Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

transient thought and fleeting impression that would otherwise be forgotten.

Let us put ourselves then in communication with these voices, and endeavor to interpret their silent but sage like counsellings. Even afar off we may hear them, for, like the father of the returning prodigal, they come to meet us. You may hear the gentle whisperings, and see their influences, even in the crowded conveyances which transport the visitants to Greenwood. They are in communion with that pale young mother, who is seeking to renew the torn up spring of her love at the grave of her first born; they are saddening the brow of the father at her side, and are drawing him, for the moment, from the cares and toils of incessant labor for the things of earth; they are opening anew the fountains of grief in the widowed and the fatherless; they are sharpening the memories to which affection, friendship and reverence cling, while journeying to the shrines of their respective pilgrimages.

Even the mere pleasure-seekers, as they come within the influence of these "warning voices," are less thoughtless; and levity is subdued under the power of their secret ministrations. How solemn and yet how beautiful are the lessons breathed into our mental ears, even on the threshold of this hallowed spot! We are treading the confines of that "bourne from which no traveler returns," to which we must all be conveyed. How fitting a receptacle this for the soul-untenanted clay !— secure as it is from intrusion and desecration—a set apart and sacred spot-guarded by the majesty of the law, and hallowed by the feelings and associations which in all countries have thrown around the sepulchre the ægis of reverence and regard.

The voice of inspiration, first sounded in the patriarchal ages and reverberated through the periods of Mosaic and Christian dispensations, has hallowed the abodes of the dead, forbidding their desecration for profane or mundane purposes. It is a principle, too, apparently instinctive in man to honor the resting places of the departed. The untutored Indian venerates the graves of his ancestors; the rudest savage pays homage to the spot where lie the relics of his race. The mystic idolatry of Egypt expended its world-teaching science in giving an attempted immortality to the perishing remains of humanity, and their yet existing stupendous relics of architecture speak trumpet-tongued to us moderns, how they venerated the memory of the departed. Greece and Rome ex austed the resources of art to testify their

regard for the honored dead. The disciples of Mahomet hold their sepulchres in reverence; the worshippers of Bramah, the devotees of Confucius and Fo; the adorers of the Grand Lama; the believers in Zoroaster, and the Persian fire-worshippers; the children of Woden, and the ignorant adorer of the "Fetish God"—all have testified an honored regard for the burial places of the dead.

It is this sacred impulse of nature, sanctioned by the approval of inspiration, that makes these modern ornamented cemeteries such interesting expository features of the spirit of our age. The rapidity of modern improvement cannot touch them. They, at least, are preserved from the experimental process of utilitarianism. New York rushing on to its destined gigantic altitude, and its torrent-like progress, may transform temples raised to the worship of the living God into seats of the money-changers and marts of traffic; and time-honored graveyards may be trampled by her busy crowds, yet Greenwood is there, clotned in its sacred prerogative of exclusive privileges, secure from innovation and preserved from future desecration. And there, too, may be traced the progress of modern refinement, fitly assuming the task of modeling public taste, by fostering a love for the beautiful, as exhibited in the combination of Nature improved by Art.

In a country like this, where every man may aspire to become the owner of a "homestead," and where wealthy proprietors possess domains equal in extent to the largest baronial estates of Europe, the cultivation of a taste for ornamental gardening seems almost to become a duty, for who will deny the humanizing tendencies of such pursuits? Greenwood is actually a "Capability Brown," quite as eloquent as the great modern expounder of the advantages of landscape gardening. How many an embowering residence, and how many a picturesquely ornamented garden, that adds beauty to our country, may owe their origin to Greenwood! And what genial home influences may not have been first awakened by a contemplation of the beauties which are so admirably blended in these ornamented resting-places of the loved and honored dead!

If the "voices of Greenwood," are thus suggestive of feelings of reverence to the dead; if they foster those humanizing influences, which are generated by pure and refined tastes, how solemnly impressive are other lessons they convey! Not alone do they say, in the language of the poet:

Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,
Bids every fierce tumultuous passion cease;
In still small accents whispering from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace."

But they speak to us of the busy world, its conflicts and its toils, teaching us not only how to die, but how to live: they arm us for the contests of this world's strifes, and as we linger over the evidences of frail mortality around us. these “voices” point endless morals and adorn most eloquent tales.

HYMN TO THE BEAUTIFUL.-R. H. STODDARD.

My heart is full of tenderness and tears,
And tears are in mine eyes, I know not why;
With all my grief, content to live for years,
Or even this hour to die.

My youth is gone, but that I heed not now;
My love is dead, or worse than dead can be;
My friends drop off like blossoms from a bough,
But nothing troubles me,

Only the golden flush of sunset lies

Within my heart like fire, like dew within my eyes!

Spirit of Beauty! whatsoe'er thou art,

I see thy skirts afar, and feel thy power;
It is thy presence fills this charméd hour,
And fills my charméd heart;

Nor mine alone, but myriads feel thee now,
That know not what they feel, nor why they bow;
Thou canst not be forgot,

For all men worship thee, and know it not;
Nor men alone, but babes with wondrous eyes,
New-comers on the earth, and strangers from the skies!

We hold the keys of Heaven within our hands,
The gift and heirloom of a former state,
And lie in infancy at Heaven's gate,

Transfigured in the light that streams along the lands!
Around our pillows golden ladders rise,

And up and down the skies,

With wingéd sandals shod,

The angels come, and go, the messengers of God!
Nor do they, fading from us, e'er depart―

It is the childish heart;

We walk as heretofore,

Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore!
Not Heaven is gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of years!

From earliest infancy my heart was thine;
With childish feet I trod thy temple aisles;
Not knowing tears, I worshipped thee with smiles,
Or if I ever wept, it was with joy divine!
By day, and night, on land, and sea, and air—
I saw thee everywhere!

A voice of greeting from the wind was sent;
The mists enfolded me with soft white arms;
The birds did sing to lap me in content,
The rivers wove their charms,

And every little daisy in the grass

Did look up in my face, and smile to see me pass!

Not long can Nature satisfy the mind,

Nor outward fancies feed its inner flame;
We feel a growing want we cannot name,
And long for something sweet, but undefined;
The wants of Beauty other wants create,
Which overflow on others soon or late;
For all that worship thee must ease the heart,
By Love, or Song, or Art:

Divinest Melancholy walks with thee,

Her thin white cheek forever leaned on thine; And Music leads her sister Poesy,

In exultation shouting songs divine!

But on thy breast Love lies-immortal child!—
Begot of thine own longings, deep and wild:
The more we worship him, the more we grow
Into thy perfect image here below;
For here below, as in the spheres above,
All Love is Beauty, and all Beauty, Love!

Not from the things around us do we draw
Thy light within: within the light is born;
The growing rays of some forgotten morn,
And added canons of eternal law.
The painter's picture, the rapt poet's song,

The sculptor's statue, never saw the Day;
Not shaped and moulded after aught of lay,
Whose crowning work still does its spirit wong;
Hue after hue divinest pictures grow,

Line after line immortal songs arise,

And limb by limb, out-starting stern and slow,
The statue wakes with wonder in its eyes!
And in the master's mind

Sound after sound is born, and dies like wind,
That echoes through a range of ocean caves,
And straight is gone to weave its spell upon the waves!
The mystery is thine,

For thine the more mysterious human heart,
The temple of all wisdom, Beauty's shrine,

The oracle of Art!

Earth is thine outer court, And Life a breath;
Why should we fear to die, and leave the Earth!
Not thine alone the lesser key of Birth,-
But all the keys of Death;

And all the worlds, with all that they contain
Of Life, and Death, and Time, are thine alone;
The universe is girdled with a chain,

And hung below the throne

Where Thou dost sit, the universe to bless,-
Thou sovereign smile of God, eternal loveliness!

ABBOTTSFORD AND MELROSE ABBEY.-BAYARD TAYLOR.

CROSSING the Gala we ascended a hill on the road to Selkirk, and behold! the Tweed ran below, and opposite, in the midst of embowering trees planted by the hand of Scott, rose the grey halls of Abbottsford. We went down a lane to the banks of the swift stream, but finding no ferry, as it looked very shallow, we thought we might save a long walk by wading across. The current was ice-cold and very swift, and as the bed was covered with loose stones, it required the greatest care to stand upright. Looking at the bottom, through the rapid water, made my head so giddy, I was forced to stop and shut my eyes; my friend, who had firmer nerves, went plunging on to a deeper and swifter part, where the strength of the current made him stagger very unpleasantly.

The

We found a foot-path on the other side, which led through a young forest to Abbottsford. Rude pieces of sculpture, taken from Melrose Abbey, were scattered around the gate, some half buried in the earth and overgrown with weeds. niches in the walls were filled with pieces of sculpture, and an antique marble greyhound reposed in the middle of the court yard. We rang the bell in an outer vestibule, ornamented with several pairs of antlers, when a lady appeared, who, from her appearance, I have no doubt was Mrs. Ormand, the "Duenna of Abbottsford," so humorously described by D'Arlincourt, in his "Three Kingdoms." She ushered us into the entrance hall, which has a magnificent ceiling of carved oak and is lighted by lofty stained windows. An effigy of a knight in armor stood at either end, one holding a huge two-handed sword found on Bosworth Field; the walls were covered with helmets and breastplates of the olden time.

Among the curiosities in the Armory are Napoleon's pistols, the blunderbuss of Hofer, Rob Roy's purse and gun, and the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »