliran %mnn. ] I'm not a butterfly, upon my word, Not such a pretty day-light fly-away; — I'm not a nightingale, nor humming-bird, Breaking new hearts with music every day. I take the color of the times I light on, You will not know me from the leaf I write on. I love my shady home, when sunset flings Its gorgeous drapery round my leafy chamber, Yet, tired of statu quo, I lift my wings. And round the neighborhood I sometimes wander To visit other townis, and list the notes Of politicians peddling roimd their votes. 'Twas Monday night, the fifteenth of September, ('Tis best in party moves to fix the date, It serves a double purpose, — to remember The petty cogs that move the wheels of state. And flings a title on life's hum-drum pages, As they were born and stamped, for ftiture ages.) Then roar'd the cannon, — 'tis Fame's lisping voice, Passion and feeling, merged in one dark cloud KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN't. 43 Of thundering sublimity^ — no choice But shelter, or a pelting, to the crowd, — O, blest invention of politic shanties. Where all may find a place, — except — the Antis. Poor Pedagogue had there his speech by rote, By dint of study, and by oft repeating, He'd " taught the young idea how to shoot," And whom to aim at, — in the general meeting. Here was a pun, and there a calculation. To patter on the Whigs of every station ; For .Ped., we know, is an arithmetician. Can figure round a foolscap, and, he thought, With friends to aid, he'd put down self as nought, And carry one at the next town election. I'll leave the party organs, and their bellows. For the home-music of the water-wheel. Our nerves auincular will shortly tell us. That nerves all-factory have a right to feel ; And nothing strikes them with such dread sensation, As mingling colors, — or amalgamation. I omit a number of gay and witty fancies, too local to be now understood. In one of the communications that followed, Avhich is now missing, she lashed a well-known personage of the place, so severely, that the Editor, fearing to publish it, postponed it, with the notice, that '' Katy-did is under consideration ;" but afterward 44 LAYS OF A LEFETEME. printed it, with liis own bungling alterations. Her keen ear could not endure the discordant lines ; and Crito himself comes under her readv rebuke : But " Katy-did's under consideration," — Thus did you frown upon my humble strain. And editorial deliberation May clip its metre, and its sense again. I hate to have my thoughts, and rhyme, and words. Like fruit, peck'd off. by editorial birds. Perhaps I was severe, and shook the earth Too roughly from a diamond, in my zeal ; •• Pray, pardon all,'" unconscious of its worth. I tried its temper vrith a point of steel. Great minds Anil sometimes feel a little thing. As huge Gohah perish'd by a sling. KATT-DIDX T. Her tun was now ended ; and, having remained unsuspected in her covert so far, she makes the mutilation to which she had been subjected, the occasion of the following graceful retreat. In some of its fairy imagery, we may see the influence of her favorite, the " Culprit Fay." She alludes prettily to two of her fair friends in the A-illage, and concludes with a legacy of good advice to the sage Crito. Until now, her vigorous and earnest way of dealing with the questions of the time, had created doubt, whether a woman could be the author; but, in the feminine allusion to "our curls," in this her farewell, she inadvertently let out so much of the secret, amid a roar of applause. KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN'T. 46 [ /nr tjiB fdunn. ] Sadness broods o'er the insect world to-day ; 'Tis whispered, that I've nearly chirped my last ; There was a touch of sorrow in my lay, A slight decline observant: and though past, I feel a dull poetic rheumatism, Caught by exposure to a criticism. Perhaps it may be so : we cannot bind A tempest or a temper; both will blow. This spoils our curls, that discomposes mind ; But yet I hate such wit as Devereux Says, "whistles through a key -hole;" give a breeze That bears us Nature's wealth, — fruit, flowers and leaves,- A stout nor' wester, one that shakes the trees, E'en though it spoil me of my summer glory. The wretch may toss my hammock to the breeze, And tear the rafters from my attic story; If rough, 'tis honest ; and if wrong, it dares Betray the wrong, — nor mimics softer airs. My "acoi'n" chariot's waiting at the door, O'er "fire-fly" steeds the cobweb rein is thi'uwii. My drab-coat " miller" coachman snaps once more His whip of grass, and lash of thistle-down. And many a " four o'clock" (such time we keep.) Has clos'd its eyes, an hour ago, in sleep. 46 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Yet as the year, while gath'ring up its leaves. Its golden treasure, sighs o'er every one. And leaves a few to flutter on the trees. To tell of summer when the summer's gone ; Thus I, though few will miss my chirpings here. Yet to those few must leave a " Souvenir." The little "lady slippers'" that I wear. Within oxir prettiest village garden grew I fitted them one day whUe wand'ring there. And buckled them with studs of morning dew : These with my spangled deshabille of green. I leave our fairy-tooted Village Queen. The " cloak of butterflies" 1 wear from home. My zone of " ribbon grass,'" and " pink" brocade. My " violet'" bonnet, with its hvmi-bird plume. And its own veil of gossamer, — to shade A blue eye, drooping 'neath a lid as fair As •• lily of the valley" cap I wear. To "Crito," my Port-folio, rose-leaves boimd In the rich velvet of a "fleur de lis.'" Whose ink was shower drops, and whose pen was found Wing'd in a blust'ring, strngless bumble-bee; And on one page a hint, and kind good-bye. And then, — a long adieu to poetry -. Tls yours to fling your " Banner"" to the wind. To float an empty, idle, flaunting thing, Or bid it flutter o"er the realms of mind. Starlit and brilliant as the Evening's wing ; KATY-DID AND KATY-DIDN'T. 47 A Standard round which classic thought will flit, Or vulgar ensign for each scribbling wit. Let Satire, when she points her shaft of steel. Be polished glitt'ring, when she lays us low; Wounds from a rusty falchion never heal ; Like Sitgreaves give a scientific blow. Let each stroke fall, as schooled by Sheridan. Aiid rear your columns as Ck)rintliian. Study Phrenology, that potent science, 'Till fingers, like the ^villow-wand, discover Through countless strata of alluvial sense The depths of all those mighty streams, that wander Through the raind's caverns, bringing thoughts to light. That else had gurgled in a moonless night. Then choose some Alpine head, where bump o'er bump Rises in Spurzheim majesty sublime. Where all is natural, and not a thvunp Tells of the tilts and tournaments of time ; Then loose the satire, — let the glacier fall On medium wits, and avalanche us all. KATY-DIDJf'T. III. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. In this merely outlined portrayal of the sportive and brilliant girl, just as she appeared to those who saw her in the world, it was not intended to imply, that there were no deeper char- acteristics, all that time, in play. Within, she had her own pri- vate world. Her ardent and impressible mind had entertained many a glowing thought ; her plastic disposition had very early been touched and ennobled by the moulding influences of relig- ion ; and her sensitive, high-strung spirit had not escaped occa- sions of severe trial and unhappiness. Many a poem, hereafter to be introducec^, was written during the same years in which she chirped her "Katy-did" and Katy-didn't." All this was well known to those who knew her best. But in presenting her to those who did not know her, and by whom I would gladly see her appreciated, it seemed the better way to follow the usual course of friendship, and reveal a charming and gifted woman just as she always revealed herself: at first, simply bright, attractive, and dazzling, but afterward manifesting THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 49 ever-deepening qualities of mind and heart, that shot their elec- tric light as deeply into the mind and heart observing her. As she did in life, so can she be made to do now ; only, in place of the propitious opportunities that usually open the heart to a friend, I will endeavor so to group these lays of her lifetime, (not in the order of time, but appropriately to certain circum- stances,) that her nature will appear gradually to expand, and beautify itself, and a feeling be created as of a progress in be- coming acquainted with her. There occurred an interesting event, in which this sparkling supei-ficies gives way at once to a vision of an inner and finer face. A wedding rises on the scene. She one day put this period to all romance : and I find her, about the same time, alluding thus playfully to her satisfaction with her choice: "My light head wants a ballast of discretion, judgment, etc., etc. Who knows but that his thoughts, and the volatile particles of mine together, Avill produce the same effect as glass and quick- silver, which apart, are dissimilar, but which united, are good for every day reflection ; attracting the beautiful, and all that is worth attracting?" I need hardly pause to record how happily and devotedly her being henceforth redoubled itself, in one who through life returned, most truly and ardently, the wealth of love she gave. Now she developed the woman indeed ; and what a phenome- non woman's nature presents, when she becomes a wife and a mother ! She is immediately born again into a more vital exist- ence. Affections and sympathies, before unknown, now appear in manifold beauty within her. Love for her husband first wells up richly ; then love for her children bursts forth, like so many fresh springs, from the hidden places of her soul. Her nature becomes variegated with the new characteristics that play and glow upon it. 4 50 Lays vF a lxfeiime. Nev en»pes are fth. and boarlr iacras^. 2seT dades disearer tih cmscltc s, and press bcr vidi tihteir high «x^eMT. lifr dawns in ie great reafitv. vidi all its scenes moet deefdr. Trridbr. vannlr Here 15 anoiiKr aitd ioAi j-cr:::---:-.!-. i:.«:isi rareir added to tbis mew bcii^ h^ Miasik, mhea ako givoi. re-'inTests iramui vidi a KMBUitic beaadhr. no \oogiT knnan bat dxrine. It is die cen- traL ^vii^ I^ci «^ a poetic mind and terapenaMnt, ra^ating diroa^ aU. and j^csi^rii]^ ereiy tliii^ aroamd it, as mitb die Incs of Hear^ S«^ a wmsudiood, vitib dds iis angefic crovn, win be aecwded to St^ilna. Her a&cti<»s and imaginatiMi pol- satod togcikci, like two li6^-st^eane aradati^ witbin bcr. One crer recused Ibe motions of Ae o&er. Ereiy thing sbe saw, and felt, and tboi^C, was iotcbgd wiib tbe ^ones of tbk in- ner fi^it. dmt was erer AJnii^ O » o a gb d»e orr^aJs of bo- beait. A groap of kyvdr duldren soon gaibered abo«t ber feet, and eacb <»e. as die dasped it to ber breast, ^e also embraced witb i^as bi^er matenal ia^inct of ber soaL Beantifiil was it, to see ^e &ir, jnma^ modMr gBaiog so wondoii^hf into ber cbil- drene' e^res, and bdhoUBag sn^ mysteries ibere. Listen to bo- ^ad aod daleet maange over one of tbese fitde onee. wboee soft bveatb and fife, jost beghming to mii^le widi bcr own, b^an ^so to &n and moTe tbe tnder senses <^ ber ftner. Tbe pas- sage is takes frnm a ktio- to ber Mentor-ancle, ~Mt svamo- bas passed fike dD mj atkipatioiK, witb it? propuses bat bdf-fidfiDed, a^ess I except a sweet fitde E^ay on Wt""*- Xatare, wbicb I bate bat latdtf recetred from its Aadbor; and as it k pabfiiyied, I aq^poee I may, in new^aper langiage, ^re TO« a de^iiptiai. "It is a beantiblhr boand daodecno. wboee tran^arcnt coter- THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 51 ing would remind you of an unclouded morning, when it wakes on a shadowed world ; or if fancy may emphasize reality, we might believe the changing blushes of " Nourmahal" were impris- oned under its surface ; and yet this is but a veil which Life, that skilful artist, has drawn over two roses that almost wave beneath their cover, and which are copied fi'om an exquisite orig- inal in the Louvre of Heaven ; and if you have ever looked on the frescoes of sunset, you would at once recognize their claim. " Above these, two deep blue I's (that in Roman character would designate it as the second volume) are surrounded by an ex- pressive vignette, emblematic of affection, good-nature, and intel- ligence ; and, unlike the gay volume of many a family library, there is not a particle of gilt in a leaf that I have turned ; but its pearly pages are of the same transparent whiteness as its tiny clasps, whose rosy tips might tempt one to believe a sun- beam had chiselled them from a cloud. " The motto of its title-page is written in smiles ; for, they are the golden letters in the orthography of angels, and is simply char- acteristic of its Author, " ' Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.' "It has been often reviewed, and ever in kindness. Some of the sweetest reflections I have ever seen, were on this subject ; and all at least award me the school-girl's laurel ; for my pretty volume is neither dog-eared nor disfigured. "It is a work of mystery ; for months I have hourly perused it, and yet I have made but little progress in those hieroglyphics which are the sentences of its destiny. I can but trace the A, B, C, of feeling which after-years must syllable ; I may point, but God must give its true emphasis, that sweet may be the intonations of its character, and every period of life musical at its close. 52 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. " I have said, that it is a volume of mystery : of mystery, indeed ; for it is written with the phosphorescence of eternity, and can only be discovered by those passions which the future must kindle. Prov- idence will hold them to the flame, and human love must weep or glory in the development. " But who can appreciate the intensity of interest, with which I catch at each expression, and rest my conclusions on the most trivial evidences of mind? Morning has found me at the task, and mid- night, bending over it, unwearied by the study ; and it is strange, but I never turn a page, nor discover a beauty, that I do not feel as if an angel folded its wings, and was absorbed Avith me in its contemplation : and at night, when its lids are closed, and I draw it nearer to my heart, it is the very prayer of my bosom ; a flower, winning by its own loveliness the sunshine and the dew of mercy." Such a keen instinct for the beautiful in her children, could not but add a thousand- fold to the strength of her love for them. The in- fluence of the same high gift appeared, also, in every thing else. As it made her enjoyments most vivid and intense, so it gave her a capacity for suffering which few can understand. Her whole life- time comes before me, with this thought. Her marriage ushered in her destiny, as well as deepened her nature ; and I see her stand- ing in the opening of that vista, with a heart so quick to feel the weight of a woe, as well as the ftilness of a joy, and quivering, as the chill atmosphere of succeeding years touches her with adver- sities, disappointments, bereavements, and agonies, almost innumer- able. In contrast with the above joyous, hopeful strain over a child just born to her, hearken to the wail she utters, in the first of the following group, over one whose breath and life are ebbing awav from her. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 53 TO A DYING INFANT. Come to me, dearest ! lay thy head Upon thy mother's breast ; And lift those sweet, blue eyes, and smile, As if thou lov'dst its rest ; For it is midnight with my heart. And ev'ry star that shone So brilliant in life's firmament, Is waning, or has gone. My God ! I would not pine at aught Thy justice should decree ; Yet spare this flutt'ring leaf, that hangs Upon a blasted tree ; For she is life's ^olian harp, And, as its storms rush by. Draws music from its tempest-cloud, And sweetness from a sigh. Father of mercy ! many a pang Has p^tssed this aching brain ; 54 LAYS OF A LIFETIME, 0, tear not Thou another link From feeling's broken chain ! In prayer I've asked submission still, To say, " Thy will be done ;" But like the sea-shell far removed, Love murmurs for its own ! ^ There's not a joy e'er sprung for me, But withered where it grew ; And not a hope has sunned my path. But left its shadow too. Is it from evil days to come. That Thou would'st take my child? And win for its eternal home. The pure, the undefiled? Father, from that better land That faith has shown my heart ! Thy spirit comes at earthly call, Submission to impart. Pure falls the snow from yonder cloud. And pure my child shall be ; A snow-flake death inay sweep from earth, So it but drift to Thee. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 55 THE MOTHER'S PRAYER. WRITTEN FOR THE MATERNAL ASSOCIATION OF WALDEN. 0, HEAR US, thou Eternal God ! Thy Son life's darkened path has trod, And while we for our children plead, 0, let His mercy intercede ! It is not earthly joys we crave, The verdure that could hide a grave, The gilding of a little clay, For care or death to Avear away. We ask for grace, to lift each thought To Thee, from whom its power is caught, Each link of the Eternal mind. From earth unclasped, to Thee resigned ; Coiled is the chain, corroding here. For life hath sighs, and death a tear ; But stretched to Thee, 'twill span the sky. And fold Thine own Eternity. 56 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Like that bright stream whose waters glide, Unmingled with an adverse tide ; 0, thus, from earthly passions free, May ev'ry feeling flow to Thee ! Though Death may have the tempest's power. To gather from the heart its flower, The blast that leaves our bosom lone, Shall place its blossom on Thine own. And, mother, if thou ere didst start From dreams to clasp it to thy heart. Forgetful that the cold earth piled The pillow of thy buried child. While ev'ry thought by grief subdued, Turned to its own deep solitude. And sought, from sympathy apart, The darkness of a shadowed heart ; If thou dost know what 'tis to feel A Saviour's accents o'er thee steal, In that sad moment whisp'ring thee, " 0, suffer them^ to come to me ;" Then, by the voice that won thee back Again to tread life's rugged track, A wand'rer mid its light and shade, To meet its duties undismayed ; 0, trust the mercy that has given Thy heart its Hiype, thy child a Heaven ; That, while thy soul with grief was bowed. Wove its hright promise m the cloud ; THE LIKENESS OF THE INNEK FACE. 67 The lily, when the storm-winds sweep, Will blossom calmly on the deep, And, Saviour ! from life's troubled sea Shall prayer its wave-flower spring to Thee. 5S LAT5 OF A UFEHME. BT-A5I>*T. i.z.,~i -i ^ jA ht stood, ^ IB icaii&. ho- tihc fjcd boj: ^^~i -^ vm. floor aoid doir, voe ssreved _ . -••a. iZLi -r 5^ tor. •'O. _ « dad! - 117 £1- eat It." * said. tint daj ^aM emu^ f«S ai««T? 5^T io blMOtf u^ ««— g»- vinds lie U^ ? I-^ - - ^ ijic vnnd. T« . ■> \as kreoat: Aod ^Oft^ life's e: ^- ^o g tiid , or B^iak ^mr. her ^ THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 59 And hov'ring o'er his heart again, A withered, leafless thing seemed now ; 'Twould do to perch upon, — but then, The Future was the foliaged bough. He scorned the Present, — longed to climb The distant Alp of future time ; And trod the actual, but to sigh, •'Dear mother, ivhen is Bj-and-By?'' m. And thus beguiled, the present horn- Was worthless to the dreaming boy ; Thought rushed through life, bv rock and flower To swell the distant wave of joy. Years past, — again in tears, — he lay, Beside his mother's lonely tomb : The mile- stone of a dreary way, 'Twixt travelled life, and life to come. It pointed from the trodden past. To truth's most simple path at last ; And Present, Past, and Future showed. As windings of the self-same road. IV. He rose, — a moment's pause he stood, — A flower had tAvined that cold grave-stone Root, spreading branch, and cradled bud, A trifold natui'c veiled in one. 60 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. That flower his primer ! gave his mind This lesson with instruction rife : Past, Present, Future are combined; Who wins the Present, conquers Life. 'Tis present duty circles soul, Whose round from Heaven to Heaven must run He trod the cirque, he neared the goal. And ended life, where life begun. He conquered — and the victor lay Beneath the church-yard turf asleep ; And holy men drew near to pray, And loving eyes were there to weep. What ! weep ye o'er the slumbering brave, The hero, when the battle's done ? Who conquers life, subdues the grave ; And, Death subdued, all Heaven is won. Then leave the conqueror to his rest. The Past upon the Future's breast. Both Omnipresent, and on high ; Trust God to wake him By-and-By. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 61 THE THUNDER SHOWER. Flowers died upon the Summer gale, For sultry was the afternoon ; And daylight looked so tired and pale, 'Twas watched o'er by the harvest moon. And weary as the day, Marie, Half resting on her mother's knee. With o'erflushed cheek and drooping eye. Impatient threw her bonnet by. " 0, dear mamma ! when you were young. Were Summer days so very long? And could you read, and could you sew? I'm sure I don't know ivhat to do." "And yet, Marie," her mother said. And pointed to their latticed bower, "Beneath this honeysuckle shade, There's scarce a ray to vex the hour." "0, could we only give the soul A trellis, as we did this shade. The heart might find 'neath self-control, A climate that itself had made." 62 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. II. "But, mother, what is self-control?" " That power, my love, by which we bind The wandering feelings of the soul, To grow more beautiful confined ; 'Tis ACTION disciplined by thought, 'Tis WILL subdued, — and conscience taught The power, when impulse oft would soar, To cage the bird, and shut the door." " 0, now I know," exclaimed Marie, '"Tis Natural Philosophy ; They always teach it at our school. But, mother, will it make me cool?" Ah, lady, now thy counsel keep, 'Twere well were feeling thus confined ; But every day new tendrils peep, That every day must pause to bind. And see ! across the waves of heaven. The freighted clouds move to and fro ; Sad wrecks ! they'll strew the shores of even, And dash their life-drops far below. III. The thunder treads the air, — and now Its gloomy shadow sweeps the ground, — And tossed from off its ebon brow, Its lightning tresses fall around. THE LIKENESS OF THE INNER FACE. 63 "And see!" delighted, cried Marie, " How the bright lightning springs to me ; From yonder cloudy cliff it came. And now, — I almost catch the flame." The mother turned, — she saw the fire Clasp trustingly the safety wire. Then glide to earth with thundering yell, And fall, as conscious that it fell. "Look, mother!" said the fearless child, As yet unmindful, in her mirth, That mother faint, with terror wild, Pale as her robe, had sunk to earth. Ah, lady ! could we give the soul A trellis, as we do the flower. The heart, secure, 'neath self-control. Would never dread a thunder shower. IV. Day followed day, and sunshine rolled Its glory over earth and sky. And common things were turned to gold, By sunset's wondrous alchemy. And calmly breathed the summer night, Ere the storm's clouded wing drew near, Waned out the moon's soft astral light, And many a starry chandelier ; It came at Nature's banquet hour, When fragrance floated on the breeze. 64 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And jewels hung on every flower. And glittered on the dancing leaves. Then, on the wall of heaven there glowed The lightning finger of a GoD ; And ghastly grew the universe. As if it feared the Chaldic curse. Poor Marie trembled : and her fear Had blanched her rosy cheek like pain : In silence, mother, wipe the tear. Example now. for precept's vain. No terror shades that mother's brow, The changeless Kp is tranquil now : TVhat power hath hushed her bosom's strife, And left its pulse at play with life ? She stood before the open sash ; She knelt beneath the circling flash ; Clasped Marie's little hand and prayed, " On Thee, Grod, our souls be stayed I And while Thy lightnings round us dart. And fearful though the spirit be, Father, soothe the trembling heart, And self-control be trust in Thee !" Where was £he cloud when morning caught The glory of the dav, new risen? With Marie's feai-, and Marie's thought, Both lifted, and both lost in heaven. IV. "THE ROCK, THE FALL, THE WOODED- WALK, THE RIVER." Her being expands again, most charmingly, over still other home- scenes of these years. They introduce her amid the sweetness and freshness of Nature ; and while her home, in itself, illustrates her moral loveliness, these, its out-door scenes, bring into view a few phases of her being that have an affinity to them. The village, with all its enterprise, had not encroached upon one bank of the river. It had spread itself over the broad slope oppo- site, leaving the cliffs on the side of her own "household hills" in much of their original wildness and beauty. The ancient homestead thus enjoyed the advantages of both. It was the cottage in the grove, spoken of before, and stood on the brow of a steep declivity, which was thickly foliaged with locust trees, from the top to the water's edge. When the Falls were full, their deep tones were here distinctly heard ; and when made inaudible by the lessening of the flood, tlieir reverberations still lingered mystically in the low rumble of the tremblins casements. The " Old Hearthstone," with its double sloping roof, and broad piazzas, both in front and rear, flashed a greeting to the morning sun from its jutting dormer-windows, as he 66 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. rose above the heights over the river ; and bade him a gokien tare- well, when he sunk behind the wood-crowned hills, rolling upward toward the west. Its high-peaked gable of gray stucco faced the blue Shawangunk and Catskills in the north ; and in the opposite direction, beyond the deep gorge of the "Kill," the village lay scat- tered over the green uplands, to the distant "church on the hill;" and its white houses gleamed brightly through the trees on the lawn. It was further oif than it appeared to be ; yet, over the intervening space, so wide that the river had room to curve, the sounds of the different Sunday bells came floating together, and had time to mingle their notes into one sweet chime of worship. No less than thirty drives intersected the comitry round about ; and as many rural Avalks crossed and recrossed nearer home. But, of them all, the " wooded- walk" was the finest. It was a broad blue pathway, so colored by the crumbling slate-rock, winding along the river-bauk, beneath embowering evergreens, undulating inland, for a little distance, over the hillocks in the laurel grove ; and then, turning under the steep cliifs, with their thick shade of overhanging cedars, it led through a cool archway of foliage, till it reached and overlooked the waterfall and its rocky enclosure. Here was the chief attraction. Below was the great flat rock, to which the visitors used to descend, in order to see the waters boil around them, and to catch the spray flung from above ; while, directly over their heads, a foot-bridge, made of half-a-dozen wires, hung bending across the chasm, vibrating in the wmd, and under every passing step. This was the curiosity of the region, in a cir- cuit of many miles. It was a picturesque object at all times, as it was seen from the ravine below spanning the torrent ; but, at night especially, when its light materials were invisible, the effect was almost spectral, as the white draperies of those who were on it flitted to and fro, as of beings treading the air. "the rock, the fall, the wooded-walk, the river." 67 These are a few of the scenes amid which she loved to wander and muse while no one followed her ; and, in some of its sequestered spots, haunted only by the moonlight, and the dashings of the silvered river, she gathered many a thought, and wreathed the imagery of many a metred dream. 68 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. THE WALLKILL AT WALDEN. Beneath long lashes of the drooping willow, Flash thy blue waters ; and the cedar shade Bends fi'om its cliff, above the rushing billow, As if to guard the solitude it made. Here can we find a dial in the flower, What time the opening blossom flushed or fell. And mark at vesper, from its rocky tower. The deadly nightshade swing its purple bell. There are high rocks above thy waters peeping. And the vexed wave %sighs heavy to the shore ; Yet many a foam-wreath o'er their rough sides creeping. Have touched with beauty what was dark before. Let the mind gather wisdom, ne'er to falter, Tb.us meet its incident, yet hold its power : And gi'aceful yield to ills it cannot alter, Yet leave its sparkle on the darkest hour. Winding through shade, or glancing by the meadow, Flinging the spray-bead OA'er rock and tree. One cannot think that direful storm or shadow, Beautiful river I ever rose from thee. "the rock, the fall, the wooded-walk, the river." 69 Yet many a cloud the morning sky embraces. Death, as a sunbeam, to its bosom gave, And still at night they come with pallid faces. And flitter ghost-like, o'er the trembling wave. O ! who would ever think this tiny bubble. Pillowed on beams would float in glory there ! Or swell the mighty aggregate of trouble, When gath'ring tempests shudder through the air? And yet these very drops through ether driven. As tears may wander from the storm's dark eye ; Or tumble o'er the cloudy cliffs of heaven, Adown the thunder mountains of the sky. O, it is strange ! Philosophy that traces The path of stars, the spray-mist from its wave, Resting on Thought, assigns to worlds their places. Yet sinks the mind that lifts it — to a grave ; Or probing earth, unveils its deep attraction, The secret balance that its powers control, And yet, denies the world of human action. The poise of God, — the magnet of the soul. But darkness o'er the distant wood is creeping ; The valley, couched in shadow, sinks from sight ; The mountain in its robe of mist is sleeping ; And e'en my household hills are touched with night. Yet, ere I leave this shore, perhaps forever, Thoughts gathered here I'll yield it ere we part, A feeling stronger than the rushing river. And deeper than the veins that feed its heart. 70 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Here has the morning talked to me of Heaven, As the wave flushed beneath its waking kiss ; And the soft fresco of the cloud at even, Shadowed a world more beautiful than this ; The Rock, the Fall, the Wooded-Walk, the River, The wild flower dangling from the cliff above. All lift the soul to Thee, Almighty Giver I And syllable to faith eternal love. And as the spirit turns in adoration, Earth's varied page, the volume Mercy gave, Where thus bright streams italicize creation, With the rude emphasis of wind and wave, O, guide the heart, Creator ! lest Thy creature Read not Thy glory in the earth and sky. And, from the thrilling eloquence of nature. Translate Omnipotence as destiny. All power is Thine, yet Mercy power is guiding, Love infinite as potver, still guards its own ; As the dread tempest, 'neath a ray subsiding. Sinks to a breeze, and floats the thistle-down. Existence springs from Thee I Thy glance all-seeing, The wide magnificence of heaven surveys ; Yet turned to earth, — falls brightly on our being. As fiills the moonbeam o'er the tide it sways. THE ROCK, THE FALL, THE WOODED- WALK, THE RIVER."' 71 A SUN-SET. 0, BRIGHTLY waves the green old tree, That m my childhood shadowed me : 'Twas here, upon the grass I played, And here my little grotto made ; And decked it, for I loved it avcII, With gathered moss, and pearly shell. Save that the winds are talking now. To that old crone, yon blasted bough. Above, the same bright leaves are hung, Around the same broad shadow flung. That beckoned me when I was young. My children 'round me in their play. Arc wand'ring where I used to stray ; Now o'er the brook, now o'er the green, Where pebble bright or flower is seen, And bring the trophies of their chase To deck my sylvan resting-place. But, oh ! what memories intrude, To mar this peaceful solitude ! Visions that life has hurried by, Its stern and dark reality. 72 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. The treasured words that here were spoken The household ties that death has broken : The heart from ours that fate bid sever, Parted for years, — perhaps forever. Oh, who would live, till age shall steal The all of life save power to feel ; To feel alone, in thought as years, A thing of sadness and of fears, A wreck upon time's loneliest shore, And washed by mem'rys billows o'er ; Tossed to and fro 'twixt death and life, Rising and sinking with the strife, But waiting till a mightier wave Shall boom him onward to the grave ; His league with life so closely run. Scarce seems for him to dawn yon sun, Save as a wreck to glare upon. Doomed like yon blasted bough to wave 'Mid the bright things of life, unblest, Touched with the death-chill of the grave, Without its hope for guerdon — rest. Alas ! in reason's troubled hour, Such thoughts will o'er the soul be driven ; Yet, born beneath the thunder shower. The blossom bares its breast to heaven ; And faith looks upward from its grief. Though sown in darkness, nursed by fears 'Till hope, unfolding like the leaf, Brio;htens fi'om tears. "THE ROCK, THE FALL, THE WOODED-WALK, THE RIVER." 73 Beside our door there lingers one ' Whose gaze is on the setting sun, As if its glory-beam inwrought His mind, and fixed the hue of thought ; Perchance his soul, in heavenly dream, Reads its own morrow in the beam : And tranquil thought, like yonder ray. Is presage of a goodly day ; For he is old, and Death so near, That oft he starts his step to hear ; ^ Time rests upon his brow, — but then The tyrant sways but common men, — Years flung like storms a diadem. Upon a dreaded height, The white locks drift around his brow ; Yet brightly o'er life's gathered snow, Mind lingers, and its sun- set glow Bathes age in living light. With feeling chastened, not subdued, Humbly the path of life he trod ; And life, and change, and solitude. But taught his earnest spirit God. He read the Midnight, and His power Its starry alphabet revealed ; And found Him, where the smallest flower Traced His initial in the field ; His earthly sympathies o'erawed, Twine 'round mankind and reach to God. Children forget that he is gray, And frolic round him in their play ; LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And e'en my infant turns from me, To rest upon that old man's knee. 'Tis beautiful! to see him there, With laughing lip his kisses seek ; Now playing with his silvery hair, Then leaning on his fiirrowed cheek. Beautiful age ! that thus canst twine Life's rugged rock, and freely gives Its bosom to the clasping vine, 'Till desolation, hid in leaves, "Woos life's young climber, tired, to rest, As mine, upon his aged breast. " Come, father ! speak of days agone, Those palmy days of mind that shone. So brightly, when ' M'Fingal's page Darted its lightning o'er the age.' " Back rolled the heavy flood of time. And laves again his manhood's prime ; Again, his memory gathered all To which it clung in former years : Again he trod the Senate-hall, At home with his compeers ; Again, around his social hearth. Flashed wit, and repartee, and mirth, Those golden links in history's chain, Which only friendship can retain ; For veiled from sight will ever roll, The under- current of the soul : THE ROCK, THE PALL, THE WOODED- WALK, THE RIVER.' ib Full swells the stream to many a lip, But friendship ! at the fount may sip, True as the willoAV-wand to find^ The hidden birth-place of the mind. I had not marked the day-beams' flight, But now the dark-fringed lid of night Sinks heavy on the distant hill, And busy life and thought grow still, " And, ! why linger thus my child. An old man's broken tale to hear ? Unless it be," he said, and smiled, " A classic taste for ruins, dear !" Ruin ! the word sighed o'er his past, For life was tott'ring to its fall. And Mem'ry is a mournful blast. To sigh around its crumbling wall. 'Twas but a moment ; faith had twined, So close, where joys had dropped away ; Its ivy clasp was round his mind, Another life waved o'er decay ! Near fourscore years were there to tell Of tow'ring hopes, that rose — and fell. Though not an earthly prop was riven, But gave a broader glimpse of Heaven. And yet 'tis ruin ! sad and lone, A Pharos of some Deep unknown, A trembling beacon, where this sea Just empties in eternity. 76 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Aside, the links to life are flung, , Its chain of hope is all unstrung. Brother of earthly life is gone,'' And 'mid the past he stands alone ; Alone ! upon our sod. And yet a noble structure ! mind Achieved the task by Grod designed ; God planned the temple, left him free, And faith has worked its destiny ; Life ! shaped its immortality, Till life has imaged God. My infant boy has sunk to rest, Upon his grandsire's aged breast ; And folded in that arm, That kindly bosom throbbing near, Think you his spirit dreams of fear. Of ruin., or of harm ? THE ROCK, THE FALL, THE WOODED-WALK, THE RIVER. ( i CHILDREN m THE CHURCHYARD OF ST. "A simple child, dear brother Jim, That lightly draws its breath. That feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death V Wordsworth. The turf looks green on the churchyard mound, The elm's soft shade flickers over the ground ; And a troop of children have come forth to play, Where the freshest grass and the shadow lay ; Ah ! little they know of sorrow and death. And the ghastly world that is hushed beneath 1 As they skip 'round the graves, and come and pass, With a bounding step o'er the yielding grass ; Or singing and laughing, with childish glee, And chasing each other from tree to tree. My heart's with my childhood ! mem'ry has flown To its early nest, by our old hearthstone ; It has flown like a bird from a blighted tree, To the greener joys that once waved for me ; It has borne me again to my own cottage door, 'Neath its sweetbrier shade ; I'm a child once more I 78 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Un the broad piazza the moonbeams lay ; In the open casement the air-harps play ; From the locust grove comes an answering call. To a iovous voice from the echoino; hall : And my mother's arms are around me now '. Her soft hand presses my throbbing brow I I see her at morn, — at the hour of bed I When the prayer and the last good-night are said, And my lip is repeating it o'er and o'er, — I'm a child once more I I'm a child once more ! But see ! they are wearied ! it's passed o'er them all. And now they encircle the old church wall ; There, in the shade, half reclined on the ground. The lesson or story is whispered around ; Some 'neatli the elm's broad shadow are laid, Twining their locks with a grassy braid ; The dead all around ! and the living there ! With the Spring's first gift in their glossy hair I One beautiful creature has gently thrown Her fragile form on an old tombstone, And she calls from her marble couch, " see, I^ve found the best place, 'tis the place for me!" Memory, Memory, sad is thy doom I Come back to the tomb, come back to the tomb I Come back to the loved, to the nnforgot. To this bosoDi, thy lonely burial spot. Thei-e rest the hopes that to ruin were hurled ; There griefs lie buried from all the world ; Fold thy wings o'er my heart, sweet Memory I For a tomb I a tomb I is the place for thee ! V. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. Her poems are so self-descriptive, that it seems as if I were but etching illustrative pictiu'es for her autobiography. They are full of her personality. We may hear her heart beat in them, and see its life-blood mantling and blooming over these her ideal linea- ments. There was nothing of egotism in this. No one was less selfish or vain. But she wrote from an irrepressible impulse, with no thought of fame ; simply because she could not help it. The measure and music of imagery in verse, was the natui'al, breath- incf movement of her soul. It was not her will, but the circumstances of her career, that kept her imagination within these limits. The duties, anxieties, and occupations of a wife and mother preoccupied her. But even these would not have prevented her from occasionally attempting an outside theme, had not an unfortunate utilitarianism happened to surround her, discoui-aging that kind of authorship which craves appreciation. She had but few congenial opportunities ; and as few friends, sufficiently undistracted by other matters, to estimate and ani- mate her, even in that which she did. What we have, therefore, 80 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. is simply the accidental expression of her own personal emotions ; this habitual warm breath of her soul, as found here and there still in the exquisite shape it took, when it touched the frozen sur- face of things without. The same reason assigned for their personality, accounts also for the pensive shade that overspreads them. She wrote from her in- nermost heart, and that was sometimes a very fount of melan- choly. A woe, when it came, never spared her. It seized her sensitive spirit, and thrilled along its nerves in one pervading agony. Only a few were aware how keenly she often suffered, be- cause the fact was veiled so constantly, by a bright, cheerful, even gay demeanor, partly the result of a conscientious resolve not to overshadow others with her own afflictions, and, partly, from the natural rebound of an elastic nature when diverted by surround- ing excitements. The recollections of even those Avho were most familiar with all that saddened her, are most vivid as to these gladdenino; moments. Wherever she went, her amiable and viva- cious ways, her pleasantry and glowing earnestness, her ingenuity in all the usual expedients to amuse the hour, made her the de- light and favorite of all. In these times, she appeared as re- markable for her capacity to enjoy, as she was for her suscepti- bility to sorrow. This spirit of gayety would often rise to displace even the anguish of physical distress. An instance of this is the following. One Christmas, the last of her life, a lady friend, an old schoolmate, who was visiting her, (and who, by the way, had been a witness of the prank described in her account of her school-days,) received a present of a box, with some promise in its appearance, but, when opened, found crammed with ludicrously disappointing articles. As the two were enjoying the spectacle strewn over the floor, and had, at last, guessed the author of the joke, she exclaimed, " Now HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 81 we'll have some fun !" and, though not an instant free from pahi, and too helpless to hold a pen, she dictated these lines, to be sent back, which I copy as her husband then wrote them for her. It was Christmas Eve : not a kind heart was near, As I sat by my hearth, 'twixt a smile and a tear ; Musing over the past, and the years that had flown, On joys that still lingered, and all that had gone, When a rap at the door dashed the vision asunder ; 'Twas an Irish girl's twp^ which is second-hand thunder; "Ma'am, a box at the door was left for you to-night, And the man did not spake, for he flashed out of sight; But I read by the lamp, and I read ver-r-y well To read such bad writing, 'twas for Mrs. P-11." " Set it down, my good Mary." Now who can it be ? Who is left in this cold world to care thus for me? A Christmas box ! though 'tis so careless without, Yet containing rich presents within, there's no don It. I lifted the cover, when, full in my face. With a flounce and an air, stared a caj) of black lace. Next a purse with a guinea, what kindness is meant? God bless the kind donor ! O pshaw, 'tis a cent. Here are two pair of cuffs, well, I'll take them in charge, And try them on too. Alas ! they're too large. Here are some pretty gifts, and a beautiful scarf. In a medley at which Heraclitus might laugh ; Thus encouraged, with patience, still further I'll grope. Since, at last, my Pandora has yielded me Hope. Here's a tooth-brush, a hair-brush, and pins for the wrist; And ribbons, done up with a magical twist. A bottle of perfume, a quantum of paper, And a queer little man in the midst of a caper. 6 82 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Well, — I'll sit by my die-away fire, and I'll pause. Ill my arm-chair till midnight, or find Santa Claus. So I thought o'er each friend, till at last I found one, Who loves to fold kindness forever in fim, Whose life brightens on. like the evergreen leaf Unchanged through the solstice of joy or of grief ^Vho. when Fortune deals falsely, or fi-iendship deceives, Flings her sorrows aside, as life's perishing leaves, And cherishing only the hopeful and green. Twines joy round her heart with the warmth of sixteen ; Well, now to my couch : I've outwatched every cinder, And solved the enigma, — 'Tis you, Ethelinda. With this, and one or two other exceptions, her poems, as here published, are the pictures of her mind in the seclusion of medita- tion and sorrow ; more frequently the latter, written as a relief and solace. Thoughts which most persons would have poured directly into another's ear, she was content to improvise upon the keys of her imagination, when few were nigh to overhear, and only those few could know, that she was filling the music with the story of her very life. They, sometimes, are songs as heard coming from the embowering retreat of her own fancy, sweet, and fragrant with its fresh foliage and flowers ; songs, often, as with the air and loftiness of psalmody, rising from the sanctuary of her hours of prayer. From this habit of seeking refiige and consolation in the serener world of her imagination, and the strong literary tendencies thus indicated, it must not be inferred, that, as with many similarly gifted, her mind was also the idle resort of an unoccupied and pur- poseless life. She never was one of those who lived too much in their dreams. She turned aside, only for recreation, or when trouble was nish at hand, but never loitered awav from life and duty. Vital HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 83 and necessary to her as it was, poetry was never foremost. It was her breath, not herself. She felt the weight and momentum of her being, strong within her. She felt invigorated with a purpose, and always moved as if under the urgency of a work that was to be performed. Her nature had grown into a strength too real to be thus frittered and dreamed away. Home-life, with its fireside real- ities of husband, children, domestic cares, duties and employments, filled her heart, and glowed about her steps. To all this,- poetry was incidental ; as I say, only the vitalizing breath of this grander, practical character. Here is a sweet picture of herself, after the close of a household day. While her husband and his brother, near by, are quietly enjoying their newspapers, she puts aside her work, to rhyme a playful greeting to a long absent and favorite brother-in-law. It is evening, dear Sam, C ami .T are at home. And the bright lamp is cheering our dear -'little room." And as J has one paper, and C — — the other, I have nothing to do but to think of my brother. My basket is near, but I'm sure I can't sew. So, needles and muslin, this evening adieu. I've been striving to-day, (like an excellent wife,) To blend both the useful and " dulee " of life. I've been pickling, preserving, and quite in a steiv, Now, bothered by baby, then thinking of you ; For, bee-like, a thought has stol'n over my brain. That you care very little to see us again. A stinging thought, Sam, which I'll crush if you'll come, And bring back the honey of hearts to our home. O! don't stay any longer; for poor Carlo lies On the door-mat, with naught to amuse him but flies; 84 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And pen, ink, and books, undisturbed on the shelf. Refuse to be social with one but yoiirself, And paper looks blank, and our cheerfulness flown, For we feel as a linlc from our heart's chain had gone. In this dull town of ours, I have little to " tell ;" I've seen none of your cronies, but Mr. Ud And him at the last evening's lecture I saw, Intent upon Solomon Southwick and law. When endeav'ring to prove that our judicial rule?, Flow not from Athenian, but Mosaic schools. I loved that old man, for rev'rend's the form. That can meet wintry age unbowed by its storm ; Though Time sits on his brow like a tyrant, and told A withering tale that such men could grow old ; Yet mind grappled with years, miscathed by a care. For the greenness and beauty of Wisdom were there. Though the music of Milton flowed sweet from his tongue, He proved that more sweetly Isaiah had sung, And that Dante a rapture to sense might impart, But David, alone, swept the strings of the heart. And so calm was the flow of the lecturer's mind. His reas'ning so lucid, and thoughts so refined, That I rose from philosophy's ocean impearled With the gems of a purer and holier world. Give my love to dear father and mother, and say 1 don't write such episodes every day ; But you know, Sam, when nature and feelings are tired, The mind in reaction is often inspired. But the Pythian draught is exhausted, and now Dull slumber is passing her wand o'er mv brow. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 85 My pen and ink fail me, my senses are dumb, So I'll go to bed, Samuel, and dream you have come. Yet one word at parting; a blessing, a prayer, That life may be sprinkled so lightly with care, Like dust on the butterfly's wing, every woe May soften, not shadow, the brilliance below. But mem'ry is with me, a tear's in my eye. For my heart's with my childhood, — dear Samuel, good-bye. This was the recreation of a few moments. But how happy she was, when she loosed her imagination for a higher flight. It seemed, at times, in the facility with which she wrote, especially after her thoughts had been enriched by long repression, as if she had but to touch her pen, and "the numbers came." Imagery occurred almost too easily, often leading her to crowd figures too thickly and too fast one upon another. As in the examples quoted above, she would frequently conceive and write on the instant ; even in the midst of an expectant company, and the buzz of their conversation. She undervalued these so much, as to destroy a number of them ; and most of the group here appended have been handed to me, by those who did value and so secured them. By placing them thus together, her mind is pleasingly displayed, with its lighter fringe of beauty. In the compositions which follow this group, a glimpse is caught of her heart, radiating, beyond her family circle, into the thinner atmosphere of friendship, and especially in that most touching of all its expressions, the tenderness which appreciates another's grief. It was her practice, when a friend met with a bereavement, instead of inditing the usual, and necessarily superficial, note of condolence, to send out her own heart in verse, as it throbbed in imaginary con- tact with the occasion of the suffering. These two kinds, really so dissimilar, I put together here, be- 86 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. cause of certain parallel cliaracteristics : the one, a cluster of Im-. provisations, like sparks struck from the flint of passing incidents, showing the prompt and flashing readiness of her intellect ; the other, a cluster of Elegies, impromptus of the heart, revealing the quickness of its sympathies, and instant perception of all the bitter- ness of a woe. HEAD AND HEAKT IMPROMPTU. 87 TO A FADED FLOWEl!. IMPROMPTU, WRITTEN AFTER A PARTY. Come to my heart ! in beauty come ! Sleep on its pulse my withering flower ; Thou'rt loveliest in thy fading bloom, And dearest in thy drooping hour. 0, ever thus my spirit twines Round joys that soonest pass away, 'Twas born to cling, like ivy vines. To ruin and decay. Then rest thee here ; this heart shall be Thy pure and lonely burial spot, The grave of feeling and of thee, Of hopes that share this blighted lot. Come to my heart ! and if it moves With its wild pulse one faded leaf, I'll speak to thee, as one that loves. And tell thee of my grief. I twined thee in my hair to-night, It was an hour of mirth and glee ; LAYS OF A LIFETIME. And many deemed my spirit light, But all ! the truth I'll whisper thee. They knew not, that the heart could fling A fragrance in its wounded hour, Like the faint perfume hovering Round thee, my faded flower ! Tell not the world, that griefs beguile The careless heart I'm wont to bear ; For when we know and scorn its smile, who would ever ask its tear ! Yet is it hard to hide my grief, And strive to veil the spirit's gloom, When I am like thee, blighted leaf. Within a world of bloom ! HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 89 IMPROMPTU. WRITTEN, ON RETURNING AN OFFERING OF BRYANT's POEMS, BE- NEATH THE AUTOGRAPH OF THE AUTHOR. Dear ladj, on this page is graven The poet's gift and line, And ! 'tis wrong when thus 'twas given, To call the offering mine. The humming-bird will choose its flower, 'Mid summei buds entwined, And every poet hath the power To know his kindred mind. For though each thought be like the chain Philosophy unfurled. Linking a moment life and pain Unto a better world ; I feel, that the electric fire Was never meant for me ; The flame that mantles round a spire. Will pass the wild-rose tree. 90 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. Yet memory hath her treasure spot ; Hid from the careless eye, Where, breathing of the unforgot, My sacred relics lie. There, far from human sight or praise, I love those gifts to bind, And disinter, on rainy days, Pompeiis of the mind. I cannot place thy gift with these, Though prized, it is denied ; As flowers we'd kiss, some charming breeze Forever blows aside. Yet feeling still some trophy brings, Past kindness to recall ; For memory hath a thousand wings. And love can plume them all. The vines that clasp our cottage wall, The stream, the rugged shore. The wooded- walk, the rock, the fall, think of them once more. For I am like the Banian tree, My heart is rooted there ; And wandering thoughts those bi'anches be, That find a home elsewhere. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 91 IMPROMPTU, TO NINA. ON A FLOWER FROM HER FATHER's GRAVE. Thy cheek, sweet girl, is yet too fair, Thy youthful eye too bright, For grief to fling a single care Athwart its gentle light. The task is left for after years, "When thou shalt turn aside. As many a thought shall trace, in tears, The hour "that father died." When for the beggar at the door I heard thy young lip plead, " Oh, give her something, mother, more, She says her father's dead ;^' I knew that life would turn that thought To tears, and bid them flow, When feeling to thy heart had taught. What is but memory now. 92 LAYS OF A LlFETIMi;. When years enfold the forest trunk, Its graven names depart, Yet lost not, — deeper tliey have sunk, To rest upon its heart. Nor time can take the love from thee, Thine infancy revealed ; Though like the name upon the tree, From every eye concealed. And often wilt thou turn from mirth. And all that life hath won, To train bright flowers above the earth That liidos that buried one. And be it so : and o'er thy breast When holy thoughts shall wave ; 0, let their shadoAV gently rest Upon ''dear fiither's " grave. HEAD AND HEART IMPllOMl'TU. 93 IMPROMPTU. •• T ONOE HAD FRIENDS, A THOUSAND FRIENDS." ''A THOUSAND friends!" a thousand friends! ah, that can never be, Though thousands sun thy path with smiles, their warmth is not with thee, They glance upon the heart, but leave no kindly feelings there, To scatter rose-leaves o'er the soul, when tempest-shook by care. A "chosen few," but few indeed; for they must love alone, Who fling beyond the kindred chain a link to more than one ; When life is bright, we give them then its little all of mirth. And trust them thus far, fearlessly, and win them to our hearth. But who would fling the love of soul, the foliage of the heart. Around a " chosen few," who place their hopes and love apart ! /Vh, rather let it cluster yet, luxuriant and alone. Or rear it like the prophet's vine, to shade the chosen one. And when it withers, when it fades in sadness and in gloom. And the shrunk heart's a blighted leaf within a world of bloom, Then on my withering feelings lie, one dew-drop pure and clear, And only one, a glittering one. Beloved, give a tear. 94 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. IMPROMPTU. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF UF A VOLUME OF SERMONS. FOR a world that knows no care, A brighter, happier, purer sphere, Where sighs are lost in grateful prayer. And griefs forgot that wound us here. I'd rather be a summer flower, A passing cloud, a fading bow, All, any thing whose life's an hour, Than live for years, and feel as now. Yet all within us, all around, Tell of a time, when hearts shall break The "chain wherewith we're darkly bound," And cease to beat, and cease to ache. Had I the Christian's holy power. To gild th' horizon of my years. Peace yet should mark the passing hour, And only rapture speak in tears. HEAP AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 95 IMPROMPTU. ■ ON ACCEPTING A COPY OF ZIMMERMAN, BUT RETURNING A BREAST-PIN. My bosom will not need this gem, To call tliee to its thoughts again ; For " Solitude "^ where'er thou art, Will bring thee to a lonely heart. blame me not, time cannot steal From hearts like ours the bliss to feel: To feel, though torn for years away. As if we parted yesterday. Thought be the chain that binds thee here, My own bright gem, our partmg tear, And that alone the pledge must be, Though even you should frown on me. 96 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. THE TWILIGHT HOUR. WRITTEN" IX AX ALBUM. (.) WEEP, my love, when twilight's hour Has bathed in dew the violet flower ; For, then the sacred tear that's given Shall, with the dew-drop, rise to heaven. Brightly glowing, sparkling there, 'Twill gem some Seraph's golden hair, Or rest upon some heavenly flower ; Then weep, my love, at twilight's hour. Though now mv heart be licrht and free. And buoyant as love's minstrelsy. Yet tears will dim the briorhtest eve. And sorrows robe its witchery : And o'er the dewy lip will play Sighs which the world can't chase away : For though the heart may rest on flowers, The bosom has its twilight hours. When the shades of sorrow stealing O'er the breast, its bliss concealing ; When joy but sheds it? ling'ring beam, To cast o'er woe that mellow gleam HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 97 That cherubs snatch from smiling heaven. To robe in light the clouds of even : When sighs breathe sweets, tears rapture pour, The bosom has its twilight hour. When dear hope gilds the clouds of sorrow, As token of a brilliant morrow, Sighs leave the heart, and dare to sip The fragrance of youth's balmy lip ; When mem'ry's dew, with blessings fraught. Freshens all the flowers of thought, When sighs breathe sweets, tears rapture pour, The bosom has its twilight hour. But think you not, that beauty's sigh Will on evening's zephyr fly. And wander in ethereal blue, Beyond the regions of the dew ? There sweeping o'er some angel's lyre, Wakening joy and holy fire, Till Heaven's sweet minstrels own its power, And bless the sigh of twilight's hour. 'Twill play around some seraph's form ; But never, never, wing the storm. Sweet herald ! no : thou'lt come at even, To bring us peace and love of Heaven ; Take from the rose its fragrant charm, Woo other sighs from beauty warm, Or bear from earth some lovely flower. That died to hallow twilight's hour. !'^ LAYS OF A LIFETIME. TO A YOUNG FRIEND. " Perchance my harp and heart have lost a string And both may jar ; it may be, that in vain I may essay, as 1 have once, to sing. * * * * I care not ; so it fling Forgetfulness around me, it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme." Byron, My brow will be changed ere we meet again, And the flush of ray cheek be pallid with care, And thou shalt gaze on my dark lash in vain, For the joyous spirit that rested there. Thou art gone, — we shall meet, — but not till years Shall have swept away, with their reckless wing, That freshness of feeling the spirit wears, Ere the blushes it wreathes are withering. We shall meet. But Time ! Your cold finger flings Blighted flowers in our path for young life to wear ; You will gather its wild imaginings. But what will you have when you take them ? A Tear. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU. 99 You come ! and the smile from the lip must part ; You come ! and passion must ebb at your will ; You come ! but oh, not to the troubled heart, To say to the flood of its grief,— " Be still!" There are tears, sad tears, for the eye to shed ; There are tears, for the hour of midnight prayer ; There are tears, for the grave of the early dead ; We gather enjoyment, — and tears are there. They dampen the brow, ere the waving curls That shadow its whiteness, of age hath told ; While health on the cheek its banner unfurls, And hope is asleep on its crimson fold. Thou art gone,— we shall meet, — but not till years Shall have swept away, with their reckless wing, That fi-eshness of feeling the spirit wears, Ere the blushes it wreathes are withering. 100 LAYS OF A LIFETIME. ON THE DEATH OF W. \L INFANT SON OF J. H. S. " ' Wherefore should T fast ; can I briiig him back again. I shtUl go to him, but he shall not return to me.' This is evidently spoken by the Psalmist, as a gi-ound of comfort. The thought of going where his child had gone, consoled him under the present affliction. Yet it could have been no source of consolation to him, if he had not expected to meet and recognize his child again; but when he says, I shall go to him, we undei-stand him to say, I shall see him again, I shall Inotc him again. I shall embrace him again, and we then vmdei'stand how he was comforted. " Can the pious mother ' forget her child.' when she has laid its little form in the gi-ound, and feels that ' of such is the kingdom of heaven V Let her not sorrow as tiiose who have no hope ; she shall po to him," — Dr. I)ork o>» the " Jiecopnition of Fr!tinh in another World." Tnou hast a home, my boy, above the strife And all the tmnult of the changing hour ; Yet what is earth without thee, what is life? The drooping calyx of a liillen flower. Thy bird upon its perch is gaily singing ; Thy books, thy toys, all home is filled with thee : Even thy pencil line the past is bringing. To touch the heart whose pulse is memory. HEAD AND HEART IMPROMPTU, 101 At morn I miss thee, when from dreams I start, As "dear mother" seems to meet my ear, Till grief is whisp'ring to my wounded heart, That death has left me nothing, — but her tear. But most we mourn thee, when the shadows gather In the dim twilight round our lonely home ; The eye that watched the distance for its father : And the flushed lip that shouted, "He has come." Thy Bible yet is resting on its stand. And calls the many hours when thou hast stood Close by my side, and as thy little hand Placed its slight mark, would question me of goo