Papers from Overlook House Part 12

Dread hour! nearing, nearing fast.

Yet I cannot wish thee past.

Death! Oh! but a dream till nigh, With night cold from eternity.

That cold night doth around me creep In which immortals never sleep.

The cloud its mighty shade doth fling, Like a mantle for a king, On the mountain's awful form, Scarred through battles with the storm.

So thy darkness falls on me, Darkness, such as cannot be, But to those whose soul is life, To a nation in its strife, That its wrongs for ever crushed, The cries of slaves forever hushed, And every chain forever gone, Man tremble before G.o.d alone; That man's true right, so long betrayed, On truth and justice shall be laid; That Freedom's martyr's work begun In blood, and fire, and hidden sun, Shall culminate in triumphs won; And the world's changing channels trace A course of hope for all our race.

Oh! how they as the humblest die, Who part from kingly majesty To stand before Him!--nothing there But as His image we may bear; The image by the humblest borne; The kings of the eternal morn.

The lowliest man, most void of power, To stand the trial of that hour!

To come from life in quiet shade, From humble duties well obeyed.

Ah! if this be a solemn thing, What then for one in might a king!

To meet the trial of that day From gorgeous wrongs in false array, Where false praise gilds the every deed, Where few warn one that will not heed; The man whom Weird-like hands have shown The weary pathway to the throne.

Oh! thou gory-crowned head Haunting here my dying bed!

Was it not necessity?

Moulding deed that was to be!

Oh! king so false--away--away-- Leave me at least my dying day.

Is there no refuge? Hated face!

Come with the looks of thy cold race.

Look thou as when thy soiled hand gave The Earl, thy va.s.sal to the grave.

Gaze thou on me in that worst pride As kingly honor was defied.

Look thus on me--but not as now, That patient sorrow on thy brow.

I can but gaze. Forever near Thy dreaded form is my one fear.

A boy, I sit by running stream, The humble life my daily dream: Some lowly good--some wrongs redrest, A noiseless life, its peaceful rest.

As that stream calm my life shall be; As placid in its purity.

The humble stone shall tell the tale When life began--when strength did fail.

An humble race shall bear my name Blest by a few not rich in fame.

Oh! king, thine eye! It says, but then Thy hand had not the guilty stain.

Hark! how the marriage-bells are ringing!

Voices fill the air with singing.

Waves of light are now the beating Of my heart, and the repeating Seems no weariness of pleasure, Only increase of its treasure.

Ah! dear wife! thy look hath sped Many a sorrow. But this head!

E'en at the hearth, and by thy side This kingly blood-stained form doth glide.

The quiet house of G.o.d,--the prayer Rising as incense in the air.

I breathe the still and mighty power, I catch the glory of the hour.

Am I not pure, and armed for strife With England for her better life?

Thou gory head! my prophecy, In that loved church told not of thee.

Look as if heaven changed thy face, Let pardon there at last have place: Before me, on this awful sea, Some gleam of heaven reflected be.

VIII.

_THE INDIAN DREAM-CELL._

In Pearl-run valley, not far from the noise and crowded streets of our great Metropolis, the original forests, and a few unsightly rural dwellings, have given place to a large number of those pleasant homes, which citizens of wealth or of comfortable means, have erected for their summer abodes. Hence the hills around are dotted with costly mansions, and unpretending cottages.

It is a sight inspiring happiness to look on these dwellings in the spring. You have evidence that so many families, released from the city are rejoicing in the pure invigorating air, in the suns.h.i.+ne and shadows, in the rooms a.s.sociated with so much ease and tranquility.

Can it be that any one can be found who is void of all sympathy with the natural world? All who seek these rural homes, at the established season, are supposed--if we are the correct exponents of common opinion,--to take wings from the city, for those cool and shady nests, under the influence of love for the country?

Of course, when the spring arrives, all who have led a fas.h.i.+onable career for the winter, have a sudden and marvellous restoration to their senses. Like those whom some friendly magician has freed from the enchantments of an evil genius, they are restored to a healthy judgment.

They then perceive the folly of the life which they have led. The absurdity of denominating as society, crowded a.s.semblies, where conversation bears the relation to interchange of thought, such as becomes intelligent creatures, which wilted and fallen leaves sustain to those of the beautiful and nutritious plant from which they have been torn,--where trifles and external polish are accepted in the place of the best qualities which can commend others to our esteem,--where friends.h.i.+ps are formed, not links of human creatures with affectionate qualities to one another, but to fas.h.i.+on, whose representatives they are,--friends.h.i.+ps to be dissolved, as easily as the melting of the Pyramids of frozen cream, all these facts become, as soon as the air is heated in spring, some of the most clear of all possible demonstrations.

Then they long for a more reasonable life. All that true poets or wise moralists have taught of the rural home, a.s.serts its power over the memory. All vulgar glare becomes utterly distasteful. Simplicity of life, amid a nature that summons man to cast off artificial follies, has a powerful fascination. They have been poor city puppets too long.

Let them now be true men and women, where all things are so true and real. Hence they hasten to the country.

Let us be thankful that any influences, even those of fas.h.i.+on, draw so many of our citizens from the towns to the country-places. Let us be thankful, that the great river of city-life,--hurrying on so madly, and tossing its stained waves crowned with bubbles that pain the eye, has its side eddies, and throws off great branches for far away shades, where the waters are at rest, and where innumerable small streams unite their efforts to purify that which has so long been so turbid.

Minds and hearts will touch one another in the rural scene. The limited number of a.s.sociates will foster some more depths of mutual interest.

The Sunday in the country, the rural church, the gathering of the congregation from green lanes, and winding roads, and not from streets sacred to pomp and vanity, to business, and to glaring sin, G.o.d so visible in all his glorious works, perhaps a Pastor trained by his labors among plain people during the winter, to speak the Word with greater simplicity, these are not influences which exist only in appearance. Men ask why make life such a vain and foolish dream? I trust the day will come, when many families of cultivated minds, will reside all the year in our country-places. From such social circles influences must go forth, to transform no inconsiderable portion of what is called the society of the town. The necessary a.s.sociation of the two cla.s.ses, will prove of inestimable benefit to each.

If you pa.s.sed along Pearl-run valley, and left the more cultivated region, which we have described, the scene changed, and you found yourself in wild places.

There were steep cliffs, with endless ma.s.ses of broken stone beneath, as if a Giant McAdam, ages ago had been meditating the formation of a great road, like that we pigmies build on a smaller scale, in these degenerate days. And there were mountains where you could scarcely detect any proof that the hand of man had disturbed the primeval forests.

These you could ascend by winding paths, and attain elevations, where half the world seemed to lie beneath your feet. Well do I remember such an ascent with a sister, who had been a few hours before, with me in the crowded city.

Our time was limited. What we could see of the glorious scenes around us, must be accomplished late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down while we were climbing up the side of the mountain. We had never been in such deep shadows. For the first time in our lives, we knew what was the awful grandeur of solitude. Our existence seemed more sublime for the solemn awe.

As we hastened on to reach a vast rock, from whose summit we were a.s.sured, the view was one of surpa.s.sing beauty, we met some children, wild in appearance, barefooted, seeking cattle that found pasturage in an open s.p.a.ce, scarcely perceptible to the eye, that, at a distance, could take in the whole aspect of the mountain. But one of these little creatures in her kindness added, with surpa.s.sing power the effect of the wilderness.

"Take care," she said, "you may be lost." We, in the vast mountain where we could be lost!

What a sound for ears so lately filled with the noise of the crowded city! Oh child! what human study could have taught the greatest genius in our land, to speak and add to the solemn power, of that most memorable time, of two awed and enthusiastic wanderers!

How strange it is that the intense excitement of the soul, among such scenes, is such a healthy peace--never the over-wrought exertion of the mind! The intense activity within us does not _subside_ into tranquility. It is elevated to a peace. If you would have true enjoyment there, G.o.d,--the Infinite Father,--our immortality--the world our Redeemer has promised us, must be placed side by side with every impression.

Our forests are strangely primeval solitudes, when you reflect what tribes of Indians have resided in them. That wild people have left there no traces of their existence. You often seem to be one of a few, who alone have ever disturbed the Sabbath rest of very holy places.

Why did not the aboriginal inhabitants leave us in letters carved on the rocks, traditions, which our learned and ingenious men could interpret?

We know not what we have lost in our deprivation of wonderful mysteries.

We wander by great oaks, and stony places unconscious of powers that linger there. The lore of demons and of spirits that plagued or comforted the Indians is lost to us.

Yet, let us not be unjust as though the civilization which has superseded the rude Indian life, had given us no romantic subst.i.tutes for these powers which agitated the barbarian. And especially let us be just to the genius of those who came over from the wilds of Germany, as well as those who had their intellect brightened by the illumination of Plymouth Rock. The imaginations of the two, were, indeed, very diverse in their nature. They differed as the stiff gowns and ample pantaloons, all so quaintly made, from the paint and skins which made the array of the savage.

I am by no means insensible to the poetry which speaks to us in the horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep away witches, whose fears were the more suggestive, because no one ever described the full power of the mischief they were able to accomplish; and to the mysterious art medicinal, rivalling in wisdom many of the celebrated systems of the schools, whereby the muttering of strange words could cure a fever and ague,--and where a nail that had pierced the foot was safely wrapped up and laid up the chimney as a preventive of lock-jaw. The world is not so prosaic as some would imagine.

I am happy, however, in being able to rescue one important tradition from oblivion.