Читать книгу: «The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844», страница 7
LIFE: A SONNET
Whence? whither? where?—a taper-point of light,
My life and world—the infinite around;
A sea, not even highest thought can sound;
A formless void; unchanging, endless night.
In vain the struggling spirit aims its flight
To the empyrean, seen as is a star,
Sole glimmering through the hazy night afar;
In vain it beats its wings with daring might.
What yonder gleams?—what heavenly shapes arise
From out the bodiless waste? Behold the dawn,
Sent from on high! Uncounted ages gone,
Burst full and glorious on my wondering eyes;
Sun-clear the world around, and far away
A boundless future sweeps in golden day.
J. G. Percival.
TWO PICTURES
‘The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.’
—St. Paul.
LOVE CELESTIAL
I see his face illumined by a beatific light,
That tells me he is dying fast; the shadows of the night
Are passing from his saintly brow and sunken eye away,
But he looks beyond them and beholds a never-ending day.
Nay, wonder not that I am calm; the fleeting things of earth
Are passing with the flight of time, to their eternal birth:
I feel that death will shed on him a halo like the sun,
And I shall share it with him, when my pilgrimage is done.
How quickly fades the earthly frame, and with it too, how fast
The agony and sorrow of our mortal doom are past;
And when the sight of worldly wo weighs heavy on the breast,
How welcome is the voice from God, that speaks to us of rest!
O! painfully the pangs of life his fading frame have worn,
But blessed be our Father’s love, that dwells with those who mourn;
And though the grave must rend apart our sweet affection’s bond,
On this side is the night, but all is luminous beyond.
I know that more he loves my soul than its transitory shrine,
And did I prize the vase alone, when all it held was mine?
Let hallowed dust return to dust, give Nature what she gave,
For all that dearest was to me, is victor o’er the grave.
Triumphant will his spirit rise to the Eternal throne,
Triumphant wear a crown of light, by earthly trials won:
And mid the friends who went before, the angel, sin-forgiven,
Shall feel that they can part no more, when once they meet in heaven.
True, I shall look on him no more, but he will gaze on me;
Sweet thought! he from his holy sphere my guiding-star will be,
Till purified; and hallowed from every earthly tie,
I share with him that smile of God, which lights the world on high!
LOVE TERRESTRIAL
They tell me he is dying, yet I look upon his brow,
And never seemed it half so fair, so beautiful as now;
A radiance lightens from his eye, too lovely for the tomb,
Too living, for the shadowy realm where all is grief and gloom.
They tell me he will surely die—and so at last must all;
I know that the Destroyer’s blight on all mankind must fall;
Alas! that we of mortal birth thus hurry to decay,
And all we fondly cherish here must fleet so fast away!
But oh, not now! it is indeed a fearful sight to see
The pangs of death their shadows fling on one so dear to me;
Nay, speak not of another world, I only think of this,
I have no heart to nurse the hope that looks to future bliss.
Perhaps ’tis time; he is not formed for length of happy years,
But wherefore darken thus my days with wild distracting fears?
If we must part, oh! let me live in rapture while I may;
Though hope must darken, while it lasts, let nothing cloud its ray.
Oh, bid me cherish brighter thoughts; my loving soul can tell
How sad will be the hour to him that speaks the last farewell;
I know his heart is agonized by the approaching doom,
I know he loves me better than the cold and fearful tomb!
It is in vain they speak to me of bliss beyond the sky;
This saddening thought afflicts my heart, that if indeed he die,
The light that cheered my earthly love will seem obscure and dim,
While he abides in purer realms, and I still live for him.
I know that holier hopes and joys around his soul will weave,
While he among angelic loves, unconscious that I grieve,
Will ne’er look down to see me weep, nor breathe a single sigh;
O, God! it is a fearful thought—and this it is to die!
B.
THE HERMIT OF THE PRAIRIE
BY PETER VON GEIST
‘To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.’
Bryant.
Wednesday, June twenty-first. How little do people who ride along in their carriages, or rattle over the ground in stage-coaches, or rush over its surface in rail-cars, know of the pleasures of travelling! They roll over the country; they cannot be said to pass through it. They may see new rivers, new mountains, and new faces; but for all the good the last does them, they might as well have stood on the corner of the street in a city half a day, and watched the passers-by. And better too; for hotel-keepers, and waiters, and the whole tribe of public functionaries, have all an artificial, professional look; so that it is difficult to come at their real characters, if indeed they have any. The same is the case, to some extent, with their fellow-passengers. All are so absorbingly interested in their own brilliant thoughts; or they deem it incumbent on them to assume the dignity and authority befitting persons in high stations; (which dignity at home, by the by, is put one side into a dark corner and never thought of,) that it is about as profitable an undertaking to attempt to find out the personal feelings and sentiments of a mask, as theirs.
But here am I, walking stoutly and merrily along, unincumbered with luggage or care; and because I do not care what the next day or hour may bring forth, every thing seems to turn up just as I would have it if I had the ordering of events. I shall not pause to offer any philosophical conjectures as to the reason why we are invariably disappointed in our conclusions, (excepting they are mathematical ones) concerning the future; merely asking the amiable reader whether he ever knew such an anticipation to be exactly realized. I shall not stop to make any such conjectures, because I should only get deeper into the dark, and I am in deep enough for comfort now; and secondly, it is against my principles. I am living out of doors, and make mention only of things out of doors.
But I trudge stoutly forward, whistling as I go; making myself as agreeable as possible to myself and to every body whom I meet; on jocose terms with every thing; decidedly agricultural in my tastes and pursuits, at every farmer’s house where I happen to put up for the night: at one place in search of employment as a day-laborer; at another, an artist; by turns every thing. Is not this the way to travel? My steps wander where they choose; and if I keep on to the end of the earth, what will it matter? I will go to the north; assume the dress, language and manners of those who dwell within the frozen circle; I will become a Greenlander; I will go and preach the religion of Mohammed to the inhabitants of Patagonia; I will brush up the gods of Rome; dust that old mythology; compound and simplify the whole into a good, comfortable, believable system, and proclaim Olympian Jove in the deserts of Amazonia. I will be a Turk, an Indian, a Pirate; I will be any thing. What do I care, and who shall say me nay? This sensation of freedom is too delicious to be interrupted by any companionship. And for my part, I want no better companions than this wind, which free as I am, blows against my cheek, and those clouds, that fly in unending succession over my head. O! ye blue chariots of the Thunderer! whither hurry ye so rapidly? Over hill and valley, and countries and cities of men, ye fly unheeding; and borne forward on the swift pinions of the wind, ye speed on your mission afar! What to you are states, and kingdoms, or land or ocean? Furiously driving in black armies to meet opposing armies, or singly floating in that waveless sea of blue, your existence is above the earth; men look up to you with wonder or terror, but your glance is never downward. Onward ye wander, in your unbounded career, at your own free will. Nothing bounds my career or my will. Fleecy ears! if ye would sustain the form of a mortal, triumphantly would you and I sail over the heads of men! Softly, obedient to the impulse of chance, would we glide over continent and sea, and explore the mysteries of undiscovered islands and climes; calmly would I look down on the strife or toil of human passions, and calmly would we ride on forever, through night and day! But if the clouds are not, the earth is, mine—and I am my own! There are none to molest or make me afraid with the useless importunities or warnings of friendship. My destiny is my own; and it is pleasant not to care what I may be or do. Pleasure is now; sorrow is prospective; and life will be only pleasure, because I let the past and the future go, and crowd as many happy thoughts as possible into the present moment.
What a spacious plain of the world! Dotted with habitations and with men of all colors, and customs, and conditions! Every one thinks he possesses a soul; and in virtue thereof, he considers himself entitled to set up as an independent existence, and endeavors to move in a little path of his own. But in fact, he plods humbly along, and repeats with patient toil the example of labor and unspeculating perseverance that his fathers have set him. A vast multitude, they darken the land! Mighty hopes and aspirations swell each small bosom. Each imagines that his designs are peculiar, and for him in particular was every thing mainly made. An unceasing rush of footsteps and clash of voices! And must I be confounded in the crowd? Let me preserve my individuality in the desert! If I were not an insect, it might be different; but as I am no larger than other men, I will not daily measure myself by their standard; I will forget in solitude the littleness of my stature.
The shades of evening tinge the green of the fields with a darker hue; and the young farmer goes wearily and yet lightly homeward. Lightly, for he leaves behind him labor and trouble, and his fair-haired wife will greet him with her constant and love-lit smile. Cheerily will the small family draw around their board, covered with the simple and satisfying products of their own soil. And when all care is ended, when night is duskily stealing over the earth, he and his bride will sit down alone in their cottage door, in the red light of the western clouds. Over all the dim landscape there are no sights or sounds; and in themselves there are no feelings but those of contentment and love. In his strong palm her soft hand, on his broad breast reclining her head, their hearts are filled and overflow with sweet thoughts and gentle words of present happiness. Fair prospects also of the future rise up before them. Many years crowned with prosperity they see in store for them; and in each one, many an evening like this, of deep confiding love. Hour after hour, into the deepening night, their low tones and slow words murmur on brokenly; and they know of nothing in all the world that is wanting to their blessedness. What if the dream should last all their life? It may; or if this passes away, another will take its place. The question then seems to be, whether it is better to live in a delusion and be happy, or to wake and be miserable? Whether it is profitable for a man to walk joyfully through life, covering and coloring over every defect in human nature that he may love it, and keep within him a contented heart, or industriously spy out its deformities, and hate it and himself for possessing it? If nature is in reality naked and rugged, happy is he whose imagination can throw over her a robe of grace. Most happy he who can see in his fellow-creatures such qualities that he can love them. For me, I will love sterner scenes and sterner thoughts. Human beauty is an illusion; and it does not become the sober wisdom of manhood to be deceived by it. The young farmer and his young wife may be happy; and so may those who find delight in the crowded hall where taste and beauty meet; where are the sounds of clear-ringing, girlish voices, and many glancing feet, and the innumerable light of maiden’s eyes, and heavy folds of auburn hair, and the flush of thought and emotion continually passing over fair faces, with the swell of music that thrills, and the air laden with fragrance that intoxicates. Or in the still twilight, by the side of her whose every note makes his pulse to tremble with the breathing of song, and the incense of flowers, and forgetfulness of the world, to feel the thought stealing over his heart that perhaps he is not uncared for. It is sweet, but vain; sweet and vain as the smiling, blushing slumber of a young girl. Dream on! dream on! for if you can always sleep, what will matter to you the storms and confusion without?
But as for me, I cannot sleep. Every thing my eye rests on is harsh and ungraceful, because, having passed through the seven-times heated furnace, I must look through the covering and see the reality.
MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER AND PRAIRIE
Wearily I mount this steep eminence, and on its bald summit take off my hat, that I may feel the cool breeze. It comes fresh with the dew that it has snatched in its flight from the bosom of Lake Superior. It rolls over the tall grass of the prairie, which bends beneath its weight, sighs by me, and seems to cling to me as it passes, and moves on toward the arid plains of the South. The Ohio sweeps down in calmness and majesty. With its surface of quicksilver, and the little waves dancing up in gladness, and its heavy dull wash, it rolls along its mighty mass of waters, hastening to pour itself into the mightier mass of the Mississippi. Occasionally a giant tree, torn from its place, and cast root and branch into the flood, comes booming down, and glides swiftly past on its long, long race. Pleasantly the ripples break over the prostrate monarch of the forest that is lodged against the beach, and projects, branchless and barkless, into the stream; and mournfully the worn trunk sways up and down, as though tired of this rocking which has continued the same year after year; weary, and desiring to be at rest. Floods come rushing down upon floods with heavy tread, glance successively under the moonlight that is poured into the channel before me, and then are forced forward into the darkness of the future. But every wave seems as full of joy as though for it alone was the moonlight sent, and as though there were not unnumbered millions of waves to succeed it. Every little wave leaps up as it comes under the light, and smiles toward the round-faced orb above, who seems to smile back upon it. Thou small thing, thou art a fool! The queen, in the beam of whose countenance thou disportest thyself, is altogether deceitful and loves thee not. She has smiled as kindly on thousands who have gone before thee, and will upon thousands who shall come after thee. And more than all, she would send down just as bright and loving a glance, if thou and all thy race had never existed. How then canst thou say, ‘I love her,’ or, ‘she loves me?’
But perhaps it is not so. When I look again, each one of the great multitude appears aware of its own insignificance. Jostled, confined, crowded and confused, they go tumbling by, regardless of all above or below, and engrossed with their own fleeting existence. Not remembering whence they came, they take no thought of the present, and are utterly careless of the future. For what would it profit? Their business, and it is business enough, is to dispute and fight with each other for room to move in. All thoughts as to whither they are hastening, must be doubtful, angry and despairing; and care of any thing present, except what concerns the present instant, would be useless. Therefore they resign themselves to be drawn onward and downward unresistingly; and therein are they wise. But whether joyful, or despairing, or not feeling at all, the waters roll by, an unceasing flood; and with their rushing dull roar in my ear, my eye rests on a scene of beauty and quietness. Far away to the northward and westward, and still farther away, stretches an immense plain. Rolling hillocks, like the waves of the sea after a storm, and at long intervals, a few stunted shrubs, alone diversify the prospect. Vast, unmeasured, Nature’s unenclosed meadow, the prairie, is spread out! The tall grass waves gently and rustlingly to the breeze; and down upon it settles the moonlight, in a dim silver-gossamer veil, like that which to the mind’s eye is thrown over the mountains and ruins and castles of the Old World, by the high-born daring and graces of chivalry, the wand of Genius, and the lapse of solemn years. With the same painful feeling of boundlessness, of vastness that will not be grasped by the imagination, that one feels in sailing on the ocean, there is also an air of still, stern desolation brooding upon the plain. It may be that at some former day, the punishment of fire swept over it, consuming its towering offspring, and laying bare and scorching its bosom; and now the proud sufferer, naked and chained, endures the summer’s heat and the winter’s storms, with no sighing herbage or wailing tree to tell to the winds its wo.
A single snow-white cloud slumbers and floats far up in the heavens; the moon is gliding slowly down the western arch; and the vast dome, studded with innumerable brilliants, ‘fretted with golden fires,’ rests its northern and western edge on the plain, its southern on blue mountain-tops, its eastern on the forests, and shuts us, the river, the prairie, the moon and I, together and alone. And here will we dwell together alone! Sweet companions will ye be to me; and standing here on this eminence, I promise to love you. I promise to come here often, and to hold communion with you. I will put away all thoughts of sorrow, all swellings of bitterness, from my mind. Contentedly, calmly, unheedingly, will we let the years pass by; for what will it matter to us? Oh! ye are dear to me! Your voice is not heard, yet comes there constantly to my ear the murmur of your song. You speak to me in music and poetry; and while I listen, my thoughts revert only with shuddering to the vain world I have left behind. Thus let us converse always. This vaulted firmament which shuts down upon us now, let it be immoveable, and enclose us forever; here let the wanderings of the wanderer cease, and here will we live together and alone!
And we have lived here many years. The lessons of my constant companions have calmed and elevated me to a gentler and better spirit. From them I have learned humility as well as self-reliance; while from the history of the actions and thoughts of men in past ages, I have learned perhaps something of the machinery of human nature. The forms of the noblest of preceding generations, and the shapes of beauty which their imaginations have conceived and made to live, visit me at my bidding. But among all the pictures that daily rise up before my eyes, the brightest, the most beautiful, the most loved, are the sweet faces of the friends of my early years. There are no regrets or repinings when I look back now; it must be that it has all been for the best, that every thing is for the best, and I am at peace. The recollection of madness and folly, of a life useless, of energies wasted, do not disturb the calmness of my soul. The error has been great, but I feel it; and in the next state of existence I shall be wiser and more active. If I have wantonly and recklessly turned away from the offered happiness of society and of the world, it has, in the end, been better for me, for I have found another, a purer and more lasting.
Thus I look cheerfully on, and see the sands of my life run out. They fall faster and faster, as their number is diminished, and time flies by me with constantly accelerating speed. ‘Oh, my days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle!’—the last one I see but a little distance before me; it will soon be here; and I shall step forth with a joyful, courageous heart, into the indistinct, dimly-revealed future!
