Page images
PDF
EPUB

Surely the sweet influence of the queen of night is in its own nature more cheering than melancholy. How many glad occasions of social and festive entertainment are regu- | lated by the moon. "We will visit our friends when the moon is at the full "-" We will return by the light of the moon "-" We wait for the moon before we set sail," is the familiar language of every day; and how much more must the mariner on the mighty deep rejoice in her welcome visitations, and hail her nightly radiance as she rises over the unfathomable abyss. Shines not the moon through the grated lattice of the prison, from whence all other gentle comforters are excluded, smiling upon the criminal in his feverish sleep, and reminding him when he starts into waking consciousness, that while his brother man, perhaps weak, fallible, and faulty as himself, had he been similarly circumstanced, is able to pursue, impeach, and condemn, according to the strict authority of laws, which take no cognizance of want of knowledge, of early bias, and more than all, of peculiar and incalculable temptation; there is still mercy in the everlasting heavens-an eye that looks down upon his earthly sufferings, beholding through a clear, and steady, and impartial light, all that is hidden from the scrutiny of man; and that an humble, solemn, and heartfelt appeal, even from out his dungeon, beneath his chains, or upon the fatal scaffold, may yet be made to that higher tribunal, whose judgments are as unparalled in mercy, as unimpeachable in justice.

Is not the moon, amidst all the chances and changes that occur to us in this sublunary scene, still, still the same? We recall the sweet and social evenings, when the moon looked in upon our childish play, through the trellice-work of vine and jessamine that grew around our ancestral dwelling. How looks that dwelling now? The vine and the jessamine are rooted from the earth, the walls are broken down, and scarcely is one stone left upon another. Where are the companions of those happy hours? Some have paid the debt of nature, and are gone we ask not where; some are so altered in their loves and friendships, that we know them not, or perhaps, they know not us; and others are scattered abroad throughout

the busy world, chasing their different objects of ambition or desire, in which we hold no share: even our own hearts, though they feel the same to us in their capability of suffering, having learned to beat another tune, to burn with different fires, to be vivified with a new life, or subject to a fatality which we were far from apprehending then. Yet the moon-the lovely moon, is still the same, shining on with the same ineffable effulgence-teaching us that constancy is not an empty name, though we and ours have failed to find the reality—that there is purity and peace beneath the heavens, though we are still wandering in fruitless quest of both -that there is an inexhautible fountain of loveliness and delight, though we have wasted ours.

And is not the moon most kind, most charitable, that she reveals no deformities, brings to light no defects, but ever shines on—

"Leaving that beautiful, that still was so,
And making that which was not."

Oh! it is wearisome in our daily existence to see the critic's eye for ever peering through a narrow focus of concentrated and partial light, to find out the specks upon the face of the sun, the soil of the lily, the footprints of the butterfly upon the velvet petals of the rose; listening with his ear sharpened to an acuteness that renders it sensible only of discord, to detect the misapplication of tone and emphasis in the eloquence that shakes the world, the wrong cadence in the voice that tells of anguish, the false note in the harmony of the spheres. Yet this is what men call wisdom-a wisdom which if it fails to subdue the ignorance and prejudice of mankind, at least destroys the capacity for anpreciating the beauty and perfection of the creation, and the desire to bow with mute reverence and awe before its Creator. It is this wisdom which intrudes its unwelcome presence upon our daily walk, rendering that walk most wearisome, and the society we meet there, infinitely worse than solitude. But the night returns-the calm and silent night, and the sweet moon rising over the eastern hills, goes forth upon her pathway through the heavens. Perchance an envious cloud advances, and her form is obscured by misty vapours; but they pass away, and

her smile looks sweeter than before. Upon the rugged precipice, the dark impenetrable forest, the restless waves of the ocean, "her soft and solemn light" is falling, beautifying whatever it shines upon, marking out as with a silver pencil the majestic outline of the crag or promontory, but leaving the deep and frightful cavern at its base still unrevealed; tinging with radiant lustre the light boughs that wave and dance as if with very gladness in her welcome beams, the sprays of glittering ivy, or the lofty turrets of the ancient tower, while passing in her peaceful progress over every scene of gloom and terror, she seems to cast the dark places of the earth into yet deeper shade; or, turning the foam of the angry billows into crests of sparkling light, the troubled track of the heaving bark into a silvery pathway, and the sails that flutter in the adverse gale, into the white pinions of some angelic messenger, she kindly offers to the imaginative beholder, a picture of sublimity for that of danger-of trust for anxious fear-of hope for murmuring and despair.

Is not the moon also a faithful treasurer of sweet and pleasant memories? We might forget (in this world there is much to make us forget) what we learned before our minds were tainted by the envious struggle for pre-eminence, and the necessity of sordid gain, or soured by the disappointments inevitably attending both. The worldly man, the sharp keen bustler of the city, sees little to call back his thoughts to the days of unsophisticated innocence, and still less to recommend to his now mature judgment, what he would call nothing better than his boyish blindness, to his own best interests. But the bodily frame in time wears out, the city feast becomes unpalatable to the sickly appetite, and civic honours are unable to support the head they crown. Sleepless nights succeed to wearisome days. Perhaps his attendant enjoys that repose, which he is unable to purchase with all his wealth. To sum up the amount of his gold, no longer relieves the aching void of his heart. There is a gnawing want still pressing upon him, even at this late hour of the day, which all his possessions are unequal to supply; and he begins at last to question, whether they may not have cost him more than their real value.

Lost in a world of vague and unsatisfying thoughts, the moon steals in upon his meditations. It is not with him as with more feeling minds, that memory rushes back with one tremendous bound; but with his wonted caution and reserve, he begins to retrace the pilgrimage of past years, the silent moonbeams lighting him unconsciously on his way, and leading him by the chain of association back to his paternal home. He enters again the once familiar habitation. He takes possession of the chair appropriated to the darling boy, and along with it the many pure and lively feelings, which the world had chased away. He listens to his father's gentle admonitions, and feels the affectionate pressure of his hand, upon his then unruffled brow. He hears his mother's voice as she sings their evening hymn, and “Oh !” the man of wealth exclaims, "that I might be again that innocent and happy boy!"

If he who embarks his whole heart in the sordid avocations of life, is necessarily driver on to resign the noblest aspirations, and tenderest affections of his youth, the votaress of fashion becomes if possible more heartless, and more hardened in her servile and despicable career: it is possible from this cause that in order to act to the life the artificial character she has assumed, it is necessary that she should sometimes wear the semblance of feeling, just in that proportion, and according to that peculiar mode, which may best suit the selfish purpose of the moment; and this empty mockery of the best and loveliest attributes of human natureof its affections, sympathies, and high carabilities, has a more debasing and injurious effect upon the mind, than the total forgetfulness even of their outward character. But the woman of fashion cannot always keep her thoughts directed to the same brilliant point. There will be moments when she suspects the potency of the idol to whom her only devotions have been offered. With her also the exhaustion of the bodily frame, will produce a pining after that which has been sacrificed at the altar of the world-a longing to lie down and rest, beneath the sheltering wings of the angel of peace. Perchance she has stolen unnoticed from the busy throng, to breathe for one moment with greater freedom at the open casement. She

[ocr errors]

still hears the tread of the noisy dance-the The mariner at midnight on the deep sea, music-the glad voices-and she feels what looks forth when other eyes are sleeping, no heart is capable of feeling without a pang, towards the bright opening in the eastern that her presence is not necessary to the en- clouds, where the pale lustre of the rising joyment of her reputed friends, and that moon gives welcome promise of her blessed when her head is laid within the grave they visitation. Soon her full round orb appears will still dance on, without being conscious in all its splendour, and the dark vapours that one familiar step is wanting in their float away, or, gliding gently past her merriment. Her soul is oppressed. She looks beaming face, receive the soft reflection of out beneath the high blue silent heavens, her smile, before they pass into the undistinand the moon is there to welcome her as guishable chaos of night. High into the with a sister's smile. It is to the moon alone azure heavens she now ascends, while the that all human beings can appeal with an lonely helmsman chants to the heedless gale inward sense of sympathy; and to the moon the songs of his native land. He gazes at last she ventures to utter that complaint, upon the wide expanse of heaving water, which no ear has ever heard. "It was not and ever as his eye dwells upon that silvery thus!" the melancholy strain begins, but track of light that seems to lure him away tears-true, unaffected tears are rising, and to another world, recollections which the she looks down upon the clustering jessa- bustle of the day keeps down, and thoughts mine, whose delicate stars gleam out in the dear as the miser's hoarded treasure, rise moonbeams, and send forth their odorous within his breast, fresh and spontaneous; perfumes upon the gales of night. It was and he thinks how the same moon shone not thus that she, that splendid mourner, upon the woodbine bower where he first weary with the weight of her own diamonds, wooed the village maid, who blushed in her and sick of the selfishness of her own chosen innocent joy, and inwardly exulted in the friends, looked up to the face of the pale short-lived happiness of being a sailor's moon, in those hours when the moon looks bride. Has he not seen that bower again? fairest-those happy hours when even she, Yes, and the woodbine was still lovely, but the false one, was beloved. Her memory, his bride had lost her maiden bloom, and the only faculty which she has not been able the cares of a lonely and almost widowed to pervert, returns to the bright season of wife had made her prematurely old. Again sincerity and youth. Again she is walking he has returned to that well-known spotby the side of one whom worlds could not that haven of his dearest hopes and the have tempted to violate her confidence, or babe that should have welcomed him with wound her love-one who was deserted for the kind name of father, was sleeping bea worthless rival, in his turn to be cast off neath a little grassy mound in the churchfor another, and then a third, and so on, yard, while he had been far away in its until the world at last became the only can- hour of agony, and its last cry had been undidate for her affections, the only ruler of heard by him. Once more he has returned her heart. "It was not thus !" she exclaims, to his deserted home. The mother too was "that I was wont to look upon the moon. gone to her place of rest, and two humble Oh! give me back the loves, the friendships graves side by side were all the memorial of my early days. Restore the capability that remained of his domestic happiness. of trusting, even though I should still be de- What then? Does he wish that his marceived! Awaken in my soul the faculty of riage day had never dawned? would he hope, though I should be disappointed still! extinguish the memory of the past? No, Rekindle my affections, that I may feel the though amidst the stir of the busy day, or possibility of loving, though I should never amongst his jovial comrades he thinks little be beloved again! Let me hear once more of his wife and child, yet in the solitude of the voice of kindness, though it should be the night watches when the moon is above strange to mine ear! Let me listen to the his head, and no sound is to be heard but language of truth, though it should condemn the ripple of the water against the vessel's the whole of my past life!" side, he blesses that mild and gentle remem

brancer, that she visits him in his loneliness, to tell him those tales of tenderness to which his ear has become strange, and to open in his bold and hardy bosom those sweet fountains of human love which transform the character of the rude sailor into that of the avenger of the injured, the father of the orphan, and the protector of the helpless.

Thus ever sweet and pleasant to the watchful eyes of the wayfaring man, is the moon as she rises from her throne of clouds. He turns to gaze upon that welcome face, and thinks how many well-known and familiar looks are directed to the same object. Perchance he has been a wanderer through many lands, a voyager over the deep seas, a pilgrim of the world; yet ever on his wayward course, the same mild moon has been like a faithful and untiring friend, speaking to him amongst a strange people in the native language of his heart, and telling through the lonely night, sweet tidings of his wished-for home. Whether amid snow covered hills, through the frozen wilderness, along the skirts of the pine forest, far, far away, she guides the solitary Laplander? or, in more sultry climes looks down through the foliage of the waving palm tree, and glances over the bright surface of the welcome waters, where the Indian laves his burning feet: whether high above the tower, the minaret, or stately dome, she looks down, a silent and unmoved spectator, upon the thickly-peopled city, the perpetual stir, the hurry and the rush of busy life; or far away in the silence and solitude of some lone isle of the ocean, touching with her sparkling radiance the leaves and blossoms of that nameless and uncultured garden, and the rippling waves that rise and fall, and lull themselves to rest upon that unknown shore: whether through the richly curtained window of the palace, her modest light steals gently in, and gliding over the marble floor, or along the tapestried walls, rest in its silence and purity upon the crimson canopy of kings; or where the cottage of the herdsman stands upon the lone moor, silvers the mossy turf beside his door, covering the grey thatch of the mouldering roof with her garment of beauty, and looking in with her quiet and approving smile

upon his homely meal, blessing the cup of which he drinks, and lighting the parents' way, as they seek the couch of their slumbering cherubs to ask a blessing for the coming day, to return thanks for the past, and then to enjoy the refreshment of peaceful and untroubled sleep; over the waste unpeopled desert, the rich and fertile fields which surround the habitations of men, the tempest-troubled ocean, or the hive of human industry, it is the same moon that meets the traveller's anxious gaze, and ever on his lonely and distant course he feels it to be the same whose rays are interwoven with the thread of his early existence.

Yes, it is the same moon whose silver crescent was hung in the blue heavens when the first night shadowed the infant world with its mighty and mysterious wing. It is the same moon that rocks the restless tides from shore to shore, with a monotony of motion that marks out the different epochs in the life of man, and over-rules his most momentous actions with a power which he is unable either to baffle or subdue. It is the same moon for the mystic celebration of whose metamorphoses, the king of Israel erected an edifice, the most splendid that human ingenuity could invent, or human labour construct. It is the same moon for the visible completion of whose perfect radiance, the Spartans, while yet their souls were fired with the noblest ambition, sacrificed their share of glory in the memorable field of Marathon. It is the same moon which inspires the most ecstatic dreams of the enthusiast, giving to his earth-born visions, a refinement and sublimity, which belong only to that imaginative realm, over which the queen of night presides. It is the same moon upon which the eyes of countless myriads are nightly gazing, but which never yet inspired one unholy thought, awakened one mean or sordid feeling, or called forth one passion inimical to the maintenance of "peace on earth and goodwill towards men." It is the same moon which personifies in her refulgent orb that bright link of spiritual connection between this troubled life, and one that is without anxiety, and without tears; hanging her single lamp of ineffable radiance above our nightly slumbers, like a beacon of hope to lure us to a better land-returning

again, and again to this earthly sphere, to warn us of the danger of delay, to cherish our heavenward aspirations, and to teach us that there is a love, (Oh! how unlike the love of man!) as constant and untiring in its faithfulness, as slow to avenge disobedience and neglect.

THE POETRY OF RURAL LIFE.

BEFORE entirely quitting the fascinating employment of tracing out the poetical associations of particular objects in nature, it is necessary to add a few remarks upon the effect produced upon the mind by rural scenery in general.

It is unnecessary to state, that happiness, in one shape or another, is the great end we have in view, in all our pursuits and avocations; whether that happiness consists in amassing or expending money; in our personal and sensual gratifications, or in the aggrandisement of others; in maintaining the station to which, by birth or education, we have become attached, or in raising ourselves to a higher scale of society; in obtaining and securing to ourselves the refinements and luxuries of life, or in cultivating the mental powers; in looking far and deep, both into the visible and the intellectual world, for those principles of consistency, beauty, and harmony, which owe their development to an almighty hand; and in recognising the work of that hand in every thing around and within us, from the simplest object of sense, to the most sublime and majestic source of contemplation.

The great difficulty in the task I have undertaken, a difficulty which presents itself most strikingly at this stage of the work, is to avoid the folly of being too sentimental, or rather to escape the charge of wishing to lead the mind away from what is substantially useful, to that which is merely visionary. If the major part of society in the present day consisted of love-stricken poets and languishing girls, mine would indeed be a scheme unnecessary and ill devised; but as the tendency of our present system of education, our conversation, habits, and modes of thinking, is towards the direct opposite of sentimentality, we may fairly presume, that in the opinion of all candid and competent judges, this work will be considered harmless, to say the least of it; and that the writer will have due credit given for an earnest endeavor to assist in rescuing the spirit of poesy from the oppression of vulgar tyranny, and in guarding the temple of the muses from the profanations of avarice and dis-wise be repulsive, to sweeten what is bitter, cord.

The character of the cultivated portion of the present race of mankind is too practical, too bustling, too commercial, I might almost say, too material, to admit of the least apprehension that ideas should be brought to stand in the place of facts, that learning should be superseded by sensibility, or that vague notions about the essences of things should be preferred to a just and circumstantial knowledge of the actual substances of those things themselves.

The question is not, under which of these forms mankind is most addicted to look for happiness, but under which of these forms the happiness there in found, is likely to be most conducive to the cultivation and refinement of that part of his nature which is committed to him as a sacred trust, and will have to be rendered up, either elevated or debased, for eternity. I know that poetry is not religion; and that a man may dwell in a region of poetical ideas, yet far from his God: but we learn from the Holy Scriptures, whose whole language is that of poetry, as well as by the slightest experimental knowledge of the subject, that poetry may be intimately associated with religion, and that, so far from weakening its practical influence, it may be woven in with our familiar duties, so as to beautify what would other

and to elevate what we have been accustomed to regard as mean or degraded.

It is not thus with sordid or artificial life. Poetry neither can, nor will dwell there. The atmosphere is too dense, and those who inhale it acquire a taste for its impurities, upon the same principle as that on which the victim of habits more gross and vicious learns to love the odour of the deleterious bowl, because it is associated with the gratification of his brutal appetites.

I am far from wishing that all men were

« PreviousContinue »