Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

was in my companion's valise to occasion this amount of solicitude was a bundle of his sweetheart's letters!

5. Supper being ended, our hosts left us. They slept below, we in the room above that where we had supped. A loft, to which we had to mount seven or eight feet by a ladder, was our destined place of repose. It was a sort of nest, into which one had to insinuate himself by creeping under cross-beams, hung with provisions for the whole year. My comrade made his way up alone, and threw himself down, already half-asleep, with his head on the precious valise. As for myself, I determined to watch; and, making a good fire, I sat down near it.

6. The night wore away tranquilly enough, and was at length near its end. I was beginning to be reassured, when, just before the break of day, I heard our host and his wife talking and disputing down stairs. Listening intently at the chimney, which communicated with that below, I distinctly heard the husband utter these words: " Well, come, now, must we kill them both?" To which the woman replied, "Yes; " and I heard nothing more. How shall I describe my emotions? I remained almost breathless, my whole body frigid as marble. To have seen me, you would not have known whether I was dead or alive. Ah! when I but think of it, even now!

7. Two of us, almost without weapons, against twelve or fifteen, so remarkably well provided! And my comrade halfdead with sleep and fatigue! To call him-to make a noise I did not dare; escape by myself I could not; the window was not very high from the ground, but beneath it were two savage bull-dogs, howling like wolves. Imagine, if you can, in what a dilemma I found myself. At the end of a long quarter of an hour I heard some one on the stairs, and, through the cracks of the door, I saw the father, with a lamp in one hand, and one of his big knives in the other. Up he came, his wife after him, I behind the door: he opened it; but, before entering, he put down the lamp, which his wife took; then he entered barefoot, and she, outside, said, in a low tone, shading the light with her hand, "Softly, go softly!"

8. When he got to the ladder he mounted, holding the knife between his teeth. Approaching the head of the bed, where my poor young companion, with throat uncovered, was lying, with one hand the monster grasped his knife, and with the other Ah! cousin with the other he seized a ham, which hung from the ceiling, cut a slice, and retired as he had entered. The door closed, the lamp disappeared, and I was left alone to my reflections.

[ocr errors]

9. As soon as the day dawned, all the family came bustling to

waken us, as we had requested. They brought us something to cat, and spread, I assure you, a very clean and nice breakfast. Two chickens formed part of it, of which, our hostess told us, wo were to eat one and take away the other. Seeing these, I at length comprehended the meaning of those terrible words, "Must we kill them both?" And I think you, too, cousin, will have penetration enough to guess now what they signified.

10. Cousin, I have a favor to ask: do not tell this story. In the first place, as you cannot fail to perceive, I do not play a very enviable part in it. In the next place, you will spoil it. Indeed, I do not flatter: it is that face of yours which will ruin the effect of the recital. As for myself, without vanity I may say, I have just the countenance one ought to have in telling a tale of terror.

ORIGINAL TRANSLATION FROM P. L. COURIER

[blocks in formation]

J. I AM in Rome! Oft as the morning ray
Visits these eyes, waking, at once I cry,

Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me'
And from within a thrilling voice replies,

Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts
Rush on my mind, a thousand images;
And I spring up as girt to run a race!

2. Thou art in Rome! the city that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;
Thou art in Rome! the city where the Gauls,
Entering at sunrise through her open gates,
And, through her streets silent and desolate,
Marching to slay, thought they saw gods, not men ;
The city that by temperance, fortitude,
And love of glory, towered above the clouds,
Then fell-but, falling, kept the highest seat,
And in her loneliness, her pomp of woe,

Where now she dwells, withdrawn into the wild,
Still o'er the mind maintains,
from age

Her empire undiminished.

3. There, as though

to age,

Grandeur attracted grandeur, are beheld

All things that strike, ennoble-from the depths
Of Egypt, from the classic fields of Greece,
Her groves, her temples all things that inspire
Wonder, delight! Who would not say the forms
Most perfect, most divine, had by consent
Flocked thither to abide eternally,

Within those silent chambers where they dwell
In happy intercourse?.

4 And I am there!

Ah! little thought I, when in school I sat,
A schoolboy on his bench, at early dawn
Glowing with Roman story, I should live
To tread the Appian, once an avenue
Of monuments most glorious, palaces,
Their doors sealed up and silent as the night,
The dwellings of the illustrious dead; - to turn
Toward Tiber, and, beyond the city gate,
Pour out my unpremeditated verse,
Where on his mule I might have met so oft
Horace himself; - - or climb the Palatine,EI
Dreaming of old Evander and his guest,
Inscribe my name on some broad ǎloe-leaf,
That shoots and spreads within those very walls
Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine,
Where his voice faltered, and a mother wept
Tears of delight!

5. But what a narrow space

Just underneath! In many a heap the ground
Heaves, as though Ruin in a frantic mood
Had done his utmost. Here and there appears,
As left to show his handiwork, not ours,
An idle column, a half-buried arch,

A wall of some great temple. It was once
The Forum, whence a mandate, eagle-winged,
Went to the ends of the earth. Let us descend,
Slowly. At every step much may be lost.
The very dust we tread stirs as with life;
And not the lightest breath that sends not up
Something of human grandeur. We are come,
Are now where once the mightiest spirits met
In terrible conflict; this, while Rome was free,
The noblest theatre on this side heaven!

6. Here the first BrutusEI stood, Of her so chaste all mourned,

when o'er the corse and from his cloud

Burst like a god. Here, holding up the knife
That ran with blood, the blood of his own child,
Virginius called down vengeance.

Here CincinnatusEI passed, his plough the while
Left in the furrow; and how many more

Whose laurels fade not, who still walk the earth,
Consuls, dictators, still in curule

pomp

Sit and decide, and, as of old in Rome,

Name but their names, set every heart on fire!

7. Now all is changed; and here, as in the wild,
The day is silent, dreary as the night;
None stirring, save the herdsman and his herd,
Savage alike; or they that would explore,
And learnedly discuss; or they that come
(And there are many who have crossed the earth)
That they may give the hours to meditation,
And wander, often saying to themselves,
"This was the Roman Forum!"

ROGERS.

[ocr errors]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Ar summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky'
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near
"T is distance lends enchantment to the view,

?

And robes the mountain in its āzure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus from afar each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been
And every form that Fancy can repair,
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

2. FAME.-Pope.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call;
She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.
But if the purchase cost so dear a price
As soothing Folly, or exalting Vice,
O! if the MuseEI must flatter lawless sway,
And follow still where Fortune leads the way,-
Or if no basis bear my rising name,

But the fallen ruins of another's fame,

Then teach me, Heaven! to scorn the guilty bays,
Drive from my breast that wretched lust of praise;
Unblemished let me live, or die unknown;

O, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!

[blocks in formation]

Why start at death? Where is he? Death arrived
Is past; not come, or gone, he 's never here!
Ere hope, sensation fails; black-boding man
Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow.

The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm,
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,

The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death which Nature never made
Then on the point of his own tancy falls,
And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.

4. KOSCIUSKO.EI — Campbell.

O! bloodiest picture in the book of time,
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career;
Hope for a season băde the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell!

5. THE CAPTIVE'S DREAMS. Mrs. Hemans.

I dream of all things free! of a gallant, gallant bark,
That sweeps through storm and sea like an arrow to its mark
Of a stag that o'er the hills goes bounding in its glee;
Of a thousand flashing rills, of all things glad and free.
I dream of some proud bird, a bright-eyed mountain king!
In my
visions I have heard the rushing of his wing.
I follow some wild river, on whose breast no sail may be ;
Dark woods around it shiver, I dream of all things free;
Of a happy forest child, with the fawns and flowers at play,
Of an Indian midst the wild, with the stars to guide his way:
Of a chief his warriors leading, of an archer's greenwood tree
My heart in chains is bleeding, and I dream of all things free!

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
« ZurückWeiter »