THE MOTHER. A Fragment. SCENE-A Plantation near the Guayaquil River, South America. FERDINAND and ISABELLA. Isabella. OH! Ferdinand, didst mark the setting sun? By angels' fingers wrought. Fer. Thou'rt a dear, foolish, fanciful- Fer. Ay, let it stand. But prithee tell me, love, Behold! Fer. Ha! 'tis my child, my blessed boy, my Carlos! See, he wakes! Isa. Hush, pretty life, here's nought to fright thee, sweet; Yet music to me more dear thy causeless cry, And e'er to me a sufficit of bliss, To see thy seraph-smile of ignorant joy; Now is the little urchin in his glory. Fer. Heav'n keep ye both! Who would not be a mother? Scarce are his eyes SO dark as thine, my Isabel. Isa. Not quite so dark, but very, very bright; Methinks I read a dawning genius in them. Fer. Genius! That likes me not!-Rather would I He might possess his mind in deep research; A scholar, learn'd in divers languages. Isa. Give me my humour; let me think to see him Val'rous in battle, or far-famed in poesy. Fer. Hold, my dear wife; 'twere hardly well to let our Wanton fancies thus outrun futurity. Many a turning year must pass the world, Between the wish and its desired fulfilment ; Please heaven, he be spared to us. Isa. Cruel father, write not his doom to die; Maternal fears, touching the infant's life, We'll have him strait convey'd to other shores. Isa. Convey'd to other shores! Think ye I'll brook Part with a part of my own soul and substance? I fear not for his life; I'll stand a rampart betwixt him and death;' A halting place, where evil cannot pass; Blossom of life! how could I live without thee! I am not needful to thy selfish joys, then; When you have learn'd to better prize my company, Isa. So, now I've anger'd him, the jealous churl! I'll follow strait, and softly seek t' appease him; (Goes out, but shortly returns.) my (Throws herself between the alligator and the child. ) Enter SCIPIO and SLAVES.. Scipio. What shriek I heard!—'Twas like O frightful sight! my mistress' voice! Where is some weapon,-quick thy hunting spear; Seize ye Away-hence-haste,-on to the house-speed, speed; LINES TO SAPPHO. OH! there is a joy in straying Alone by the deep, When Luna's beams are playing, And savage waters sleep. But a charm more true and tender, A radiance more divine, And listen to the shell, O'er thy simple guitar. Though the voices of the daughters O'er the surface of the waters, Yet sweeter o'er the waters Of earth's troubled sea, ARIA. Most lovely of her daughters, It hath melody more cheering At the calm and placid hour, Though borne on haughty pinion, While the spirit, unrepining, Thy snowy hands are twining, As we list to thy strain. ADOLESCENS. SKETCHES FROM NATURE. No. 2. "IT's getting dark, mother," said a pretty little girl about five years of age, as she drew her chair to the side of her mother, looking up with the artlessness of innocence into her face; "It's getting dark, mother, and father is not come home yet;" -"and the wind blows a gale," continued a healthy looking lad, two or three years older" the waves break right over the black rock;-I've just been to St. Anthony's Point, and there's one boat come ashore, and lost her rudder; -and old Thomas's boat is swamp ed, and gone ashore below the church;-but I can't see any thing of father yet:"The scene of this conversation was one of those humble fishermen's huts that are strewed here and there bordering on the coast of the Channel, among the bleak and barren hills on the south west coast of Cornwall. The interior was neat and cleanly, and appeared to be the abode of peace and contentment. The mother of these two youthful prattlers, held an infant in her arms, which she had just been feeding The idea that it was getting late, and her husband not returned, induced her to hasten to the beach, where he was accustomed to house his little boat when the evening threatened to be tempestuous;-it had always been her practice in their days of courtship to hail her beloved James on landing, and had never been omitted since their marriage, unless detained by sickness or some imperious duty. Methinks all the toils and dangers of the past would be amply repaid, and every gloomy anticipation of futurity be banished, as the rolling wave has borne him proudly to the shore, where the fond bosom, of which he was the life and joy, was waiting to receive him. She had been too much accustomed to witness the tempest in its fury, to feel particularly apprehensive for the safety of her husband on the present occasion. Taking the infant in her arms, young Jemmy at the same time leading the little girl by the hand, she proceeded to the The beach to greet his arrival. dark, heavy clouds swept wildly over the face of heaven, the hoarse waves lashed the unshaken shore, and far and near, the white foam of the ocean was driven to a distance in an unceasing shower. When she arrived at the point, a spot of ground which runs like a little promontory into the sea, being considerably elevated above the surrounding shores, she anxiously strained her eyes, to catch, if possible, a glimpse of James's little skiff. Three of the boats belonging to a neighbouring hamlet were already arrived; one of which was much shattered by a tremendous surge, that dashed it against the rocky shore. She stood on tip-toe, looking solicitously round for some time, when the little girl first pointing her finger, and then clapping her hands for joy, cried, "There, there, mother; that's father's boat;"-" Where, my love, where ?"-" Oh! it's gone now, but you'll soon see it again"-in a few minutes she exclaimed, "Now can't you see it over yonder-a great way off?"-she saw, and her heart withered as she saw ;-it was as far as eye could reach, through the gloom of the tempest and the approaching shades of evening. They had 'not been able to carry sail for some time, and the wind blowing down the channel, with the ebbing tide, afforded no prospect of their reaching land for some hours;-to live in such a sea, with a light bark like theirs, was next to impossible; and the melancholy presentiments of a tender and affectionate wife, under such circumstances, may be better conceived than described. Lucy (for that was her name) lingered on the point for some time, to catch at intervals a glance of his tossed bark, as it mounted the topmost waves, till the darkness of night rendered it impossible for her to discern any thing, save the milk-white foam of the boiling billows, as they burst with harsh and thundering roar against the foot of the firm rock on which she stood; whilst the spray flying around drenched her with its dews: "Come, mother," said the little girl, shivering with cold, "let us go home;-father is there by this, I dare say;-and we will all sit by the fire, and dry our clothes ;-I am so wet;-and baby's wet too, mother, come, let's run, Jemmy, and get there first." At the voice of her child she started, her thoughts had been on the dark waves, and vied with them in wildness; she found, for the first time, that they were indeed wet; for as night and increasing distance shut the little vessel from her view, she had insensibly drawn nearer and nearer to the shore, till she could trace it no longer, she now turned towards home, occasionally stopping and looking wistfully round; strained her eyes to see, and ears to hear, something of him who had been the joy of her heart, with whom she had rejoiced in prosperity, and on whom she had leaned in sorrow. On her arrival at home, her children were waiting for her; she had sometimes left it to meet him with a sorrowing heart, but never till now had she returned uncomforted, because she had never before returned without him. Her humble fire-side appeared cheerless and dull, like the countenance of the dead, wanting the soul that animated it. "Alas!" said she, seating herself before the turf fire, which the boy was assiduously blowing, "alas! what hardships my poor husband endures, even at this moment; whilst I am seated at ease with his own dear innocents smiling round me, he is battling with the foaming waves, or haply sinking in their briny bosom," -her face was pale, a tear rolled down her cheek, and heaving a deep sigh, she raised her eyes to heaven, and ejaculated with almost delirious fervour, "Oh! spare-spare him→ or we must all perish." After having put her children to bed, she gave them each the nightly maternal kiss, but not in smiles as she was wont-it was bedewed with tears, as she thought on their wretched father. From the roar of the waves which was heard like distant thunder, and the increasing fierceness of the wind, as it whistled through the crevices of her lowly dwelling, it was evident that the storm grew more furious: she arose, Eur. Mag. Vol. 82. and opening the door, stood listening; not a star shot forth its silvery ray to enliven the mariner with the whisperings of hope; no sound was heard, save the dread concussion of elemental strife, or the remorseless dash of billows; sometimes she fancied she could hear an approaching footstep; but it was all a deception, and at length she closed the door in the bitterness of despair. The thought suggested itself,-he might have sheltered in some of the neighbouring creeks,—but as morning approached, and James came not, these hopes gradually died away. -Once indeed she imagined she heard him at the door, she sprang to open it; and a neighbouring fisherman presented himself;-he was a dark looking and surly fellow, who had always been viewed by Lucy with an eye of fear mingled with disgust; as she understood he was connected with some smugglers that frequented the coast, and she trembled lest he might persuade James to join in their illegal and dangerous traffic. He said he was just come to ask if James was come home; she answered in a low and feeling negative. In his rough uncultivated manner he endeavoured to cheer her;-but there was a degree of coarseness and brutality in his manner, that made Lucy involuntarily shudder. circumstance he mentioned which encouraged her to hope all was well. One Mayhap," said he, "he's now gone to Davy's, after all-one o' th' boats is snugly riding in St. Anthony's creek;" she clasped him by the arm in an extasy of delight, and was about to ask him to step in, when he continued," And what if he is drowned-and that's the worst, you know--ye'll stand a rare chance to better yourself. I've had some thoughts about you myself---you're passable enough, and you've gotten a pratty pair of eyes of your own, and a nice soft rosy cheek, I'll warrant." He was about to place his brawny arm round her neck, when she stepped back, and dashed the door in his face; the unfeeling brute, after having endeavoured to open it in vain, muttering his deadly curses, slowly retired, and the last sound of his foot-fall was soon mingled and lost in the roar of the tempest. As D -- she day advanced, the storm abated, and outstretching her hand to complete the dreadful task, it touched the marble cheek, her eye at the same time resting on the fine, but faded features of her adored James, which her child, unconscious of the awful truth, was in the act of kissing. She fetched a deep and mournful sigh, and fell senseless on the corpse:-from that time her mind became a ruin and a wreck. On her revival to life, her mental powers were deranged; she laughed, she wept, she talked incoherently,-but oftentimes kindly and affectionately: like an instrument out of tune, there was something sweet even in her ravings;-each future ill of life fell on her heart like dew on the adamantine rock, leaving no trace behind-there were ideas, but they were disunited and broken;-there was imagination, but it was lawless and unreined;---there were thoughts, but they were wild and wandering: thenceforth her mind became like a comet in its flight, rolling unchecked through the eternity of space. Her children were orphans ;---during her lifetime, one only feeling gleamed through the darkness of delirium that enveloped her ;---it was maternal love-she still pressed her helpless infant to her bosom with the tenderest care;---when it wept, she sooth -- The wind continued gradually to abate, but the face of the ocean, as far as eye could reach, presented but one dreary forest of waves. She returned once more to her hut with less of hope, and gloomier fears. After having dressed her smiling innocents, and partaken their frugal but melancholy breakfast, the affectionate family sallied forth to the beach there was now only a moderate breeze, but the billows were still rolling darkly and tumultuously; after searching for some time, the little boy espied something the retired it; when it slumbered, she ing tide had left on the shore close watched it; when it smiled, she by the church-yard ;---they hastened kissed it--night and day became to the spot; it was a sail severed the same to her; and all objects, all from the mast, apparently belong- sights, all sounds, were alike uning to some small lug sail boat. heeded, or only noticed with a heartAs they drew near, Lucy perceived less smile. a dead body attached to it ;---the feet were all that was visible, the sail covering the head and neck ;---she ran; ---she knelt down beside it; ---and with her right hand, gradually uncovered the neck ;---it was bare, and the unbuttoned shirt collar lay carelessly open; one arm was stretched out, and the other formed a pillow for the head, which heeded it not ;--could it be James ?---she gazed wildly around, her eyes appeared starting from their sockets;---her heart sick ened ---she could proceed no further, but turning away her head, looked intensely on the invidious wave ;--meanwhile the officious little girl had drawn the sail wholly aside; shivering with acutest agony, she again turned her head, and was She would sometimes start distractedly, and exclaim, "There--there--the waves have got him;--they sweep--they roll---they burst over his head ;---save---save---oh! save him:"---and then with a loud laugh fall exhausted on the ground. The day arrived when they were to consign the last remains of the departed and lamented James to the parent earth. He was borne from the pretty cottage, once the abode of happiness and content, now of death, orphanage, and delirium:---she saw him laid in the grave, hard by the spot where his body was first discovered, but she was wholly unconcerned: her look was vacancy, and her every action bespoke her a lunatic :---her children sobbed bitterly as they saw |