177. THE RETURN FROM SCHOOL. THE well-known morn, I used to greet
With boyhood's joy at length was beaming,
And thoughts of home and raptures sweet
In every eye but mine were gleaming;
But I, amidst that youthful band,
Of bounding hearts and beaming eyes,
Nor smiled nor spoke at joy's command,
Nor felt those wonted ecstacies!
I loved my home, but trembled now
To view my father's altered brow;
I feared to meet my mother's eye,
And hear her voice of agony;
I feared to view my native spot,
Where one who loved it now was not.
The pleasures of my home were fled ;-
My brother slumbered with the dead.
I stood not by his feverish bed,
I looked not on his glazing eye,
Nor gently lulled his aching head,
Nor viewed his dying agony :
I felt not what my parents felt-
The doubt-the terror- the distress;
Nor vainly for my brother knelt ;
My soul was spared that wretchedness:
One sentence told me, in a breath,
My brother's illness and his death!
I drew near to my father's gate;
No smiling faces met me now;
I entered,—all was desolate,
I heard her, as she kissed me, sigh;
A tear stood in my father's eye;
My little brothers round me pressed,
In gay, unthinking childhood blessed.
Long, long, that hour has pass'd; but when
Shall I forget its gloomy scene!
178. THE POWER OF MUSIC.
[From THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.]
OW sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold 'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls!
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Do but observe a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood:
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand;
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
EAR what Highland Nora said:
"The Earlie's son I will not wed,
Should all the race of nature die,
And none be left but he and I.
For all the gold, and all the gear,
And all the lands, both far and near,
That ever valour lost or won,
I will not wed the Earlie's son."
"A maiden's vows," old Callum spoke,
"Are lightly made and lightly broke.
The heather on the mountain's height
Begins to bloom in purple light;
The frost wind soon shall sweep away
That lustre drop from glen and brae;
Yet Nora, ere its bloom be gone,
May blithely wed the Earlie's son."
"The swan," she said, "the lake's clear breast May barter for the eagle's nest;
The Awe's fierce stream may backward turn,
Ben Cruachan fall and crush Kilchurn;
Our kilted clans, when blood is high,
Before their foes may turn and fly:
But I, were all these marvels done,
Would never wed the Earlie's son."
Still in the water-lily's shade
Her wonted nest the wild swan made;
Ben Cruachan stands as fast as ever;
Still downward foams the Awe's fierce river;
To shun the flash of foeman's steel
No Highland brogue has turn'd the heel:
But Nora's heart is lost and won-
She's wedded to the Earlie's son.
180. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE BIRDS. [From TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN.]
ND so the mournful massacre began:
O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests,
The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran :
Down fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,
Or wounded crept away from sight of man,
While the young died of famine in their nests:
A slaughter to be told in groans not words,-
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!
The summer came, and all the birds were dead!
The days were like hot coals: the very ground
Was burned to ashes: in the orchards fed
Myriads of caterpillars; and around
Each cultivated field and garden bed,
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert, without leaf or shade.
The farmers grew impatient; but a few
Confessed their error, and would not complain; For, after all, the best thing one can do, When it is raining, is to let it rain : Then they repealed the law, although they knew It would not call the dead to life again; As schoolboys, finding their mistakes too late, Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. That year at Killingworth the autumn came, Without the light of his majestic look,The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,
The illumined pages of his doomsday book! A few last leaves blushed crimson with their shame, And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, Lamenting the lost children of the air!
181. GOD IN NATURE.
[From THE TASK.]
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
|