AMONG THE TREES. AMONG THE TREES. [William Cullen Bryant, born at Cummington, Massachusetts, 3d November, 1794; died 12th June, 1878. One of the most eminent of American poets. At ten he published several translations from the Latin poets. Educated for the law, he practised some years at the bar, and then devoted himself entirely to literature. He became editor of several literary journals; in 1826 he joined the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post, and maintained his connection with that journal till his death. His chief works are: Thanatopsis: The Ages: Forest Hymn; The Fountain, and other poems; The Whitefooted Deer, &c. A collected edition of his poetical works was published in England by H. S. King & Co. His prose works are: Medfield, and the Skeleton Cave, contributed to Tales of the Glauber Spa; Letters of a Traveller; Letters from Spain and other Countries, &c. Christopher North said, "It is indeed in the beautiful that the genius of Bryant finds its delight. He ensouls all dead insensate things in that deep and delicate sense of their seeming life, in which they breathe and smile before the eyes 'that love all they look upon,' and thus there is animation and enjoyment in the heart of the solitude."] Oh ye who love to overhang the springs, And stand by running waters, ye whose boughs Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play, Who pile with foliage the great hills, and rear A paradise upon the lonely plain, Trees of the forest, and the open field! Have ye no sense of being? Does the air, The pure air, which I breathe with gladness, pass In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your leaves, All unenjoyed? When on your winter sleep The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams of spring? And when the glorious spring-time comes at last, Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds To which your young leaves shiver? Do ye strive And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not? Feel ye no glory in your strength when he, The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills, And leaves you stronger yet? Or have ye not A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs? Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud And rends you, fall unfelt? Do there not run Strange shudderings through your fibres when the axe Is raised against you, and the shining blade Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, Your summits waver and ye fall to earth? Know ye no sadness when the hurricane Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, And piled the ruin all along his path? Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, There dwells a nature that receives delight From all the gentle processes of life, And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 239 Our sorrows touch you not. We watch beside The beds of those who languish or who die, And minister in sadness, while our hearts Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease And health to the beloved sufferers. But ye, while anxious fear and fainting hope Are in our chambers, ye rejoice without. The funeral goes forth; a silent train Moves slowly from the desolate home; our hearts Are breaking as we lay away the loved, Whom we shall see no more, in their last rest, Their little cells within the burial-place. Ye have no part in this distress; for still The February sunshine steeps your boughs And tints the buds and swells the leaves within; While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch, Tells you that spring is near. The wind of May Is sweet with breath of orchards, in whose boughs, The bees and every insect of the air Make a perpetual murmur of delight, And by whose flowers the humming-bird hangs poised As ye are, clothing the broad mountain-side Thus, as the seasons pass, ye keep alive Ye have no history. I cannot know Who, when the hill-side trees were hewn away, Haply two centuries since, bade spare this oak, Leaning to shade, with his irregular arms. Low-bent and long, the fount that from his roots Slips through a bed of cresses toward the bay, I know not who, but thank him that he left Ye have no history. I ask in vain Who planted on the slope this lofty group Of ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burst Into such breadth of bloom. One bears a scar Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet still It feels the breath of Spring, and every May Is white with blossoms. Who it was that laid Their infant roots in earth, and tenderly Cherished the delicate sprays, I ask in vain, Yet bless the unknown hand to which I owe This annual festival of bees, these songs Of birds within their leafy screen, these shouts Of joy from children gathering up the fruit Shaken in August from the willing boughs. Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared, Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground, Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs With every summer spread a wider shade, Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest Beneath your noontide shelter? who shall pluck Your ripened fruit? who grave, as was the wont Of simple pastoral ages, on the rind Of my smooth beeches some beloved name? Idly I ask; yet may the eyes that look Upon you, in your later, nobler growth, Look also on a nobler age than ours; An age when, in the eternal strife between Evil and Good, the Power of Good shall win A grander mastery; when kings no more Shall summon millions from the plough to learn The trade of slaughter, and of populous realms Make camps of war; when in our younger land The hand of ruffian Violence, that now Is insolently raised to smite, shall fall Unnerved before the calm rebuke of Law, And Fraud, his sly confederate, shrink, in shame, Back to his covert, and forego his prey. FORTUNE. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; AN EASTERN SCENE. [William Fullarton Cumming, M.D., born at Logie, on the banks of the Findhorn, Morayshire, 1804. He is a son of Burns' "Bonnie Leslie." He graduated at the Edinburgh University, and served some time on the Bengal medical staff. Having been invalided in 1834, he made extensive tours through Europe with Mr. John Campbell, Islay (author of Frost and Fire, &c.), and the present Duke of Argyll (then Marquis of Lorne). He spent the winter of 1836 on the Nile, and was the first traveller who recommended the climate of Egypt for pulmonary ailments. During a long residence in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh he has been an active, although unobtrusive, originator and supporter of various philanthropic movements. His chief work is The Notes of a Wanderer in Search of Health, through Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, &c., from which we quote. One critic says: "These Notes will be found to contain good thoughts and excellent materials for thinking; and many of the doctor's descriptions, carelessly hit off on the spot, convey better notions of scenes and objects than the more elaborate descriptions of other travellers."] June 14.-I am now seated under a group of the largest plane-trees in the world :—they are four in number-nearly all united at the trunks, and forming the large segment of a small circle. The external circumference of the whole is thirty-eight paces, and the trunk of the largest is thirty-five feet. Almost all are hollowed out into capacious caverns, where many persons may shelter themselves, secure from sun, and rain, and elemental war. It is a most delicious retreat; but I do not enjoy the shady repose alone: eight or ten cows are my companions-some standing close to my seat, scratching themselves against the aged trunks :-others stretched on the ground, chewing not the "cud of sweet or bitter fancy," and two of the number are standing before me in solemn vacuity, whisking their tails, and shaking their ears, with not a thought in their heads save how to rid themselves of the flies that torment them. Stretching up the valley is a large plain of green grass, gemmed with flowers, and fringed at its upper extremity by a row of olives; beyond which is a range of richly wooded hill. At a little distance on the right is an encampment of gipsies. Three small dingy tents are pitched on the green lawn, at the doors of which men are plying their handicraft. A number of broken pots and pans are ranged about:-clank, clank, goes the hammer on the anvil. It is the only sound I hear, and it teaches me, that the vocation of the gipsies of the east differeth not from that of their brethren of the west of Europe. The females of the party are squatted in sunny idleness, at some distance from the tents, and five cares. or six shaggy and half-naked children, swarthy | all fair, and blooming, and inviting withoutas the Ethiop, are frolicking in the neighbour- within containing only black and bitter ashes. hood, in happy ignorance of the world and its Even the mosques and minarets, so striking One of them has just come and asked from a distance, will not bear close inspection for charity in the Arab tongue. He is a wan- or analysis. The former fix the eye solely derer like myself, and I give him a piastre, with from their immense mass, forming landmarks which he is now scampering off with delight. amid the wilderness of houses, like islands in Behind me is the noble Bosphorus-translu- a stretch of ocean; but they have no architeccent, beautiful, and blue-rolling his never- tural grace. The same may be said of the ebbing tide from the bosom of the capacious minarets-huge long white-washed poles of Euxinemasonry, terminating in gray or gilded cones. I have narrowly examined the handsomest, but I looked in vain for the fanciful Arabesque decorations that adorn those of the Egyptian capital. I still hold to the opinion, that the view from the citadel of Cairo is the finest I have ever seen-that is to say, it exhibits a picture, less dazzling I admit than the Turkish capital, but infinitely more satisfactory to the mind, and pleasing to the eye. Three ascents of the Towers of Constantinople satisfied me; whereas I have been ten times at least on the citadel: of Cairo. The chief peculiarity which distinguishes Constantinople is the quantity of trees: "Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but holds Due on to the Propontick and the Hellespont." contrast of whose green leaves with the brownred colour of the roofs is at once remarkable and beautiful. But in winter, when the trees are shorn of their foliage, half the beauty of the city will have disappeared. There is certainly one most majestic and enduring feature: in the Bosphorus, not only from its own natural and unadorned beauties, but from the thousands of vessels on its bosom-from the tiny and swift canoe to the thundering line Unlike all other arms of the sea, his course is ever the same, "yesterday, to-day, and for ever,"-type of Him who traced out his channel and bade him to flow. Several vessels, and caiques without number, are floating on his cerulean wave-there, the "meteor flag of England" on a merchantman-here the star and crescent of the Moslem from the mizzen-peak of a line-of-battle ship. The day is heavenly. How unspeakable is the luxury of such a re-growing in the very heart of the town-the treat after the filthy streets of Constantinople! Escaping from that detestable town, I feel like the long-fettered prisoner who is admitted once more to taste the sweets of liberty. In all my experience, I have never been in a city possessing fewer attractions for a prolonged residence than Constantinople; and yet for external beauty and splendour it may challenge and defy the world. But let the stranger, after surveying its congregated and wondrous beauties from the towers of the Seraskier or of Ga-of-battle ship. Take away the Bosphoruslata, descend from his pride of place, to seek for the details of the gorgeous panorama, and he finds them not-he is hemmed in on every side the horizon bounded by walls of ricketty houses, having no elegance without, and no comfort within,-and then what streets he must walk upon! what hills to toil up, and what odours to inhale! Constantinople with all its boasted beauties is a mere delusion;-from the tower of Galata it is all that the eye of man can desire. The beholder looks with eager and delighted gaze-at length he is fairly bewildered-presently, sated with beauty, he descends into the heart of the town, and finds himself tricked-fairly hoaxed:-he now feels that his admiration was lavished not on a real picture; but that on the top of the tower he had indulged merely in an "amabilis insania" -a mirage in the desert-a "mentis gratissimus error." The view of Constantinople is like the apples said to grow on the shores of the Dead SeaVOL. VIII. let the season be winter, and the huge mosques. and glittering minarets may rear their heads: in vain. The only buildings worthy of a moment's admiration are the sibeels, kiosks, and palaces of the sultan. These are indeed beautiful-generally skirting the shores of the Bosphorus-of no particular order of architec-. ture, but so light, and fanciful, and aërial, that one might imagine them to have been erected by a band of fairies in a single night. As for the seven hills on which the city is said to be built, I have endeavoured in vain to define them by the eye. The silence that pervades this vast city is a circumstance that must strike every one. A carriage or cart, or even a horse, is hardly ever to be seen; neither are camels used here as beasts of burden: the climate first, and, secondly, the pavement of the streets, would destroy them. It has often been matter of surprise to me how the immense population is supplied with the necessaries of life. Venice with her canals and gondolas is not more free 185 and confused by a multiplicity of new objects, and the ears dinned by the tedious loquacity of a Cicerone. To do Mustapha justice, he is sparing of words, although rather tyrannical as to time. But the traveller must necessarily go through this ordeal:-then comes the pleasure, the sober pleasure of reflection—to linger in the place to inhale its moral atmosphere to saunter about without other object than that of looking about-to enter the thoroughfares and bazaars, not intending to buy, but merely to catch the hundred peculiarities, however trifling, which distinguish a new people from one's own, or from other nations-then to stray into the country, to examine its productions, and to watch the peasant at his labours. This is what constitutes the real pleasure of travelling, and not the boast of how many lions one may have slain in a single day. from the ordinary din of a large city than the capital of Turkey. But although there are few permanent attractions here, there is much to amuse and interest the traveller for twelve or fourteen days. He has hourly before him a population, more motley, perhaps, than that of any other city in the world: the solemn Turk -the lively Greek-the smooth and Jesuit-like Armenian-the sharp-eyed Jew-the sturdy Tartar-the teapot-faced and woolly African -the tall and graceful Circassian, with his loose gray robe and shaggy cap-the slight, but active Arab-the European traveller-and, lastly, the indigenous Franks. These are a miserable race. Pera swarms with them :fellows without country, without characterthe very scum of the earth-despising the Turks, and despised by them in return-men who have escaped the gallows or the jail in their own country, and have rendezvoused here, because they are free from all moral restraint. Such is, I believe, the general character of this race. Exceptions, of course, many exceptions there are; but these only strengthen the rule. The Circassians come here as panders to the FOR THE GLASSES OF THE KIT-CAT club, 1703. sensuality of the Turks, bringing their daughters to dispose of as slaves and mistresses to the great. Anxious to see a woman of their country, I called at the café where they congregate, but was told that the market was for the present empty. As for English society, it is, I believe, confined solely to a few British merchants; but having no introductions, I cannot speak as to its extent or attractions. The English traveller has only to present himself to Mr. Cartwright, the consul-general, even without recommendation, to be sure of a hospitable reception; so at least I found it, and others. have found the same. But if the city itself possess few lasting attractions, it is not so with the lovely and romantic solitudes of Therapia and Buykdereh. I know no transition more delightful than to pass from the crowded and confined streets of Constantinople, to the free, and fragrant, and bracing airs of the valleys of the Bosphorus. It is to me a positive luxury to rise in the morning, and feel that the day is my own, to smoke my long pipe after breakfast, without the fear before my eyes of Mustapha entering the room, with his rubicund face and gray beard, announcing that it is time to be off-to wander during the whole forenoon whithersoever the spirit prompteth-losing myself in a labyrinth of sweets, and seeking my home with the declining sun. I know no greater hardship than that of rushing through a large city, having the eyes and senses dazzled TOASTS DUCHESS OF ST. ALBAN'S. The line of Vere, so long renowned in arms, DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT. LADY MARY CHURCHILL. Born with our liberties in William's reign, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND. Of two fair Richmonds different ages boast, LADY SUNDERLAND. All nature's charms in Sunderland appear, CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX, |