1857.] The Garret. 133 at that interesting period of his life when he gets his first "Sunday coat" from "store stuff," gets at the same time also a saddle for his own benefit and behoof. This custom has its legitimate reason and ground, not only that he may have whereon to ride to church, but also in this, that certain formalities in social life require that a boy-otherwise young gentleman-of that age should occasionally take a ride on Saturday evening to such place, farther or nearer, where he may have business of his own to transact. Those side-saddles belong to "the girls," that they may accompany their brothers' to church, and then ride home again with them, or with some cousin, or friend, or such-like, who will kindly take the brother's place, that he again may be free to show a similar kindness to another. In this way not a little is the whole neighborhood bound together in mutual good will, and friendship, and love. simple-hearted reader be assured that a tale longer than the girths that reach nearly to the floor, often hangeth by the use of those saddles in the garret. How often have we amused ourselves for hours beside that old chest. It is and has been for ages the receptable of old almanacs, pamphlets, circulars, and papers; some of them have come down from anti-revolutionary times. What quaint and curious productions it containsspeeches in Congress, messages, confessions of murderers that were executed, the visions of persons in a trance, and a variety of strange pamphlets on all sorts of subjects that interested our forefathers, and are interesting still as quaint and queer specimens of half-forgotten love. Among them were old letters from uncles, cousins, and all degrees of relations-giving a simple account of the health, business, joys and sorrows of many that are dead, and some that are living in that season when the almond-tree blossoms. What an interesting kind of half-sad, and halfpleasant indulgence it was on a stormy day, when no out door work was possible, to steal away to the garret, get down beside the old chest and rummage among its antiquated contents, while the patter and roar of the rain upon the roof made music accordant and congenial. Sorry would we be to see the rare contents of that chest destroyed-a fate with which they have been threatened! Our hope is that no vandal, destitute of the spirit of the fifth commandment, will ever find his way to that garret. "The girls want to arrange and rid up the garret-do they? They want the old chest out of the way-do they? Tired of seeing the old thing-are they? It is no use there is it? The old papers are good for nothing-are they not?" This is the way they talk, and oh! we often tremble for the chest? If ever they touch it to burn its contents may the dust of the papers get into their eyes and make them weep tears of penitence over their wicked thoughts and ways! There is one piece of furniture there in the corner of the garret the sight of which touches us more strangely than all the rest, and awakens feelings of a peculiar kind. It is the cradle in which we all-the boys and the girls were rocked in infancy! It is of old-fashioned make, and never was capable of the long gentle sweep and swing of modern cradles. Broad and flat with rockers well worn, it hath little grace in its motion, but waddles clumsily like a duck. Yet sweet in it was the sleep, and pleasant were the dreams of infancy; and over no eradle, no not in palaces, has a warmer mother's heart, or a more watchful mother's eye, ever hung and sighed, and smiled and prayed, and wept. With the image of that cradle in our eye and the sacred feelings and memories which it has inspired in our heart will we leave the garret, and go down into the world again. Long as night shall be silent on that garret, and the moon-beams shall fall in soft and mellow light upon the floor will our imagination love to visit it, and its memories breathe around our hearts as the fragrance around flowers. MAY. THIS month, like most of the rest, is indebted for its name to heathenism. Maius or Majus, or May comes from Majorem, the greater, as they familiarly called Jupiter, because they regarded him as above the rest of the gods, and greater than they. The Germans, besides May, sometimes call it WONNEMONAT, the month of joy or pleasure. "Truly, if there is any month that more than another deserves this name it is the present month of May. Mildly the sun smiles from the cloudless blue, without his rays being as yet oppressive, and all nature revives with fresh life, and beauty, and joy." The peculiar beauty of May can be better seen and felt than described. We have a great deal of poetry devoted to May, but it has always appeared to us that the poets have been less successful on this theme than almost any other. It all seems to let us down instead of raising us up. It may do to read in the house in mid-winter but it sounds stale when read amid May-scenes themselves. Nature can sing its own song by far the best; and when this lovely month begins its reign, we say a truce with poets and poetry-and away to the fields and woods. There we will make our own poetry, and enjoy the song as well as the sentiment, see a thousand sights, and hear a thousand sounds which the most gifted of the poets cannot bring into his verses. The best thing we have ever heard said of May is that of a German Poet: "Mai ist der Kuss welcher Himmel der Erde gibt." May is the kiss which heaven gives the earth. SCATTER YE SEEDS. Scatter ye seeds, and flowers will spring: Sow in your garden, and time will bring Scatter ye seeds-nor think them lost, Though they fall amid leaves and are buried in earth; And to beautiful flowers those seeds will give birth. 1857.] Ungodly Marriages. 135 UNGODLY MARRIAGES. THIS was the particular sin for which God drowned the world. Some of Lot's daughters married in Sodom, and perished in the overthrow. Both Ishmael and Esau married irreligiously, and were both rejected and turned persecutors. The first blasphemer that was stoned by God's command is marked as an offspring of one of these marriages-his mother had espoused an Egyptian. The first captivity of the Jews after their settlement in the Holy Land, is ascribed to this cause. The whole passage is very instructive. It is said that the remains of the nations "were to prove Israel, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandment of the Lord which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, and Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and forgot the Lord their God, and served Baalam and the groves: therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and sold them into the hand of Chusan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chusan-rishathaim eight years. David married the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, by whom he had Absalom-the disgrace and cause of his family. The case of Solomon is a warning to all ages. His son, Rehoboam, that lost the ten tribes, sprang from one of these forbidden marriages-his mother was an Ammonitess. The marriage of Ahab is thus awfully noticed: "And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Ziodonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. But there was none like unto Ahab, who did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." What was it that Ezra so grievously lamented, and so sharply reproved? It was, that "the holy seed had mingled themselves with people of the land." And what says the zealous reformer Nehemiah? Their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people: And I cursed them and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by Ged, saying: "Ye shall not give their sons, or take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things? yet among many nations was no king like him who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in strange wives?" "Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted." A BEAUTIFUL POEM. In the previous number of the Guardian we gave a brief sketch of Wordsworth, in order the more intelligently to introduce to the reader one of his poems-a poem which we have regarded since we have known it, as one of the richest aud most beautiful in the English language. "During my residence at Rome," says Mr. Coleridge, "I had the pleasure of reciting this sublime ode to the illustrious Baron Von Humboldt, then the Prussian minister at the Papal court. He listened to the ode with evident delight, and as evidently not without surprise, and at the close of the recitation exclaimed-'And is this the work of a living English poet? I should have attributed it to the age of Elizabeth, not that I recollect any writer whose style it resembles, but rather with wonder that so great and original a poet should have escaped my notice.'” Often have we read this delightful poem to ourselves and others, and always with new views of its mysterious depths and charming beauty. It needs study or rather, perhaps, it needs a proper organ or spiritual frame in the reader-to understand its great meaning and feel its mystic charm. We would say to the reader-read yourself into it-think yourself into it-feel yourself into it. At the first reading, you may say "obscure-just like Wordsworth." At the second or third you will say "I see men like trees walking." After the fifth reading you will want to read it again, to think and feel as you go along; and about the tenth time you sing it to yourself in the right spirit, you will hear a thousand mystic melodies like angel anthems sounding through your soul. It is truly a great ode. Blessed is the young man or woman who is sufficiently pure to understand it! This too, is the right season in the year in which to read it. Here it is: There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, To me did seem Appareled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: 1857.] A Beautiful Poem. A timely utterance gave that thought relief, The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss I feel-I feel it all. And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, But there's a tree, of many one, Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: But trailing clouds of glory do we come But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,- The youth, who daily farther from the east Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, 137 |