Page images
PDF
EPUB

sprang upon the corpse of her mother, and raised a woeful lamentation over her wounds. She repelled my efforts to noose her, with great ferocity; but, at last, completely muzzled, with a line fastened by a running knot between her jaws and the back of her head, she moved off to the brig amid the clamor of the dogs. We have her now chained alongside, but snarling and snapping constantly, evidently suffering from her wound.

XCIV.-WINTER.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

1. Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old;

On open wold and hill-top bleak

It had gathered all the cold,

And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek;
It carried a shiver everywhere

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare;
The little brook heard it and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;

2. All night by the white stars' frosty gleams
He groined his arches and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars

As the lashes of light that trim the stars;
He sculptured every summer delight
In his halls and chambers out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipped
Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt,
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;

3. Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear,

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops

And hung them thickly with diamond drops,
That crystalled the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one;

4. No mortal builder's most rare device
Could match this winter-palace of ice;
'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay
In his depths serene through the summer day,
Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky,
Lest the happy model should be lost,
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry
By the elfin builders of the frost.

5. Within the hall are song and laughter;
The cheeks of Christmas grow red and jolly;
And sprouting is every corbel and rafter

With lightsome green of ivy and holly;
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide;

6. The broad flame-pennons droop and flap
And belly and tug as a flag in the wind;
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,

Hunted to death in its galleries blind;
And swift little troops of silent sparks,
Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear,
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks
Like herds of startled deer.

7. But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings

The icy strings,

Singing, in dreary monotone,

A Christmas carol of its own,

Whose burden still, as he might guess,
Was "Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"

XCV.-SUMMER.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

1. And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

2. The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,In the nice ear of nature which song is the best?

3. Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'T is enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing;

4. The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,

And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,

Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

5. Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-
"Tis the natural way of living.

Who knows whither the clouds have filed?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

XCVI.—A BEE HUNT.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

1. The beautiful forest in which we were encamped abounded in bee-trees; that is to say, trees in the decayed trunks of which wild bees had established their hives. It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the Far West, within but a moderate number of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man; and say that, in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and buffalo retire.

2. We are always accustomed to associate the hum of the bee-hive with the farm-house and flower-garden, and to consider those industrious little animals as connected with the busy haunts of man; and I am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds of civilization, steadfastly preceding it as it advanced from the Atlantic borders, and some of the ancient settlers of the West pretend to give the very year when the honey-bee first crossed the Mississippi. The Indians with surprise found the moldering trees of their

« PreviousContinue »