Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

She knew she should find them all again,
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;

"Twas an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

LESSON XVII.

THE CHILD OF

EARTH.

FAINTER her slow steps fall from day to day,
Death's hand is heavy on her darkening brow,
Yet doth she fondly cling to earth, and say,

66

"I am content to die, but oh! not now!

Not while the blossoms of the joyous spring

Make the warm air such luxury to breathe; Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing;

Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe. Spare me, Great God! lift up my drooping brow; I am content to die, but oh! not now!"

The spring hath ripened into summer time;
The season's viewless boundary is past;
The glorious sun hath reached his burning prime;
Oh, must this glimpse of beauty be the last?
"Let me not perish while o'er land and lea,
With silent steps, the Lord of light moves on;
Not while the murmur of the mountain bee

Greets my dull ear with music in its tone.
Pale sickness dims my eye, and clouds my brow:
I am content to die, but oh! not now!"

Summer is gone; and autumn's soberer hues

Tint the ripe fruits, and gild the waving corn;
The huntsman swift the flying game pursues,
Shouts the halloo, and winds his eager horn:
"Spare me awhile, to wander forth and gaze
On the broad meadows, and the quiet stream,
To watch in silence while the evening rays

Slant through the fading trees with ruddy gleam;
Cooler the breezes play around my brow;

I am content to die, but oh! not now!"

The bleak wind whistles; snow-showers, far and near,
Drip without echo to the whitening ground;
Autumn hath passed away, and, cold and drear,
Winter stalks on, with frozen mantle bound:
Yet still that prayer ascends.
"Oh! laughingly

My little brothers round the warm hearth crowd,
Our home-fire blazes broad, and bright, and high,
And the roof rings with voices light and loud:
Spare me awhile! raise up my drooping brow!
I am content to die, but oh! not now!"

The spring is come again, the joyful spring;

Again the banks with clustering flowers are spread ;
The wild bird dips upon its wanton wing;

The child of earth is numbered with the dead!
Thee never more the sunshine shall awake,
Beaming all redly through the lattice-pane;
The steps of friends thy slumbers may not break,
Nor fond familiar voice arouse again;
Death's silent shadow vails thy darkened brow;
Why didst thou linger? thou art happier now!

MRS. NORTON,

LESSON XVIII.

RESIGNATION.

ON a beautiful evening, about the middle of July, I pursued my walk along a narrow path, that stretched through an extensive wood, to enjoy, alone and undisturbed, that soothing melancholy, which is to me sweeter than the turbulence of social merriment. The sun had just set; the twilight star was twinkling, like the eyes of a beautiful woman, whose lashes are quivering with the effects of departing sorrow, that bedewed them with tears; and the thrush was pouring forth his vesper hymn on the topmost twig of the tall larch tree, as if he thought that his song would sound the sweeter, the nearer he could make his perch to heaven.

It was to me a scene of peculiar interest. On the one side, stood the home of my father and mother, brothers and sisters, the affectionate beings who appeared to me parts of my own existence, without whom, without one of whom I could not be happy; and on the other side, lay the church-yard, where my

[ocr errors]

forefathers slept in the narrow house,' and where my kindred and myself were in all likelihood destined to sleep; one of us, perhaps, in a few days, for my mother was at that time sick;— the being who gave me birth, who nourished me on her bosom in infancy, who consoled my sorrows in manhood;—the thought of her death was dreadful. But my mind was soon called from its agonizing anticipations, by the tremulous tones of a plaintive voice; when, on looking around me, I saw a man kneeling beneath a branching fir, and praying loudly and fervently. It was not, however, the prayer of the Pharisee, in the corner of the street, where every eye might behold him: the person before me, was unconscious that any eye beheld him, but that of his Creator, whom he was so earnestly supplicating.)

I never saw a more affecting picture of devotion. I have seen the innocent child lay its head upon its mother's knee, and lisp out its evening prayer; and the father of a family kneel in the midst of his domestic circle, and ask the blessing of God to be upon them and him. I have seen the beautiful maiden, whose lips, to the youthful imagination, seemed only tuned to the song of pleasure, whisper the responses in the public assembly of worship; and the dim-eyed matron stroke back her hoary tresses, and endeavor to mingle her quivering voice with the sublime symphony of the pealing organ all these have I seen, and felt the beauty of each; but this solitary worshiper affected me more deeply, than I had ever before experienced.

I

His knees were bent upon the deep green earth, where his Bible lay on the one side of him, and his hat on the other; his hands were lifted up, his raven hair waved in the breeze, and his eyes were raised to heaven; yet I saw, or fancied I saw, that he was frequently obliged to close them, and press out the tears that flowed to them from the fountain of sorrow. passed him unperceived, with respect for his devotional feelings, and sympathy with his accumulated afflictions. I knew him well. He was a laborer of the neighboring hamlet, intelligent and respectable in his sphere of life. Often had I met with him in the same path, walking with his wife and children; two little boys that plucked the wild flowers as they proceeded, and an infant girl that yet nestled in its mother's bosom.

He was devotedly attached to his family, and I considered him one of the happiest men in existence; for his wife appeared altogether worthy of the respect he paid her, and his children were as beautiful and promising as a parent's heart could have wished. He and I often entered into conversation, and I was not only pleased, but frequently astonished by his remarks; for his lips were unrestrained by the reserve of polished life, and all his most eccentric conceptions, and all his deepest feelings, were in a moment laid open and naked before you, in all their singularity and beauty.

He had read a good deal, but he had thought more than he had read; and, in consequence, there was a poetical originality in his mind, and a poetical enthusiasm in his heart, which were peculiarly pleasing to a person who has felt his generous emotions repulsed and chilled by the cold and affected votaries of fashion. He was quite contented with his laborious occupation; for, as he said, his toils seemed light and pleasant, when he considered that they were undergone for the comfort of the wife who, like a fruitful vine,' spread the blossoms of pleasure around his cottage; and of the children who, ‘like olive plants,' arose to support him when bowed down by the burden of age.

6

[ocr errors]

The anticipation of an early death did not even appall him; for in that case, as he observed, there was a God in heaven who would prove a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow, and the orphan's stay, and the stranger's shield.' The dictates of philosophy are weak, in comparison with the power of this religious trust; it is the rock under whose shadow the weary find repose, the rock whose summit is brightened by sunshine, while the valley from which it rises is covered with clouds and darkness. My friend, the poor laborer, clung to it with enthusiasm in his severe domestic trials. A malignant fever, like the storm that blasts the blossoms of spring, entered the hamlet, and, in the space of two months, swept off more than a third of the children. There was scarcely a cottage that had not numbered one of its little inmates with the dead.

It has been said, with what degree of truth I know not, that the loss of children is the heaviest trial by which the human heart can be visited; because, as it is averred, the attachment of the parent to the child is stronger than that of the child to

the parent. I have no doubt, that if a person have a family to divide the stream of affection, the death of a father or a mother will be felt with less poignancy than if the solitary mourner have no object, as near and as dear, on which he can fix the lacerated ties of love, that have been forced to quit their hold of the bosom that withers in a parent's grave. As each of these domestic calamities is, for a time, as severe as mortal creature can conceive; and as the man who feels the acuteness of the green wounds of affliction, cannot properly estimate the pain of those that have been healed by the influence of time, there appears to me no use in making, and no certainty in the result of, the comparison.

I might, however, argue against the received opinion, by saying, that the place of a parent, when once empty, can never be filled; whereas the bosom that has given its nursling to the grave, may yet have the happiness to nourish another, and the parental heart may half forget its withered scion, until it finds it blooming in heaven. All I intend to say on the subject at present is, that my poor friend lost both his little boys, whose funerals were only divided by three melancholy days; and that, on the evening when I saw him praying in the lonely wood, his infant girl, his only remaining child, lay on the very brink of dissolution.

Having reached the end of the solitary footpath, I returned homeward, and still found the afflicted man in the attitude of prayer; perhaps unconscious, amid the strife of his spirit, of the time that had passed over him while employed in this act of heartfelt devotion. As soon as I descried him, a female came running along the path, and informed him that the child was dead. He arose with a trembling frame, and a face that bore the fearful look of despair; or rather, the look of that reckless frenzy, which prompted him to dispute with his Maker the justice of the calamity that had befallen him. This was but for a moment; he soon became firm and calm, and exclaimed, with a subdued spirit, 'The Lord's will be done.' It was enough; it was a balm for his wounded soul, a cordial to his fainting heart.

He then followed the steps of the female, who had disappeared, to the house of mourning,' to condole with the childless mother, whose heart had mingled its feelings with his

« ForrigeFortsæt »