and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was of birch bark. Governor Winthrop, after a journey afoot from Boston, drank here, out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the wash-bowl of the vicinity,-whither all decent folks resorted, to purify their visages and gaze at them afterwards—at least the pretty maidens did—in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the communion table of the humble meeting-house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one generation after another was consecrated to heaven by its waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides, and cart-loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birth-place of the waters, now their grave. But, in the course of time, a town pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place -and then another, and still another-till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed! The water is pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red Sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story, that, as the wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your father's days, be recognised by all. Your pardon, good people; I must interrupt my stream of eloquence and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two a-piece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. An ox is your true toper. But I perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder of my discourse. Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and women will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all important aid on washing days; though, on that account alone, I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me also to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the Town Pump, and found me always at my post, firm amid the confusion, and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of Hippocrates. Let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. No; these are trifles compared with the merits which wise men concede to me→ if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class-of being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish, which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise the cow shall be my great confederate. Milk and water! The Town Pump and the Cow! Such is the glorious copartnership that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the ciderpresses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally mouopolise the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then, Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched, where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw its own heart, and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength. Until now, the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son, and rekindled, in every generation, by fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war-the drunkenness of nations-perhaps will cease. At least, there will be no war of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy-a calm bliss of temperate affections-shall pass hand in hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close. To them, the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a lingering smile of memory and hope. Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honour of the Town Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon the spot. Such monuments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now listen; for something very important is to come next. There are two or three honest friends of mine-and true friends I know they are -who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honourable cause of the Town Pump, in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy bottle? Or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging, slap dash, into hot water, and wofully scalding yourself and other people? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage-and indeed in the whole conduct of your lives-you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulent and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep calm well of purity, which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachael did of old. Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink-" SUCCESS TO THE TOWN PUMP !" 199.-THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, § 1. PART I. Ir is an ancient mariner, "By thy long gray beard and glittering eye Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? "The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ; The guests are met, the feast is set: He holds him with a skinny hand, "Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!" Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken- Eftsoons his hand dropt he. He holds him with his glittering eye- The wedding guest sat on a stone: And thus spake on that ancient man, The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, It cracked and growled, and roared and howled; Like noises in a swound! At length did cross an albatross, The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, We hailed it in God's name. Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. The sun came up upon the left, Out of the sea came he! And he shone bright, and on the right, Higher and higher every day, The wedding guest here beat his breast, The bride hath paced into the hall, Nodding their heads before her goes The wedding guest he beat his breast, And now the storm-blast came, and he He struck with his o'ertaking wings, It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And a good south wind sprung up behind; And every day, for food or play, In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine. "God save thee, ancient mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!Why look'st thou so?"-With my crossbow I shot the albatross. PART II. The Sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left Went down into the sea. And the good south wind still blew And every tongue, through utter drought, behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day, for food or play, And I had done a hellish thing, For all averred, I had killed the bird Nor dim nor red, like God's own head The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks PART III. There passed a weary time. Each throat 'Twas right, said they, such birds to When looking westward, I beheld slay, That bring the fog and mist. A something in the sky. At first it seemed a little speck, The fair breeze blow, the white foam flew, And then it seemed a mist; The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape I wist. A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt And still it neared and neared; down, Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; Water, water, everywhere, The very deep did rot: O Christ! Yea, shiny things did crawl with legs About, about, in reel and rout, As if it dodged a water sprite, It plunged and tacked and veered. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call: Grammercy! they for joy did grin, See! see! (I cried,) she tacks no more! Without a breeze, without a tide, When that strange shape drove suddenly And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud,) How fast she nears and nears! Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossamers? I fear thee and thy glittering eye, Are those her ribs through which the Sun Alone, alone, all, all alone, Did peer, as through a grate? Is that a Death? and are there two? Her lips were red, her looks were free, The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; We listened and looked sideways up! From the sails the dew did drip- One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, PART IV. "I fear thee, ancient mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! Alone on a wide, wide sea! The many men so beautiful! I looked upon the rotting sea, I looked upon the rotting deck, I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; I closed my lids, and kept them close, Lay like a load on my weary eye, The look with which they looked on me An orphan's curse would drag to hell Is the curse in a dead man's eye! But oh! more terrible than that The moving Moon went up the sky, Beyond the shadow of the ship They moved in tracks of shining white And thou art long, and lank, and brown, And when they reared, the elfish light As is the ribbed sea-sand. Fell off in hoary flakes. |