THE BRAVE AT HOME.-T. Buchanan Read
THE maid who binds her warrior's sash, With smile that well her pain dissembles, The while beneath her drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, Though Heaven alone records the tear, And fame shall never know the story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear As e'er bedew'd the field of glory.
The wife who girds her husband's sword, Mid little ones who weep or wonder, And bravely speaks the cheering word, What though her heart be rent asunder, Doom'd nightly in her dreams to hear The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er
Was pour'd upon a field of battle!
The mother who conceals her grief, While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod
Received on Freedom's field of honor!
PARRILASIUS AND THE CAPTIVE.-N. P. Willis.
THERE stood an unsold captive in the mart,
A gray-hair'd and majestical old man, Chain'd to a pillar. It was almost night, And the last seller from his place had gone, And not a sound was heard but of a dog Crunching beneath the stall a refuse bone, Or the dull echo from the pavement rung, As the faint captive changed his weary feet.
He had stood there since morning, and had borne From every eye in Athens the cold gaze Of curious scorn. The Jew had taunted him For an Olynthian slave. The buyer came And roughly struck his palm upon his breast,
And touch'd his unheal'd wounds, and with a sneer Pass'd on.; and when, with weariness o'erspent, He bow'd his head in a forgetful sleep,
The inhuman soldier smote him, and, with threats Of torture to his children, summon'd back The ebbing blood into his pallid face.
'Twas evening, and the half-descended sun Tipp'd with a golden fire the many domes Of Athens, and a yellow atmosphere Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street
Through which the captive gazed. He had borne up With a stout heart that long and weary day,
Haughtily patient of his many wrongs; But now he was alone, and from his nerves The needless strength departed, and he lean'd Prone on his massy chain, and let his thoughts Throug on him as they would.
Parrhasius at the nearest pillar stood,
Gazing upon his grief. The Athenian's cheek Flush'd as he measured with a painter's eye The moving picture. The abandon'd limbs, Stain'd with the oozing blood, were laced with veins Swollen to purple fullness; the gray hair, Thin and disorder'd, hung about his eyes; And as a thought of wilder bitterness Rose in his memory, his lips grew white, And the fast workings of his bloodless face Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart.
The golden light into the painter's room Stream'd richly, and the hidden colors stole From the dark pictures radiantly forth, And in the soft and dewy atmosphere Like forms and landscapes magical they lay. The walls were hung with armor, and about In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms Of Cytheris, and Dian, and stern Jove, And from the casement soberly away Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true, And, like a vail of filmy mellowness, The lint-specks floated in the twilight air.
Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay, Chain'd to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus- The vulture at his vitals, and the links
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh; And as the painter's mind felt through the dim, Rapt mystery, and pluck'd the shadows forth With its far-reaching fancy, and with form And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye, Flash'd with a passionate fire, and the quick curl Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip, Were like the wing'd god's, breathing from his flight. "Bring me the captive now!
My hand feels skillful, and the shadows lift From my waked spirit airily and swift, And I could paint the bow
Upon the bended heavens-around me play Colors of such divinity to-day.
"Ha! bind him on his back! Look!-as Prometheus in my picture here! Quick-or he faints !—stand with the cordial near ! Now-bend him to the rack!
Press down the poison'd links into his flesh! And tear agape that healing wound afresh!
"So-let him writhe! How long Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now ! What a fine agony works upon his brow! Ha! gray-hair'd, and so strong! How fearfully he stifles that short moan! Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!
"Pity' thee! So I do!
I pity the dumb victim at the altar- But does the robed priest for his pity falter? I'd rack thee, though I knew
A thousand lives were perishing in thine- What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?
"Hereafter! Ay-hereafter !
A whip to keep a coward to his track! What gave Death ever from his kingdom back To check the skeptic's laughter?
Come from the grave to-morrow with that story And I may take some softer path to glory.
"No, no, old man! we die
Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away Our life upon the chance wind, even as they! Strain well thy fainting eye--.
For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, The light of heaven will never reach thee more.
"Yet there's a deathless name !
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, And like a steadfast planet mount and burn- And though its crown of flame
Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, By all the fiery stars! I'd bind it on!
"Ay-though it bid me rifle
My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst- Though every life-strung nerve be madden'd first- Though it should bid me stifle
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, And taunt its mother till my brain went wild-
"All-I would do it all
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot— Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!
O heavens !-but I appall
Your heart, old man! forgive
Let him not faint !-rack him till he revives!
"Vain- vain-give o'er! His eye
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now- Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow! Gods! if he do not die
But for one moment-one-till I eclipse Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!
“Shivering! Hark! he mutters Brokenly now-that was a difficult breath- Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death! Look! how his temple flutters!
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head! He shudders-gasps--Jove help him !-so-he's dead.”
How like a mounting devil in the heart Rules the unrein'd ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought And unthrones peace forever. Putting on The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip, We look upon our splendor and forget
The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life
Many a falser idol. There are hopes
Promising well; and love-touch'd dreams for some;
And passions, many a wild one; and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure—yet will only this Balk not the soul-AMBITION only, gives, Even of bitterness, a beaker full !`
Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream, Troubled at best-Love is a lamp unseen, Burning to waste, or, if its light is found, Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken-- Gain is a groveling care, and Folly tires, And Quiet is a hunger never fed—
And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain, Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose- From all but keen AMBITION-will the soul Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness To wander like a restless child away.
Oh, if there were not better hopes than these- Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame- If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart Must canker in its coffers-if the links
Falsehood hath broken will unite no more- If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears— If truth, and fervor, and devotedness, Finding no worthy altar, must return And die of their own fullness-if beyond The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air The spirit may find room, and in the love
Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart
May spend itself—WHAT THRICE-MOCK'D FOOLS ARE WE!
DEATH-BED OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. George Leppard.
Fifty years ago, in a rude garret, near the loneliest suburbs of the city of London, lay a dying man. He was but half
dressed; though his legs were concealed in long military boots. An aged minister stood beside the rough couch. The form was that of a strong man grown old through care more than age. There was a face that you might look upon but once, and yet wear it in your memory forever.
Let us bend over the bed, and look upon that face. A bold forehead seamed by one deep wrinkle visible between the brows-long locks of dark hair, sprinkled with gray; lips firmly set, yet quivering, as though they had a life separate from the life of the man; and then, two large eyesvivid, burning, unnatural in their steady glare. Ay, thero
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