Page images
PDF
EPUB

Quick gold, more keen than lover's art,
Had found the hollow in the heart
Of some, who now their faith must bleed,
Before a bigot husband's creed;
The chemistry of time so shap'd
Its social compounds, none escap'd;
Chang'd with the chang'd-he stood alone-
He did not know-and was not known.

With feelings, as he look'd around,
Stirring like sear'd leaves on the ground,
He conjur'd up the thoughts that here
Made death a hope, and life a fear,-
But shed no tears, like those the dawn
Of his afflicting day had drawn ;
The blush and tear alike were flown,
No guilt should shame him save his own;
And for the wish to climb the hill
Of fame, he fondly held it still,
But with the stern design to spurn
The high-and-heartless in their turn.
He heard his own sad story told,
But e'en to that his heart was cold;
And he appear'd to curious men
A fire that wildly flam'd ere then,
But lost all power to blaze again;
While maidens who had not the art
To warm the chilblains from his heart,
Deem'd him a deeply wounded bee,
That ate his own sweets inwardly;
A wretch to whom the storm or sun
Seem'd worthless things to seek or shun,
While wandr'ing, waiting earth to close
Her green arms on his long repose.

'Twas night-the moon's last beam o'er all
Lay like the shroud before the pall;
He stood among the burial beds,
Where recks no wand'rer where he treads,
Until he comes to where he knows
The relics of his love repose;
That is the consecrated one,
"Twere sacrilege to trample on.
The old church rose amid the gloom,
Like ruins of a prophet's tomb;
And in a space almost as small,
Were congregated well nigh all
That ever knelt within its wall;
The belfry which for ages, warm
In ivy cloak, outliv'd the storm,
Now shadow'd off the moonbeams smile,
As fit not for that awful aisle ;
It shadow'd one sequester'd spot,
Which all, except himself, forgot;-
His sister lay in earth, too low
For lazy glutton worm to go;

She glided from the world ere years
Had giv'n the sting of thought to tears;
And though his memory held no track
Of many a date less distant back,
He yet remember'd one dark scene,-
A fresh grave, neither flat nor green,
A crowd retir'd, a matron keeping
Her lonely vigil there, and weeping ;—
His fair-hair'd sister there lay sleeping :-
Nay more he well could tell how warm
Her soul would be, and fair her form;-
A blue-ey'd beauty that could dress
Her heart in ev'ry loveliness;
Her spirit seem'd, in some warm vow,
For ever breaking through her brow;
A form, as if a snowy show'r

Had fall'n around the snowdrop flow'r ;
The white form melted, and the young
White spirit went to whence it sprung:
And now she differ'd from the grave,
By the sole form his memory gave,
And but one ringlet of her hair
Remain'd, of all that made her fair;
Too young himself at her death day,
To snatch a ringlet from the clay,
"Twas sav'd by one whose breast was cold,
Before it fell to him to fold;
His bosom never parted this,
Except in mournful moods to kiss
"'Twas well-'twas well for thee," he cried,
While o'er her nameless stone he bent,
"If thou were tried as I was tried,

How would thy gentle heart be rent!
Oh! how would it have brook'd to learn
The lore which humbles e'en the stern,
That, come what may-at least 'tis bliss
To 'scape a wretched world like this:-
I clos'd the eye that watch'd our growth,
Upon a bed far, far from thine;—
But I may sleep as far from both,

With none to lay the lid of mine:-
Sleep on, my sister, while I go
The remnant of my walk of woe;
The grave hath not so cold a breast,
To one without a place of rest :—
Welcome it were to me, to whom
The worm is known before the tomb."

He linger'd till the morning ray

Arose-then went away-away,—
And there the marvel's still unspent,
Of whence he came, or where he went.

From loftier tales we turn'd to trace That stranger in his native place.

J. DE J.

CONFESSIONS OF AN OLD BACHELOR.-No. I.

MISSING THE PLAY.

THOUGH I have now attained the sixth age of man's "strange eventful history," I am resolved to vanquish the indolence of my disposition, and commemorate in print the reminiscences which the anniversaries of days long past recall. In my youth I had been what is generally termed, an innocent, obliging fellow. Many an old squire's heart I rejoiced by obtaining, after much personal inconvenience, a favourite species of canine perfection. Old ladies, too, I obliged on divers occasions, nor was I neglectful of the young; I had forwarded at least twenty marriages, either by reuniting angry lovers, moving to pity surly fathers, or by mitigating the obstinacy of maternal ambition-for this indeed I received my reward—on the wedding day I obtained a pair of gloves and a grateful smile; but I won't venture to inquire if the gratitude of those happy people survived the honeymoon. Despite of my obliging character and constant kind services to the Hymeneal god, I arrived at the respectable age of half-a-century, and was a bachelor still; for this oddity I had some excuse. I was downright jilted once, but had the wisdom to recover from the shock; from a second matrimonial scheme I was diverted by discovering that my fair intended was plotting to destroy the regulations of married life, and take me in! Remembering a comment of Dacier's, that "there are two cardinal points in a man's life, which determine his happiness or his misery;" I resolved not to risk the very fair portion of happiness already assigned me by my natal star, and without the least resentment towards the sex, I quietly surrendered myself to the easy life of an old bachelor. My fortune was ample for a single man, I had nothing on earth to concern me, I was fond of the play, an opera, and every public amusement. I had many temptations to become an absentee, but the mean example of my wealthy countrymen who had fled from their native land to fawn upon the English, was a preventive most powerful; besides, I heartily loved old Ireland, and though my expenditure was not very considerable, I determined that to a farthing my fortune should be disbursed in my own country. I occupied a respectable suite of apartments, and unburthened by the cares of a household, or family, I resigned myself to the repose my quiet existence afforded me.

I have said I was fond of the theatre; indeed, that pastime generally engaged my evening hours. It was with a peevish regret, then, that on a November's evening I tossed myself pettishly into my easy chair, and exclaimed, "I shall miss the play; Kean to perform in Hamlet, and I must remain at home." The night was inclement, the rain came pattering against the windows with that slow though heavy fall which contrasts so forcibly with the comforts of a blazing fire and a well-fur

nished apartment. I had no equipage of my own, nor would I take a hired one, because a few months previous I thought myself fortunate in escaping from a hackney coach with my bones unbroken; to attempt to walk in such weather was too great a risk to undergo for one evening's amusement, and yet it annoyed me that these obstacles should arise. I pushed the glass of old Burgundy from before me, and looked around for something to find fault with; but the fire blazed merrily, every thing was in order, and puss kept to her own side of the hearth. I arose and went to the window with a faint hope that the rain might be abating, but of that there was no prospect; the night was of that kind which in my mind always awakens feelings of melancholy, moon-lit, calm, and hazy; not a being moved in the silent streets, nor any sound near but the heavy fall of the thick rain as it descended in sparkling drops upon the shining flags. As the hour advanced, the silence was disturbed by the smooth roll of the private carriages, and the harsh gingling sounds of the hired vehicles as they all journeyed to the house of pleasure. Whether it was that my disappointment aroused in me feelings similar to these entertained by the fox in the fable, or whether I was moved by a particle of that virtue which is the dignity of our nature I know not, but I began to muse in a very moralizing strain on the numbers that thronged to that evening show, the glitter of wealth that would there appear, the costliness of dress and ornament, the general air of pleasure these people would wear; and then to cast my glance upon the numbers of God's children that famished in hunger and cold and heart-bursting misery. "Gracious Father, of what feelings are we composed that know this, that daily witness the distress of so many human beings, and still lavish on this selfish body, that which would dry such an ocean of tears."

As I pursued these contemplations, I perceived a woman approaching slowly, though the rain continued unabated; my mind was at the moment awakened to a sense of the misery of the distressed, and I watched the stooped and lightly clad figure till it paused beneath the lamp at the street door; the woman leaned against the post for a minute, and then sank upon the wet flags; at first, I imagined that she was intoxicated, but when I perceived the convulsion of her frame, which shook from excessive grief, I conjectured that it was a great affliction indeed which rendered her insensible to the wet and cold of the flags on which she had thrown herself. I raised the window, and asked if she was in want; she made no reply, and I then inquired if she was ill; at the same moment a brilliant blaze from my cheerful fire threw an additional air of comfort on my apartment; when my eye noted it, I more forcibly beheld the contrast of my situation with that of this desolate creature; my recollection does not inform me if I walked or ran down stairs, but I well remember that in a very short time the shivering creature stood before me within the house.

How often our good intentions are thwarted. I had scarcely closed the outer door, when the stately figure of my landlady was visible on the

threshold of her back-parlour, and, with her great bow-knots bowing, she desired that the woman should not stand upon the oil-cloth, nor wet the walls with her clothes. Socrates endured the musical reproaches of his wife, thought I, and surely courtesy will oblige me to be no less patient with this pest of womankind. I arranged that the object of my compassion should stand upon a mat, at least two feet from the walls, and then I paused to observe her appearance: she was a woman between the years of thirty and forty, of a wretched, care-worn appearance, yet much of want as her countenance exhibited, I perceived it laboured more under sorrow; she made no attempt to speak, but gazed earnestly around; the sudden transition from the wet, chilly air into the lightsome, warm house, seemed to have stupified her.

"Have you no way of living?" I asked, when, after a short survey, I had satisfied myself that she was truly an object of compassion.

The woman looked up.

66

My little boy," she replied, with that inattention to the query, which demonstrated more than all else the absorbing affliction of her mind.

"What of your boy?" I asked.

"They took him; he is in prison," she answered, raising her wet and torn apron to her eyes, and sobbing aloud.

When I had suffered the violence of the wretched mother's grief to abate a little, I said, "I suppose I am to understand that your son's imprisonment is owing to some misconduct; he has been detected in thieving; well, if you had reared him better he would not now be in prison.” "God help me," sighed the woman, "I reared him as well as a poor widow could. When I was trying to earn a bit to put in his mouth, I could not be seeing after what he was doing."

"But if you had explained to him the enormity of theft," said I sharply, for I was smarting under the recent loss of an Indian silk handkerchief, which some of the junior thieves did me the favour to purloin, "he would be afraid to meddle with other people's property."

The woman shook her head sorrowfully. "I might as well whisht," said she, a little bitterly, "for you gentlefolks will believe nothing that a poor body says; but, blessed God in heaven knows how I made him say his prayers every night, and took him to mass on Sundays, and made him go to catechism, and told him never to do an undecent act, as his father was an honest man, and never did anything to be ashamed of; and it's well the crathur did my bidding,-when I used to get clothes in to wash, he would blow the fire for me, or go for wather, or make the starch, and do anything I told him."

"What is the reason that he has changed?"

"Because, sir, that time I was goin' on very well, but I got a fever and had to go to the hospital. The people gave Tommy a bit to ate till I came out; then everything was gone, I could not pay for the lodging, but 'tis little business I had of a room, for the people I washed for couldn't wait for me to get well, and gave their clothes to another washerwoman. I could

only get charing to do then, and maybe it would be only two or three times in the week I could get anything to earn.”

"But the boy," said I, "how came he to steal ?"

"It is that I am going to tell you about, sir. Yesterday morning, we had four raw potatoes left after the day before, the woman in the next room gave us half a sod of turf to boil them, and that was our last meal; I went up to the washerwoman's to try if she had anything for me to do, but she had nothing till to-day. When I went home I tried to keep poor Tommy quiet by taching him to spell his lesson, for I can read purty well myself, sir; but when the sticks burnt down he threw away the book and said to me, Mother, if I knew the lesson itself it wouldn't take the cold or hunger off of me.' God knows how it sorrowed me to see my poor child this way; but I got him to go asleep easy by telling him that we would have half-a-stone of pittaties and a whole herrin' in the mornin'; that was this mornin', sir; and I was sent for to do some work. Tommy promised to stay within till I'd come back, and sore hard I worked till two o'clock; I got half of my earning then, and went straight and bought the pittaties, and when I was goin' home with a light heart, a woman that's lodging in the house came running to me, and told me Tommy just went up with the polis. I thought the breath would leave my body, but I ran as fast as I could after them, and sure enough my misfortunate child was walking to prison." The woman paused, and again applied her ragged apron to her eyes.

"If he had waited," said I, rather addressing myself, for I was already interested for these creatures of misery.

"Tommy,

"That was what I said to him, sir," resumed the woman. says I, why didn't you wait till I'd come back, and not bring shame in the face of yer widowed mother?' the big tears were runnin' down his cheeks at the sight o' me. Mother,' says he, 'you were very long away, and I was perishing with the cold, and the heart was eatin' out o' me with the hunger; I went out to try if you was comin', and as I was passin' the shop with the bread, I got hungrier, and I ran away with the roll.'”

It was bread, then, that he had stolen. Though a severe illness some years previous had threatened me with death, I never till that moment felt a real dread of eternity; every Christian must believe there is an accounting day, and who is there so mad as to suppose that a just God will view with partiality the actions of the rich more than the poor: the deprivations and sufferings of the latter, if they serve not to mitigate their eternal punishment, will certainly stand in awful contrast with the listlessness, the dissipation. and luxury of the former. If the Almighty permits so great a number to revel in idleness and every luxury earth can give, while their fellow-beings lead a life of deprivation and toil, assuredly it is to be feared that many will one day have reason to curse that wealth which brought upon them utter ruin. As these thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, I looked upon the worn and famished aspect of the woman. "Have you eaten anything to-day?" I asked.

« PreviousContinue »