Page images
PDF
EPUB

which he breathes his very soul, in tones of agonized sensibility, that cannot but give a sympathetic impulse to those who hear. The desolate misanthropy of his mind rises, and throws its dark shade over his poetry, like one of his own ruined castles. We feel it to be sublime, but we forget that it is a sublimity which it cannot have, till it is abandoned by every thing that is kind, and peaceful, and happy, and its halls are ready to become the haunts of out-laws and assassins.

Nor are his more tender and affectionate passages those to which we can yield ourselves without a feeling of uneasiness. It is not that we can here and there select a proposition formally false or pernicious; but that he leaves an impression unfavorable to a healthful state of thought and feeling, peculiarly dangerous to the finest minds and most susceptible hearts. They are the scene of a summer evening, where all is tender, and beautiful, and grand; but the damps of disease descend with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapors of night are breathed in with the fragrance and balm, and the delicate and fair are the surest victims of the exposure.

FRISBIE

[blocks in formation]

HENRY MARTYN AND LORD BYRON.

BOTH Henry Martyn and Lord Byron shared the sorrows of life, and their records teach the different workings of the Christian and the worldly mind. Byron lost his mother, and when urged not to give way to sorrow, he burst into an agony of grief, saying, “I had but one friend in the world, and now she is gone!" On the death of some of his early friends, he thus writes: "My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered. I have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my betters. I an indeed most wretched."

am

And thus Henry Martyn mourns the loss of one most dear. "Can it be that she has been lying so many months in the cold grave? Would that I could always remember it, or always

forget it; but to think a moment on other things, and then feel the remembrance of it come, as if for the first time, rends my heart asunder. O my gracious God, what should I do without Thee! But now thou art manifesting thyself as 'the God of all consolation.' Never was I so near thee. There is nothing in the world for which I could wish to live, except because it may please God to appoint me some work to do. O thou incomprehensibly glorious Savior, what hast thou done to alleviate the sorrows of life!"

It is recorded of Byron, that, in society, he generally appeared humorous and prankish; yet, when rallied on his melancholy turn of writing, his constant answer was, that though thus merry and full of laughter, he was, at heart, one of the most miserable wretches in existence. And thus he writes: "Why, at the very hight of desire, and human pleasure, worldly, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious, does there mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow, a fear of what is to come, a doubt of what is? If it were not for hope, what I would the future be? A hell! As for the past, what predominates in memory? Hopes baffled! From whatever place we commence, we know where it must all end. And yet what good is there in knowing it? It does not make men wiser or better. If I were to live over again, I do not know what I would change in my life, unless it were for-not to have lived at all. All history and experience teach us, that good and evil are pretty equally balanced in this existence, and that what is most to be desired, is an easy passage out of it. What can it give us but years? and these have little of good but their ending."

And thus Martyn writes: "I am happier here in this remote land, where I seldom hear what happens in the world, than I was in England, where there are so many calls to look at things that are seen. The precious Word is now my only study, by means of translations. Time flows on with great rapidity. It seems as if life would all be gone before any thing is done. I sometimes rejoice that I am but twenty-seven, and that, unless God should ordain it otherwise, I may double this number in constant and successful labor. But I shall not cease from my happiness, and scarcely from my labor, by passing into the other world."

And thus they make their records at anniversaries, when the mind is called to review life and its labors. Thus Byron writes: "At twelve o'clock I shall have completed thirty-three years! I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long and to so little purpose. * * It is now three

minutes past twelve, and I am thirty-three!

"Alas, my friend, the years pass swiftly by."

But I do not regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done."

And thus Martyn: "I like to find myself employed usefully, in a way I did not expect or foresee. The coming year is to

be a perilous one, but my life is of little consequence, whether I finish the Persian New Testament or not. I look back with pity on myself, when I attached so much importance to my life and labors. The more I see of my own works, the more I am ashamed of them, for coarseness and clumsiness mar all the works of man. I am sick when I look at the wisdom of man, but am relieved by reflecting, that we have a city whose builder and maker is God. The least of his works is refreshing. A dried leaf, or a straw, makes me feel in good company, and complacence and admiration take the place of disgust. What a momentary duration is the life of man! "It glides along, rolling onward forever," may be affirmed of the river; but men pass away as soon as they begin to exist. the moments pass!"

[blocks in formation]

Well, let

Such was the experience of those who in youth completed

their course.

MISS C. E. BEECHER.

LESSON CXIII.

THE DIVER.

THOU hast been where the rocks of coral grow,
Thou hast fought with eddying waves;
Thy cheek is pale, and thy heart beats low,
Thou searcher of ocean's caves!

Thou hast looked on the gleaming wealth of old, And wrecks where the brave have striven;

The deep is a strong and fearful hold,

But thou its bar hast riven !

A wild and weary life is thine,
A wasting task and lone;

Though treasure-grots for thee may shine,
To all besides unknown.

A weary life! but a swift decay
Soon, soon shall set thee free!

Thou 'rt passing fast from thy toils away,
Thou wrestler with the sea!

In thy dim eye, on thy hollow cheek,
Well are the death-signs read;
Go, for the pearl in its cavern seek,
Ere hope and power be fled.

And bright in beauty's coronal
That glistening gem shall be;
A star to all the festive hall;

But who shall think on thee?

None; as it gleams from the queen-like head,
Not one, 'mid throngs, will say,

"A life hath been, like a rain-drop, shed,
For that pale and quivering ray."

Woe for the wealth thus dearly bought!
And are not those like thee,

Who win for earth the gems of thought?
O wrestler with the sea!

Down to the gulfs of the soul they go,
Where the passion-fountains burn,

Gathering the jewels far below,
From many a buried urn:

Wringing from lava-veins the fire
That o'er bright words is poured;
Learning deep sounds, to make the lyre
A spirit in each chord.

But oh! the price of bitter tears,

Paid for the lonely power,

That throws at last, o'er desert years,
A darkly glorious dower!

Like flower-seeds, by the wild wind spread,
So radiant thoughts are strewed;

The soul whence those high gifts are shed,
May faint in solitude.

And who will think, when the strain is sung,
Till a thousand hearts are stirred,
What life-drops from the minstrel wrung,
Have gushed with every word?

None, none! his treasures live like thine,
He strives and dies like thee;

Thou that hast been to the pearl's dark shrine,
O wrestler with the sea!

MRS. HEMANS.

LESSON CXIV.

EXCELSIOR.

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore,'mid snow and ice,
A banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad: his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung,
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not the pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"

« PreviousContinue »