Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

with an iron grasp will tear his jaws asunder. Loki and Heimdal will slay each other, and Surtur, the genius of fire, will embrace the universe.

The world will pass away, as represented in the Apocalypse, the Zendervesta and the Vedas. Its inhabitants will perish by fire, and the race of gods be annihilated. But from the bosom of the waters will arise a new world, more beautiful and fertile than the former, and Balder will revisit it. Vida and Vali will alone outlive the gods. A child of the sun will light up this new universe with rays still brighter, and the human family will be renewed as the descendants of the two who have escaped destruction. To Vahalla will succeed a still more glorious paradise, and Hela will be replaced by a new Hell. The sun, blessed by the gods, will cause the earth to bring forth spontaneously, and eternal spring will dawn upon the world. The gods will find again the golden tablets of the 'Azers,' and, assembled in council, will recall the past.

Thus closes the Scandinavian Mythology; similar in its features and end to the mysteries and belief other nations, animated with hopes that go far beyond this fleeting world, and by sorrows which, too great for endurance, seek the destruction of a realm where all men suffer, and by faith, which builds upon its ruins an ideal region of unending bliss.

[blocks in formation]

CHURCH-YARD FLOWERS.

BY W. U. O. HOSMER.

Avon, June, 1847.

I.

FLOWERS of the Church-yard!
Ye are as bright of hue
As sisters that in greener spots

Quaff drops of morning dew:

A charm to the home of Death ye gave,
Springing in beauty on Childhood's grave;
Waving your heads in the wind, to and fro,
Types of the innocent sleeper below.

II.

Flowers of the Church-yard!
A part of her ye seem

Who in that heavy slumber lies

That knows no pleasant dream:

I saw her blue eyes in your violet gems,

The grace of her form in your flexible stems,
In diamonds of morn on your petals that lay

Her tears, that the sunshine of joy chased away.

III.

Flowers of the Church-yard!
Your leaves are odorous still;
Ye died before the biting frost

Of winter-time could kill:

Though vanished our lost one from earth's fading bowers,
Remembrance of her is like fragrance of flowers;

She dawned on our vision, a creature of light,
And passed ere the day was o'er-clouded by night.

IV.

Flowers of the Church-yard!

Her narrow house was cold;

Ye sprang, and warmed with summer tints

The damp and gloomy mould:

Thus came, when the path of existence was drear,
Our darling the hearth of our homestead to cheer,
But, ah! when our blossom was fairest to sight,
Gnawed the worm of decay, and descended the blight!

V.

Flowers of the Church-yard!
Another spring will wake

A painted band as deep in dye

Her grave-couch bright to make;

But, ah! never more will our threshold be crossed

By mortal the peer of our loved and our lost;

Darkened earth was too poor such a treasure to own→→
Heaven's casket is meet for such jewels alone.

THE IDLE BERG PAPERS.

OUR POETS.

POETRY is usually associated in the mind with rural and solitary scenes. The Muse, as though the roar of busy cities were all at discord with her own softer measures, flies far from the thronged haunts of men, and makes her home on the mountain-top, or amid the sublime solitudes of the sea, or in some secluded valley, where birds and brooks and verdure and flowers furnish her most congenial associations. The poet seems out of place in the busy marts of commerce, where the warmest impulses of the heart are moulded into conventional forms, and naught of nature is seen, save here and there, in random spots of herbage, with stunted trees that seem to pine for their native solitudes, while even the boundless heavens above them seem contracted within the dimensions of an artificial sky-light. But when in scenes remote from these we find a vale like that of Tempe, (and there are many such, unchronicled, still in the world,) or a rude hamlet with romantic hills and streams about it, or a village embowered among trees, with here and there a taper spire pointing toward Heaven, we feel that there a poet should have been born, and lived, and sung, though perhaps in rude numbers, some of the songs that Nature taught him there.

In accordance with these remarks, reader, you would most certainly expect to find a poet at Idleberg; otherwise you might be sure the race of rhyming geniuses was extinct, and the world must accommodate itself to prosers forever after. We boasted, not long since, a pair of these Sons of Song;' but we have lost them, and I will tell you how and why Idleberg is now poetless.

Do not smile when I inform you that one of our poets is by trade an humble cobbler. In the land which gave birth to Franklin and Sherman and the 'Learned Blacksmith,' we do not regard the texture of the garment, or the nature of the calling, if the man be the 'gold for a' that.' Genius is no respecter of persons, or if it be, chooses most frequently to adorn the lot of the humble and the poor. I shall not venture to decide whether the wealth she confers be not more enviable than all the splendors of adventitious opulence.

It has been many years since our cobbler-poet first made his appearance in the village. He came originally from England, whence in a freak of his genius he eloped with the object of an early and romantic attachment. He reached the land of his adoption almost penniless, but soon found employment in one of the cities on the Atlantic sea-board, and went bravely to work. He had the misfortune, as most persons regard it, to be born a poet, and the Muse occupied the intervals of his daily toil. He became a welcome contributor to some of the best periodicals of the day; and I have

seen in certain old numbers of the Casket,' which are still in his possession, some of his original poems, which possess much real merit. Their general tone is one of sadness; and they are full of tender recollections of his childhood and his fatherland, and of vain repinings on account of the adverseness of Fortune. Too often, however, while his pen was busy, the implements of his humble craft lay idle on his bench, and the impatient customer was dismissed with a request to call again.' Then came poverty and want, and then-it must be written then came the bottle, with its damning poison, to sear his brain and feed upon his life-blood. They can never be written the struggles of genius with poverty and all adverse allotments. Yet we would not have it otherwise. The obstacles which oppose the progress of meaner minds are but the teachers of the great. If adversity has its trials, it also has its rewards. It is in the conflict, and not in repose, that the eye brightens and the arm gains strength. Genius, like gold, must be tried by the fire. Our Miltons must be blind to external nature ere the eyes of the soul can behold objects of truest sublimity, and our Shakspeares and Johnsons and Goldsmiths must write, for bread, the immortal sentiments which opulence would have concealed from them and from us forever.

Yet there are those who would quench the aspirations of the humble and the gifted. They would teach him that 'man can live on bread alone,' while his better nature is famishing. But it is often a sublime spectacle, while the favorites of fortune are pursuing the idle pleasures of the hour, to witness the noble struggles of genius, surmounting every obstacle, with the brave word Excelsior' bursting from his lips. I confess I am an apologist for those who, despite adversity, thus seek to achieve a proud destiny. If the world is to grow wiser and better, to these the noble mission is allotted; and whether, like Johnson from the garret, or Burns from the plough, let them speak, and men will hear them, though they may deny them

bread.

Our cobbler-poet grew poorer every day, until his necessities drove him from the city to seek employment elsewhere. From city to city, from town to town, he wandered, in obedience to the whims of his fancy, earning a scanty living meanwhile by toiling at his trade; and after several years of this erratic life, his fortunes brought him hither. Through all his reverses his wife clung to him with all the tenderness of a woman's devotion. If her lot was a hard one, she bore it without a murmur; and he has more than once assured me that but for her unflagging sympathy through all his misfortunes, life would often have been to him an insupportable burthen.

In the congenial quiet of our village this restless' son of genius' seemed at length to have found repose. He went faithfully to work, and in his leisure hours he still remembered that he had been born a poet. His Muse, which had never deserted him, held delightful communion with him in the shade of our green valleys and along our murmuring brooks. His little shop rang with the hum of in

dustry, and the village newspaper, though devoted mainly to the more important topics of politics and agriculture, was often embellished with specimens of his original poetry. The man who so strangely combined the rare qualities of the skilful artisan and the ingenious poet, soon became the 'lion' of the town; until, flattered by his successes, or disheartened by some unforeseen disappointment, he soon relapsed into his old ways, and left us to mourn over the prostitution of his genius. Thus he lived on for several years, indulging by turns the various promptings of his eccentric nature; now pursuing his trade with busy industry, now inditing rhymes for the entertainment of the town, and now rioting in the fumes of the bowl, and stalking for days through the streets like a madman.

An event at length occurred which proved an omen of better days for our poet. Every body remembers the history of the Washingtonians. Their advent to the village found our hero in the height of a protracted 'spree.' He listened among a crowded auditory to the history of one who had been redeemed from the mastery of the bowl. He heard, and wept, and resolved; and to the astonishment and gratification of all, was among the first to sign the 'pledge.'

We are told that there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth.' There is similar joy sometimes on earth, no doubt, for we felt it in the hope of the restoration of this son of misfortune to virtue and happiness. Friends who had long been estranged, thronged about him; and no language can depict the new life which glowed in the bosom of his wife. His countenance, once haggard with care, grew radiant with healthful smiles. His fancy teemed with bright thoughts and glowing imagery; and nature, though long veiled in clouds, now seemed but a fairy garden, blooming with delights to minister to his enjoyment, and furnish themes for his rapt contemplation.

Our regenerated hero was not content to share alone the magical virtues of the pledge; but, like a shipwrecked mariner who has gained the shore, he stood aloft to wave the signal of hope to other victims of the same catastrophe. His burning eloquence always attracted crowded auditories, and I have seldom been more moved by human words than while listening, as I have often done, to his stirring harangues. His fame soon spread far and wide, and he awoke, almost within a day, from a life of obscurity and shame to a career of distinction and usefulness.

He soon discovered that it was not difficult, by systematic efforts, to combine activity in his humble calling with the assiduous cultivation of his mind. With increasing competence and reäwakened hopes came a longing for the comforts of Home; a word whose sacred beauty had long been unknown to him. He purchased a lawn in the suburbs of the village, out in the fresh air and among the forest-trees, where the birds would come and sing all day for him. Here he erected as neat a cottage as poet would wish to dwell in. His garden was tastefully designed, and decorated with the choicest flowers. His wife moved cheerfully about, the mistress

« ZurückWeiter »