Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

any body knows; but a frame-such as it was-was built, and the truant tethered with a string. One thing it did was this: laid a blushing leaf close to the cold, dark iron. And what for? Why, claiming relationship, of a truth: Iron tinted that leaf to “the color of virtue." Iron makes those Roses glow in their new frames beside the path. Indeed, one could almost write poetry without inspiration, only give him plenty of iron:

The jarring of the iron wheels along the iron rails;

The anvils with their iron din beneath the iron flails;
The panting of the iron forge; the twang of iron wire;
The music of an iron age; of iron and of fire;
The netting of the iron nerve that's thrilling through the
world;

The iron bayonet to the bolt by glittering tempests hurled;
The thunder of the iron loom; the shuttle's plunging steel;
The weaving of the zones of earth-five ribbons round a

reel;

The couplet of the iron song, of which TWO BARS are sung, That makes as dear as "household words" the Anglo-Saxon

tongue;

The clanking of the iron Press, the echo of the Age,
While waking Thought, with iron tread, leaves foot-prints

on the page;

All sinews are of iron now; all breathings are of fire;

And engines with their iron hearts can toil and never tire;

The winds are lulled, but iron craft are panting round the

globe;

And iron needles ravel out old Ocean's seamless robe.

In calm Pacific's golden

but, 'tis a hard theme; and, printers permitting, I'll "mind my P's and Q's" again. There was something of almost classic beauty in the sight: a green, luxuriant vine encircling a rude bayonet, fixed by the fingers of Philosophy, against the lightnings of Heaven; the rusty route of the thunder-bolt wreathed in the beauty of Summer; a token of amity extended upon the "present arms" of Science to the tempest; an offering from the warm bosom of a June earth to the genii of the cloudy caverns of the air.

Does some body ask you what you think of "OUR FOLKS?" Pray, don't mind me; but utter it boldly, like a Jeffreys.

Jewelry.

NATURE was out in her Jewelry this morning, or, as some body's little Charley, or Molly, or Johnny would say, in her "Dewelry," and that's just the word wanted-glittering with the young rain that waits its wings.

By the way, that Nimrod in science who went hunting the DEw, and made a fame that shall last forever: Wasn't it a pretty idea when, placing the

bulbs of delicate thermometers in the bosoms of lilies and the hearts of young roses, he felt the pulses of the flowers as they grew? Wasn't it fairy-like work for a mortal man to be doing?

And then, when he found that the buds and the blossoms were all the cooler as they needed moisture the more; and the truth sparkled out that Dew is the invisible vapor floating in the air, which, chilled by the cool surfaces of the flowers, bursts into tears over the beauty that must fade; and when he found that this aërial, this gossamer-winged water, is the singing, and sighing, and cursing, and blessing of all day yesterday-the music of the Summer all written out in legible score-notes sparkling and beautiful, every one-do you think a civic crown could have made him greater or happier?

And when he found that in cloudy nights, when there was no Dew, it was because the heat radiated from the earth, was reflected down again from the clouds, and so, like a beautiful pendulum, it vibrated to and fro the clods and the clouds, the clouds and the clods-and the earth could not grow cold, and its breath could not condense, and there, beneath the stars, like the pulses of a mighty breast, beating softly against the downy covering of cloud all the night

long!--would our Hunter, do you think, have changed fames with the tinker of the clock of Strasburg?

:

There is one little circumstance-most awkward word is that" circumstance"-which perhaps I should bid adieu to the Dews without noting that they have sparkled for decades of centuries, and every body, from the bards of a thousand years to the last scribbler for a scrap-book, has likened them to every thing, and every thing to them, that is lucent and lovely, and blessed and beautiful; and YET, all the while, until a few days or so ago, no body knew where they were born, whether they rose, or fell, or flew, or, as children say, "just come o' themselves." And YET philosophers, or "so they say," gurgled Hebrew before Remus was "naughty" to his brother, and leaped Rome's wall.

Few there are, who dream how blessed and beauti ful, sad and solemn, are the components of Dew and here is a recipe therefor:

June Bews.

The breath of the leaves and the lyrics of dawn

Were floating away in the air;

The brooks and the birds were all singing aloud.

The violets looking a prayer,

With eyes that upturned so tearful and true,

Like Mary's of old, when forgiven,

Had caught the reflection and mirrored it there,

As bright and as melting as heaven.

The silvery mist of the red robin's song,

Slow swung in the wind-wavered nest;

The billows that swell from the forests of June,
Almost to the blue of the blest;

"The bells" that are rung by the breath of the breeze And "toll their perfume" as they swing;

The brooks that are trolling a tune of their own,
And dance to whatever they sing;

The groan of the wretched, the laugh of the glad,
Are blent with the breath of a prayer;

The sigh of the dying, the whisper of love,

A vow that was broken, are there!

There dimly they float, 'mid the ripe, golden hours,
Along the bright trellis of air;

The smothered good-bye, and the whisper of love,
The ban and the blessing are there!

Cool fingers are weaving the curtains again,

Whose woofing is netted with stars;

The tremulous woods on the verge of the world,
Just bending beneath the blue spars,

Are valanced with crimson and welted with gold.
Where now are the vesper and vow-

Those spirit-like breathings of sadness and song,
That brought not a cloud o'er the brow,
Bedimmed not a beam of the bright summer morn?

Not wafted away, for the aspen is still

Not fled on the wings of the hours;

Not hiding the heaven-lo! the stars in the clear

Not perished, but here on the flowers

Those smiles of Divinity lighting the world,

Whose breath is for ever a prayer;

Who blush without sinning, and blanch without fear Oh! where should they be, if not there?

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »