Part 9
1. In the second day of the voyage, they came to the Highlands. It was the latter part of a calm, sultry day, that they floated gently with the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat. The turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar, on deck, was echoed from the mountain side and reverberated along the shores; and, if by chance the captain gave a shout of command, there were airy tongues that mocked it from every cliff.
2. Dolph gazed about him, in mute delight and wonder, at these scenes of nature's magnificence. To the left, the Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over height, forest over forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right, strutted forth the bold promontory of Antony's Nose, with a solitary eagle wheeling about it; while beyond, mountain succeeded to mountain, until they seemed to lock their arms together and confine this mighty rive in their embraces.
3. In the midst of this admiration, Dolph remarked a pile of bright, snowy clouds peering above the western heights. It was succeeded by another, and another, each seemingly pushing onward its predecessor, and towering, with dazzling brilliancy, in the deep blue atmosphere; and now muttering peals of thunder were faintly heard rolling behind the mountains. The river, hitherto still and glassy, reflecting pictures of the sky and land, now showed a dark ripple at a distance, as the wind came creeping up it. The fishhawks wheeled and screamed, and sought their nests on the high, dry trees; the crows flew clamorously to the crevices of the rocks; and all nature seemed conscious of the approaching thunder gust.
4. The clouds now rolled in volumes over the mountain tops; their summits still bright and snowy, but the lower parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to patter down in broad and scattered drops; the wind freshened, and curled up the waves; at length, it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the mountain tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed quivering against the rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain; they crashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the Highlands, each headland making a new echo, until old Bull Hill seemed to bellow back the storm.
5. For a time the scudding rack and mist and the sheeted rain almost hid the landscape from the sight. There was a fearful gloom, illumined still more fearfully by the streams of lightning which glittered among the raindrops. Never had Dolph beheld such an absolute warring of the elements; it seemed as if the storm was tearing and rending its way through the mountain defile, and had brought all the artillery of heaven into action.
DEFINITIONS.--1. Lan'guor (pro. lang'gwer), exhaustion of strength, dullness. 3. Re-marked', noticed, observed. Pred-e-ces'-sor, the one going immediately before. Clam'or-ous-ly, with a loud noise. 4. Bel'ly-ing, swelling out. De-file', a long, narrow pass. 5. Rack, thin, flying, broken clouds. El'e-ments, a term usually including fire, water, earth, and air.
NOTES.--1. The Highlands are a mountainous region in New York, bordering the Hudson River above Peekskill.
2. The Dunderberg and Antony's Nose are names of two peaks of the Highlands.
4. Bull Hill, also called Mt. Taurus, is 15 miles farther north.
XXXVI. APRIL DAY.
Caroline Anne Southey (b. 1786, d.1854), the second wife of Southey the poet, and better known as Caroline Bowles, was born near Lymington, Hampshire, England. Her first work, "Ellen Fitzarthur," a poem, was published in 1820; and for more than twenty years her writings were published anonymously. In 1839 she was married to Mr. Southey, and survived him over ten years. Her poetry is graceful in expression, and full of tenderness, though somewhat melancholy. The following extract first appeared in 1822 in a collection entitled, "The Widow's Tale, and other Poems."
1. All day the low-hung clouds have dropped Their garnered fullness down; All day that soft, gray mist hath wrapped Hill, valley, grove, and town.
2. There has not been a sound to-day To break the calm of nature; Nor motion, I might almost say, Of life or living creature;
3. Of waving bough, or warbling bird, Or cattle faintly lowing; I could have half believed I heard The leaves and blossoms growing.
4. I stood to hear--I love it well-- The rain's continuous sound; Small drops, but thick and fast they fell, Down straight into the ground.
5. For leafy thickness is not yet Earth's naked breast to screen, Though every dripping branch is set With shoots of tender green.
6. Sure, since I looked, at early morn, Those honeysuckle buds Have swelled to double growth; that thorn Hath put forth larger studs.
7. That lilac's cleaving cones have burst, The milk-white flowers revealing; Even now upon my senses first Methinks their sweets are stealing.
8. The very earth, the steamy air, Is all with fragrance rife! And grace and beauty everywhere Are flushing into life.
9. Down, down they come, those fruitful stores, Those earth-rejoicing drops! A momentary deluge pours, Then thins, decreases, stops.
10. And ere the dimples on the stream Have circled out of sight, Lo! from the west a parting gleam Breaks forth of amber light.
* * * * * * *
11. But yet behold--abrupt and loud, Comes down the glittering rain; The farewell of a passing cloud, The fringes of its train.
DEFINITIONS.--1. Gar'nered, laid up, treasured. 6. Studs, knobs, buds. 7. Cleav'ing, dividing. 10. Dim'ples, small depressions. Am'ber, the color of amber, yellow.
XXXVII. THE TEA ROSE.
1. There it stood, in its little green vase, on a light ebony stand in the window of the drawing-room. The rich satin curtains, with their costly fringes, swept down on either side of it, and around it glittered every rare and fanciful trifle which wealth can offer to luxury, and yet that simple rose was the fairest of them all. So pure it looked, its white leaves just touched with that delicious, creamy tint peculiar to its kind: its cup so full, so perfect its head bending, as if it were sinking and melting away in its own richness.--Oh! when did ever man make anything to equal the living, perfect flower!
2. But the sunlight that streamed through the window revealed something fairer than the rose--a young lady reclining on an ottoman, who was thus addressed by her livelier cousin: "I say, cousin, I have been thinking what you are to do with your pet rose when you go to New York; as, to our consternation, you are determined to do. You know it would be a sad pity to leave it with such a scatter-brain as I am. I love flowers, indeed,--that is, I like a regular bouquet, cut off and tied up, to carry to a party; but as to all this tending and fussing which is needful to keep them growing, I have no gifts in that line."
3. "Make yourself easy as to that, Kate," said Florence, with a smile; "I have no intention of calling upon your talent; I have an asylum in view for my favorite."
4. "Oh, then you know just what I was going to say. Mrs. Marshall, I presume, has been speaking to you; she was here yesterday, and I was quite pathetic upon the subject; telling her the loss your favorite would sustain, and so forth; and she said how delighted she would be to have it in her greenhouse; it is in such a fine state now, so full of buds. I told her I knew you would like to give it to her; you are so fond of Mrs. Marshall, you know."
5. "Now, Kate, I am sorry, but I have otherwise engaged."
"Whom can it be to? you have so few intimates here."
"Oh, it is only one of my odd fancies."
"But do tell me, Florence."
"Well, cousin, you know the little pale girl to whom we give sewing?"
6. "What! little Mary Stephens? How absurd, Florence! This is just another of your motherly, old-maidish ways; dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets, and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the neighborhood. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling alleys behind our house than ever you have in Chestnut Street, though you know everybody is half dying to see you; and now, to crown all, you must give this choice little bijou to a seamstress girl, when one of your most intimate friends, in your own class, would value it so highly. What in the world can people in their circumstances want with flowers?"
7. "Just the same as I do," replied Florence, calmly. "Have you not noticed that the little girl never comes without looking wistfully at the opening buds? And don't you remember, the other morning she asked me so prettily if I would let her mother come and see it, she was so fond of flowers?"
8. "But, Florence, only think of this rare flower standing on a table with ham, eggs, cheese, and flour, and stifled in that close little room, where Mrs. Stephens and her daughter manage to wash, iron, and cook."
9. "Well, Kate, and if I were obliged to live in one coarse room, and wash, and iron, and cook, as you say; if I had to spend every moment of my time in toil, with no prospect from my window but a brick wall and a dirty lane, such a flower as this would be untold enjoyment to me."
10. "Pshaw, Florence; all sentiment! Poor people have no time to be sentimental. Besides, I don't believe it will grow with them; it is a greenhouse flower, and used to delicate living."
11. "Oh, as to that, a flower never inquires whether its owner is rich or poor; and poor Mrs. Stephens, whatever else she has not, has sunshine of as good quality as this that streams through our window. The beautiful things that God makes are his gifts to all alike. You will see that my fair rose will be as well and cheerful in Mrs. Stephens's room as in ours."
12. "Well, after all, how odd! When one gives to poor people, one wants to give them something useful--a bushel of potatoes, a ham, and such things."
13. "Why, certainly, potatoes and ham must be supplied; but, having ministered to the first and most craving wants, why not add any other little pleasures or gratifications we may have it in our power to bestow? I know there are many of the poor who have fine feeling and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies because they are too hard pressed to procure it any gratification. Poor Mrs. Stephens, for example; I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, and music as much as I do. I have seen her eye light up as she looked upon these things in our drawing. room, and yet not one beautiful thing can she command. From necessity, her room, her clothing,--all she has, must be coarse and plain. You should have seen the almost rapture she and Mary felt when I offered them my rose."
14. "Dear me! all this may be true, but I never thought of it before. I never thought that these hard-working people had any ideas of taste!"
15. "Then why do you see the geranium or rose so carefully nursed in the old cracked teapot in the poorest room, or the morning-glory planted in a box and twined about the window? Do not these show that the human heart yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life? You remember, Kate, how our washerwoman sat up a whole night, after a hard day's work, to make her first baby a pretty dress to be baptized in." "Yes, and I remember how I laughed at you for making such a tasteful little cap for it."
16. "True, Kate, but I think the look of perfect delight with which the poor woman regarded her baby in its new dress and cap was something quite worth creating; I do believe she could not have felt more grateful if 1 had sent her a barrel of flour."
17. "Well, I never thought before of giving anything to the poor but what they really needed, and I have always been willing to do that when I could without going far out of my way."
18. "Ah! cousin, if our heavenly Father gave to us after this mode, we should have only coarse, shapeless piles of provisions lying about the world, instead of all this beautiful variety of trees, and fruits, and flowers,"
19. "Well, well, cousin, I suppose you are right, but have mercy on my poor head; it is too small to hold so many new ideas all at once, so go on your own way;" and the little lady began practicing a waltzing step before the glass with great satisfaction.
DEFINITIONS.--2. Ot'to-man, a stuffed seat without a back. 3. A-sy'lum, a place of refuge and protection. 4. Pa-thet'ic, moving to pity or grief. 6. Bi-jou' (pro. be-zhoo'), a jewel. Cir'cum-stanc-es, condition in regard to worldly property. 10. Sen-ti-ment'al, showing an excess of sentiment or feeling. 13. Com-mand', to claim. Rap'-ture, extreme joy or pleasure, ecstasy. 14. Taste, the faculty of discerning beauty or whatever forms excellence. 15. Yearns, longs, is eager.
XXXVIII. THE CATARACT OF LODORE.
1. "How does the water Come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me Thus once on a time; And, moreover, he tasked me To tell him in rhyme.
2. Anon at the word, There first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, And to hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, With its rush and its roar, As many a time They had seen it before.
3. So I told them in rhyme, For of rhymes I had store, And 't was in my vocation For their recreation That so I should sing; Because I was Laureate To them and the King.
4. From its sources which well In the tarn on the fell; From its fountains In the mountains, Its rills and its gills; Through moss and through brake, It runs and it creeps For a while, till it sleeps In its own little lake.
5. And thence at departing, Awakening and starting, It runs through the reeds, And away it proceeds, Through meadow and glade, In sun and in shade, And through the wood shelter, Among crags in its flurry, Helter-skelter, Hurry-skurry.
6. Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till, in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of its steep descent.
7. The cataract strong Then plunges along, Striking and raging As if a war waging Its caverns and rocks among;
8. Rising and leaping, Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound; Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying, and deafening the ear with its sound
9. Collecting, projecting, Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning, And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and skurrying, And thundering and floundering;
10. Dividing and gliding and sliding, And falling and brawling and sprawling, And driving and riving and striving, And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling;
11. And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore. --Abridged from Southey.
DEFINITIONS.--4. Tarn, a small lake among the mountains. Fell (provincial English), a stony hill. Gills (provincial English), brooks. 10. Brawl'ing, roaring. Riv'ing, splitting.
NOTES.--1. Lodore is a cascade on the banks of Lake Derwentwater, in Cumberland, England, near where Southey lived.
3. Laureate. The term probably arose from a custom in the English universities of presenting a laurel wreath to graduates in rhetoric and versification. In England the poet laureate's office is filled by appointment of the lord chamberlain. The salary is quite small, and the office is valued chiefly as one of honor.
This lesson is peculiarly adapted for practice on the difficult sound "ing".
XXXIX. THE BOBOLINK.
1. The happiest bird of our spring, however, and one that rivals the European lark in my estimation, is the boblincoln, or bobolink as he is commonly called. He arrives at that choice portion of our year which, in this latitude, answers to the description of the month of May so often given by the poets. With us it begins about the middle of May, and lasts until nearly the middle of June. Earlier than this, winter is apt to return on its traces, and to blight the opening beauties of the year; and later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving heats of summer. But in this genial interval, Nature is in all her freshness and fragrance: "the rains are over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land."
2. The trees are now in their fullest foliage and brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed with the sweetbrier and the wild rose; the meadows are enameled with clover blossoms; while the young apple, peach, and the plum begin to swell, and the cherry to glow among the green leaves.
3. This is the chosen season of revelry of the bobolink. He comes amid the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshest and sweetest meadows, and is most in song when the clover is in blossom. He perches on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some long, flaunting weed, and, as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the skylark, and possessing the same rapturous character.
4. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstasy at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of his mate; always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication and delight. Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the bobolink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year, when all nature called to the fields, and the rural feeling throbbed in every bosom; but when I, luckless urchin! was doomed to be mewed up, during the live-long day, in a schoolroom.
5. It seemed as if the little varlet mocked at me as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him! No lessons, no task, no school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo:
"Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year.
"Oh. could I fly, I'd fly with thee! We'd make, with joyful wing, Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring."
6. Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of this feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart for the benefit of my young readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he, in a manner, devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this lasted he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain.
7. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover blossoms disappear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a russet, dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyment of common vulgar birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with the seeds of the tall weeds on which he lately swung and chanted so melodiously. He has become a bon vivant, a gourmand: with him now there is nothing like the "joys of the table." In a little while he grows tired of plain, homely fare, and is off on a gastronomic tour in quest of foreign luxuries.
8. We next hear of him, with myriads of his kind, banqueting among the reeds of the Delaware, and grown corpulent with good feeding. He has changed his name in traveling. Boblincoln no more, he is the reedbird now, the much-sought-for tidbit of Pennsylvanian epicures, the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him. Does he take warning and reform? Alas! not he. Again he wings his flight. The rice swamps of the south invite him. He gorges himself among them almost to bursting; he can scarcely fly for corpulency. He has once more changed his name, and is now the famous ricebird of the Carolinas. Last stage of his career: behold him spitted with dozens of his corpulent companions, and served up, a vaunted dish, on some southern table.
9. Such is the story of the bobolink; once spiritual, musical, admired, the joy of the meadows, and the favorite bird of spring; finally, a gross little sensualist, who expiates his sensuality in the larder. His story contains a moral worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys; warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual pursuits which raised him to so high a pitch of popularity during the early part of his career, but to eschew all tendency to that gross and dissipated indulgence which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end.
--From Irving's "Birds of Spring."