Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

bearing along so many gallant hearts, so many wrecks of humanity; -the many homes and households, each a little world in itself, revolving round its fireside, as a central sun; all forms of human joy and suffering, brought into that narrow compass;-and to be in this, and to be a part of this, acting', thinking, rejoicing', sorrowing, with his fellow-men,-such, such should be the poet's life

3. If he would describe the world he should live in the world. The mind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armor should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters even', than hang forever rusting on the wall. Nor will his themes be few or trivial, because apparently shut in between the walls of houses, and having merely the decorations of street-scenery. A ruined character is as picturesque as a ruined castle.

4. There are dark abysses and yawning gulfs in the human heart, which can be rendered passable only by bridging them over with iron nerves and sinews, as Challey bridged the Sarine in Switzerland, and Telford the sea between Anglesea and England, with chain bridges. These are the great themes of human thought'; not green grass', and flowers', and moonlight'. Besides, the mere external forms of nature we make our own, and carry with us everywhere, by the power of memory.

LESSON LXXI.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY BY SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE was born October 20, 1772, in Devonshire, England. In scholarship he surpassed nearly all men of his age, and in conversation he was universally acknowledged to be unequaled. He wrote several prose works, which are distinguished for purity of diction, profound thought, and sound Christian morality. His poems contain some of the most beautiful productions in our language. He died July 25, 1834.

2 2 1

CHAMOUNY, (sha mo ne',) a valley in the Alps, celebrated for its picturesque sites, and the wild grandeur of its mountains and glaciers.

[blocks in formation]

1

ARVE (ar/va) and ARVEIRON, (ar va rong',) small rivers which hav their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc.

1. HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause,
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc!

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form',
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines
How silently! Around thee, and above,
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,—
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again',
It is thine own calm home', thy crystal shrine',
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worship'd the Invisible alone.

2. Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing there,

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven!

3. Awake', my soul'! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake',
Voice of sweet song! Awake', my heart', awake'!
Green vales and icy cliffs', all join my hymn.

4. Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the vale!
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink,
Companion of the morning star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald', wake! Oh, wake! and utter praise'!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth'?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light'?
Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams'?

5. And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death',
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth',
Down those precipitous', black', jagged rocks',
Forever shatter'd, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life',

Your strength', your speed', your fury', and your joy',

Unceasing thunder', and eternal foam'?
And who commanded, and the silence came,
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

6. Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain,

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents'! silent cataracts'!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon'? Who bade the sun 44 Clothe you with rainbows'? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue', spread garlands at your feet? "God!" let the torrents', like a shout of nations', Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, "God"!" "God!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, "God!" 7. Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element!

Utter forth, "God!" and fill the hills with praise!

8. Thou too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche unheard

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,
Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou,
That, as I raise my head, a while bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me. Rise', oh, ever rise'!
Rise, like a cloud of incense', from the earth'!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills.
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky',
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth', with her thousand voices', praises God'.

+

LESSON LXXII.

THE TRIALS OF THE PILGRIMS.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

1. FROM the dark portals of the Star-Chamber, and in the stern text of acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a commission more efficient than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their banishment to Holland was fortunate'; the decline of their little company in the strange land was fortunate'; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness were fortunate'; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever-memorable parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England'. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. 2. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause'; and, if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness', can we find no apology for such a human weakness'? It is sad', indeed', to reflect on the disasters which the little band of pilgrims encountered'; sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon and crowd themselves into one vessel,-one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons!

3. One is touched at the story of the long', cold', and weary autumnal passage'; of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season, where they are deserted, before long, by the ship which had brought them and which seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow-men,— -a prey to the elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, the power, and the temper of the savage tribes that filled the unexplored continent upon whose verge they had ventured.

4. But all this wrought together for good. These trials of wandering and exile', of the ocean, the winter', the wilderness, and the savage foe', were the final assurance of success'. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to pre-eminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the pilgrims'; no Carr or Villiers would lead on the ill-provided band of

despised Puritans'; no well-endowed clergy were on the alert to quit their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen wilderness'; no craving governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless Eldorados of ice and of snow'.

5. No'; they could not say they had encouraged', patronized', or helped the Pilgrims. Their own cares', their own labors', their own councils', their own blood', contrived' all, bore' all, sealed' all. They could not afterward fairly pretend to reap where they had not strewed; and, as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely tolerated, it did not fall when the favor, which had always been withholden, was changed into wrath',-when the arm', which had never supported', was raised to destroy.

6. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings', the uncertain', the tedious voyage'. Suns rise and set', and weeks and months pass'; and winter surprises them on the deep', but brings them not in sight of the wished-for shore'.

7. I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the laboring masts seem straining from their base'; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard'; the ship leaps', as it were', madly, from billow to billow'; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel.

8. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed, at last, after a few months' passage, the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their shipmaster for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

9. Shut now the volume of History,and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the

« AnteriorContinuar »