Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847
The popular notion prevalent in England, and still more so in France, that Spain is an unsafe country to travel in, is energetically combated by Mr. Ford. It, of course, would be highly impolitic in the author of a hand-book to admit that, in the country he described, the chances were about equal whether a man got to his journey’s end with a whole throat or a cut one. But this consideration, we are sure, has had no weight with Mr. Ford, both of whose books are equally adapted to amuse by an English fireside or to be useful on a Spanish highway. His contempt for the exaggerated statements and causeless terrors of tourists leads him, however, rather into the opposite extreme. Believe him, and there is scarcely a robber in the Peninsula, although he admits that thieves abound, chiefly to be found in confessional boxes, lawyers’ chambers, and government offices. The naiveté of the following is amusing: – He speaks of travellers who, by scraping together and recording every idle tale, gleaned from the gossip of muleteers and chatter of coffee-houses, “keep up the notion entertained in many counties of England, that the whole Peninsula is peopled with banditti. If such were the case society could not exist.” The assertion is undeniable. Equally so is it that in a country where civil war so lately raged, and where, until a very recent date, revolutions were still rife, where a large portion of the population lives by the lawless and demoralising profession of smuggling, where the police is bad, where roads are long and solitary and mountains many, highwaymen must abound and travelling be unsafe. That it is so, may be ascertained by a glance at any file of Spanish newspapers. And the peculiar state of Spain, its liability to the petty insurrections and desperate attempts of exiled parties and pretenders, encourages the growth of robber bands, who cloak their villanous calling with a political banner. These insurgents, Carlists, Progresista, or whatsoever they may style themselves, act upon the broad principle that those who are not with them are against them, and consequently are just as dangerous and disagreeable to meet as mere vulgar marauders of the “stand and deliver” sort, who fight upon their own account, without pretending to defend the cause either of King or Kaiser, liberty or absolutism. At the same time to believe, as many do, that of travellers in Spain the unrobbed are the exceptions or even the minority, is a gross absurdity, and the delusion arises from the romancing vein in which scribbling tourists are apt to indulge. It is certain that nearly all travellers, especially French ones, who take a run of a month or two in the Peninsula, and subsequently print the eventful history of their ramble, think it indispensable to introduce at least one robber adventure, as having occurred to themselves or come within their immediate cognisance. And if they cannot manage to get actually robbed, positively put down with their noses in the mud, whilst their carpet bags are rummaged, and their Chub-locks smashed by gloomy ruffians with triple-charged blunderbusses, and knives like scythe-blades, they at least get up a narrow escape. They encounter a troop of thorough-bred bandits, unmistakable purse-takers, fellows with slouched hats, truculent mustaches and rifle at saddle-bow, who lower at them from beneath bushy brows, and are on the point of commencing hostilities, when the well-timed appearance of a picket of dragoons, or perhaps the bold countenance of the travellers themselves, makes them change their purpose and ride surlily by. Mr. Ford shows how utterly groundless these alarms usually are. Most Spaniards, when they mount their horses for a journey, discard long-tailed coats and Paris hats, and revert in great measure to the national costume as it is still to be found in country places. A broad-brimmed, pointed hat, with velvet band and trimmings – the genuine melodramatic castor – protects head and face from the sun; a jacket, frequently of sheepskin, overalls, often of a half-military cut and colour, and a red sash round the waist, compose the habitual attire of Spanish wayfarers. Such a dress is not usual out of Spain, and to French and English imaginations does not suggest the idea of domestic habits and regular tax-paying. And when the cavaliers thus accoutred possess olive or chocolate complexions, with dark flashing eyes and a considerable amount of beard, and are elevated upon demi-pique saddles, whose holsters may or may not contain “pistols as long as my arm,” whilst some of their number have perhaps fowling-pieces slung on their shoulder, it is scarcely surprising if the English Cockney or Parisian badaud mistakes them for the banditti whom he has dreamed about ever since he crossed the Bidassoa or landed at Cadiz. And upon encounters of this kind, and incidents of very little more gravity, repeated, distorted, and hugely exaggerated, are founded five-sixths of the robber stories to which poor Spain is indebted for its popular reputation of a country of cut-throats and highwaymen.
Amongst the measures adopted for the extirpation of banditti, was the establishment of the guardias civiles, a species of gendarmerie, dressed upon the French model, and who, from their stations in towns, patrol the roads and wander about the country in the same prying and important style observable amongst their brethren of the cocked hat north of the Pyrenees. Spaniards have a sneaking regard for bold robbers, whom they look upon as half-brothers of the contrabandist – that popular hero of the Peninsula: they have also an innate dislike of policemen, and a still stronger one for every thing French. They have bestowed upon the Frenchified guardias the appellations of polizones, – a word borrowed from their neighbours, – and of hijos de Luis Felipe, sons of Louis Philippe. “Spaniards,” saith Richard Ford, “are full of dry humour;” he might have added, and of sharp wit. Nothing escapes them: they are ever ready with a sarcasm on public men and passing events, and when offended, especially when their pride is hurt, they become savage in their satire. When it was attempted to force Count Trapani upon Spain as a husband for the Queen, the indignation of the people burst out in innumerable jokes and current allusions, any thing but flattering to the Neapolitan prince. Every thing filthy and disgusting received his name. In the Madrid coffee-houses, when a dirty table was to be wiped, the cry was invariably for a Trapani, instead of a trapo, the Spanish word for a dishclout or rag used for the most unclean purposes. Since then, the Duke of Montpensier has come in for his share of insulting jests. The Madrileños got all unfounded notion that he was short-sighted, and made the most of it. Mr. Hughes was at a bull-fight where one of the bulls showed the white feather, and ran from the picador. “The crowd instantly exclaimed, ‘Fuera el toro Monpenseer! Fuera Monpenseer! Turn him out!’ They used to call every lame dog and donkey a Trapani; and now every blind animal is sure to be christened a Monpenseer.”
If the danger to which peaceable travellers are exposed, in Spain, from the knives of robbers, be considerably less than is generally believed, great peril is often incurred at the hands of men who wield cutting weapons professedly for the good of their species. The ignorance and inefficiency of Spanish surgeons and physicians is notorious, and admitted even by their countrymen, who, it has already been shown, are not prone to expose the nakedness of the land. “The base, bloody, and brutal Sangrados of Spain,” says Mr. Ford, “have long been the butts of foreign and domestic novelists, who spoke many a true word in their jests.” The eagerness with which Spaniards have recourse to French and English medical men whom chance throws in their way, proves how low they estimate the skill and science of their professional countrymen. Many a naval surgeon whose ship has been stationed on the Spanish coast, could tell strange tales of the fatal ignorance he has had opportunity to observe amongst the native faculty. It will be remembered how Zumalacarregui, whose wound would have offered little difficulty to an English village practitioner, was hurried out of the world by the butchering manœuvres of his conclave of Spanish quacks and medicos, terms too often synonymous. And it may be remarked, that in Spain, where there has been so much fighting during the last fifteen years, amputated persons are more rarely met with than in countries that have enjoyed comparative peace during the same period. The natural inference is, that the unlucky soldier whose leg or arm has been shattered by the enemy’s fire, usually dies under the hands of unskilful operators. “All Spaniards,” Mr. Ford remarks, “are very dangerous with the knife, and more particularly if surgeons. At no period were Spaniards careful even of their own lives, and much less of those of others, being a people of untender bowels.” If the Peninsula surgeon is reckless and destructive with his steel, the physician, on the other hand, is usually overcautious with his drugs. Almond-milk and vegetable decoctions, impotent to cure or aggravate disease, are prominent remedies in the Spanish pharmacopœia; minerals are looked upon with awe, and the timid tisane practice of the French school is exaggerated to absurdity. Upon the principle of keeping edged tools out of the hands of children, it is perhaps just as well that Spanish doctors do not venture to meddle with the strong drugs commonly used in England. Left to nature, with whose operation asses’-milk and herb-broth can in few cases interfere, the invalid has at least a chance of cure.
Unassailed by either variety of Spanish bloodletters, the doctor or the bandit, Mr. Hughes pursued, in high spirits and great good humour, his long and leisurely journey from Irun to Lisbon, via Madrid. We left him at Paris, strolling in the passages, dining with his friends of the Charivari, frequenting the foyer de l’opera, leading, in short, rather a gay life for a man in such delicate health; we take him up again upon his own favourite battle-ground of the Peninsula, where we like him far better than in the French metropolis. At Burgos he is in great feather, winning hearts by the dozen, frightening the garrison by sketching the fortress, waging a victorious warfare of words at the table-d’hôte, and playing pranks which will doubtless cause him to be long remembered in the ancient capital of Castile. There the maid of the inn, a certain black-eyed Francisca, fell desperately in love with him, and so far forgot maidenly reserve as to confess her flame. “She had large and expressive eyes,” says the fortunate man, “and had tried their power on me repeatedly, and the like, I am bound to say, (in narrating this truthful history,) did sundry Burgalese dames and damsels of more pretensions and loftier state.” These were far from being the sole triumphs achieved at Burgos by this lover of truth, and loved-one of the ladies. He managed to excite the suspicions of the whole population, especially of the police, who set spies to dog him. He was taken for a political agent, a propagandist, and at last for a diplomatist of the first water, and secretary of legation at Madrid. The origin of these suspicions was traceable to his disregard of a ridiculous and barbarous prejudice, a relic of orientalism worthy of the Sandwich islanders, still in force amongst Spaniards. “Nothing throughout the length and breadth of the land” – we quote from Mr. Ford – “creates greater suspicion or jealousy than a stranger’s making drawings, or writing down notes in a book; whoever is observed ‘taking plans,’ or ‘mapping the country,’ – for such are the expressions of the simplest pencil sketches, – is thought to be an engineer, a spy, or, at all events, to be about no good.” Mr. Hughes was caught taking notes; forthwith Burgos was up in arms, whilst he, on discovering the sensation made by his sketch-book, and by his free expression of political opinions, did his utmost to increase the mysterious interest attached to him. He galloped about the castle, book and pencil in hand, making imaginary sketches of bastions and ravelins; he talked liberalism by the bushel, and raved against the Montpensior alliance. The results of the triumphant logic with which he electrified a brigadier-general, a colonel, and the whole company at his hotel, are recorded by him in a note. It will be seen that they were not unimportant. “I have the satisfaction to state that the words which I said that day bore good fruit subsequently, for the Ayuntamiento of Burgos declined to vote any taxation for extraordinary expenses to commemorate the Duke of Montpensier’s marriage.” A dangerous man is the overland traveller to Lisbon, and we are no way surprised that, at Madrid, Señor Chico, chief of police, vouchsafed him his special attention, and even called upon him to inquire whether he did not intend to get up a commotion on the entrance of the Infanta’s bridegroom. Mr. Bulwer also, aware that a book was in embryo, and anxious for a patronising word in its pages, paid his court to the author by civilities, “all of which I carefully abstained from accepting, except one formal dinner, to which I first declined going; but, on receiving a renewal of the invitation, could not well refrain from appearing… I have had six years’ experience of foreign diplomatists, and know that the dinner was pressed on me a second time for the very purpose of committing me to a particular line of observation.” After this, let any one tell us that Mr. Hughes has not fulfilled his promise of being amusing. Unfettered by obligations, he runs full tilt at poor Mr. Bulwer, the fatal error of whose career is, he says, an excessive opinion of himself. This fault must be especially odious to the author of the “Journey to Lisbon.” The British ambassador at Madrid, we are told, by his vanity and lack of energy, left full scope for the active and tortuous intrigues of M. Bresson, who fairly juggled and outmanœuvred him. “The marriages were arranged in his absence. He was not consulted on the question, nor was its decision submitted to him; and when the news, on the following day, reached the British legation, after having become previously known to the metropolis, our minister was at Carabanchal! (one of his country-houses.) Then, indeed, he became very active, and displayed much ex post facto energy, writing a series of diplomatic notes and protests, in one of which he went the length of saying, ‘Had he known this result, he would have voted for Don Carlos instead of Queen Isabel,’ – for even the ambassador cannot lose sight of the individual, – ‘when he (Mr. Bulwer) was member of Parliament!’” Did Mr. Hughes see this note or protest? Unless he did, we decline believing that a man of Mr. Bulwer’s talents and reputation would expose himself to certain ridicule by so childish and undiplomatic a declaration. Such loose and improbable statements need confirmation.
Very graphic and interesting is Mr. Hughes’ narrative of his journey from Madrid to Portugal, especially that of the three days from Elvas to Aldea Gallega, which were passed in a jolting springless cart, drawn by mules, and driven by Senhor Manoel Alberto, a Portuguese carrier and cavalheiro, poor in pocket, but proud as a grandee. Manoel was a good study, an excellent specimen of his class and country, and as such his employer exhibits him. At Arroyolos Mr. Hughes ordered a stewed fowl for dinner, and made his charioteer sit down and partake. “I soon had occasion to repent my politeness, for Manoel, without hesitation, plunged his fork into the dish, and drank out of my glass; and great was his surprise when I called for another tumbler, and, extricating as much of the fowl as I chose to consume, left him in undisturbed possession of the remainder.” His next meal Mr. Hughes thought proper to eat alone, but sent out half his chicken to the muleteer. “He refused to touch it, saying that he had ordered a chicken for himself! This was a falsehood, for he supped, as I afterwards ascertained, on a miserable sopa, but his pride would not permit him to touch what was given in a way that indicated inferiority.” In his rambles through Alemtejo, a province little visited and not often described by Englishmen, Mr. Hughes exposes some of the blunders of Friend Borrow, of Bible and gipsy celebrity, whose singularly attractive style has procured for his writings a popularity of which their mistatements and inaccuracies render them scarcely worthy. He refers especially to the absurd notion of the English caloro, that the Portuguese will probably some day adopt the Spanish language; a most preposterous idea, when we remember the shyness, not to say the antipathy, existing between the two nations, and the immense opinion each entertains of itself and all belonging to it. He regrets “that one who has so stirring a style should take refuge in bounce and exaggeration from the honourable task of candid and searching observation, and prefer the fame of a Fernão Mendez Pinto to that of an honest and truthful writer.” With respect to exaggeration, Mr. Borrow might, if so disposed, retaliate on his censor, who, whilst wandering in the olive groves of Venda do Duque, encounters “black ants as large almost as figs, unmolested in the vivid sun-beam.” Before such monsters as these, the terrible termes fatalis of the Indies, which undermines houses and breakfasts upon quarto volumes, must hide its diminished head. A misprint can scarcely be supposed, unless indeed an f has been substituted for a p, which would not mend the matter. Apropos of Mr. Borrow: it appears that the ill success of his tract and Testament crusade did not entirely check missionary zeal for the spiritual amelioration of the Peninsula. His followers, however, met with small encouragement. One of their clever ideas was to bottle tracts, throw them into the sea, and allow them to be washed ashore! This ingenious plan, adopted before Cadiz, did not answer, “first,” says Mr. Hughes, who, we must do him the justice to say, is a stanch foe to humbug, “because the bottling gave a ludicrous colour to the transaction; and, secondly, for the conclusive reason, that Cadiz, being surrounded by fortified sea walls, mounted with frowning guns and sentries, the bottles never reached the inhabitants.”
Whilst touching on Portuguese literature, Mr. Hughes refers to what he considers the depreciating spirit of English critics. “There is a ludicrous difference,” he says, “in the criticism of London and Lisbon. Every thing is condemned in the former place, and every thing hailed with rapture in the latter. There are faults on both sides.” We have been informed that previous literary efforts of the author of the “Overland Journey” met, at the hands of certain reviewers, with rougher handling than they deserved. His present book is certainly not so cautiously written as to guarantee it against censure. The good that is in it, which is considerable, is defaced by triviality and bad taste. We shall not again dilate on faults to which we have already adverted, but merely advise Mr. Hughes, when next he sits down to record his rambles, to eschew flimsy and unpalatable gossip, and, bearing in mind Lord Bacon’s admonition to travellers, to be “rather advised in his discourse than forward to tell stories.”
TO THE STETHOSCOPE
“Tuba mirum spargens sonum.”
Dies Iræ.
[The Stethoscope, as most, probably, of our readers are aware, is a short, straight, wooden tube, shaped like a small post-horn. By means of it, the medical man can listen to the sounds which accompany the movements of the lungs and heart; and as certain murmurs accompany the healthy action of these organs, and certain others mark their diseased condition, an experienced physician can readily discover not only the extent, but also the nature of the distemper which afflicts his patient, and foretell more or less accurately the fate of the latter.
The Stethoscope has long ceased to excite merely professional interest. There are few families to whom it has not proved an object of horror and the saddest remembrance, as connected with the loss of dear relatives, though it is but a revealer, not a producer of physical suffering.
As an instrument on which the hopes and fears, and one may also say the destinies of mankind, so largely hang, it appears to present a fit subject for poetic treatment. How far the present attempt to carry out this idea is successful, the reader must determine.]
stethoscope! thou simple tube,
Clarion of the yawning tomb,
Unto me thou seem’st to be
A very trump of doom.
Wielding thee, the grave physician
By the trembling patient stands,
Like some deftly skilled musician;
Strange! the trumpet in his hands.
Whilst the sufferer’s eyeball glistens
Full of hope and full of fear,
Quietly he bends and listens
With his quick, accustomed ear —
Waiteth until thou shalt tell
Tidings of the war within:
In the battle and the strife,
Is it death, or is it life,
That the fought-for prize shall win?
Then thou whisperest in his ear
Words which only he can hear —
Words of wo and words of cheer.
Jubilatés thou hast sounded,
Wild exulting songs of gladness;
Misererés have abounded
Of unutterable sadness.
Sometimes may thy tones impart,
Comfort to the sad at heart;
Oftener when thy lips have spoken,
Eyes have wept, and hearts have broken.
Calm and grave physician, thou
Art like a crownéd KING;
Though there is not round thy brow
A bauble golden ring,
As a Czar of many lands,
Life and Death are in thy hands.
Sceptre-like, that Stethoscope
Seemeth in thy hands to wave:
As it points, thy subject goeth
Downwards to the silent grave;
Or thy kingly power to save
Lifts him from a bed of pain,
Breaks his weary bondage-chain,
And bids him be a man again.
Like a Priest beside the altar
Bleeding victims sacrificing,
Thou dost stand, and dost not falter
Whatsoe’er their agonising:
Death lifts up his dooming finger,
And the Flamen may not linger!
Prophet art thou, wise physician,
Down the future calmly gazing,
Heeding not the strange amazing
Features of the ghastly vision.
Float around thee shadowy crowds,
Living shapes in coming shrouds; —
Brides with babes, in dark graves sleeping
That still sleep which knows no waking;
Eyes all bright, grown dim with weeping;
Hearts all joy, with anguish breaking;
Stalwart men to dust degraded;
Maiden charms by worms invades;
Cradle songs as funeral hymns;
Mould’ring bones for living limbs;
Stately looks, and angel faces,
Loving smiles, and winning graces,
Turned to skulls with dead grimaces.
All the future, like a scroll,
Opening out, that it may show,
Like the ancient Prophet’s roll,
Mourning, lamentation, anguish,
Grief, and every form of wo.
On a couch with kind gifts laden,
Flowers around her, books beside her,
Knowing not what shall betide her,
Languishes a gentle maiden.
Cold and glassy is her bright eye,
Hectic red her hollow cheek,
Tangled the neglected ringlets,
Wan the body, thin and weak;
Like thick cords, the swelling blue veins
Shine through the transparent skin;
Day by day some fiercer new pains
Vex without, or war within:
Yet she counts it but a passing,
Transient, accidental thing;
Were the summer only here,
It would healing bring!
And with many a fond deceit
Tries she thus her fears to cheat:
“When the cowslip’s early bloom
Quite hath lost its rich perfume;
When the violet’s fragrant breath
Tasted have the lips of death;
When the snowdrop long hath died,
And the primrose at its side
In its grave is sleeping;
When the lilies all are over,
And amongst the scented clover
Merry lambs are leaping;
When the swallow’s voice is ringing
Through the echoing azure dome,
Saying, ‘From my far-off home
I have come, my wild way winging
O’er the waves, that I might tell,
As of old, I love ye well.
Hark! I sound my silver bell;
All the happy birds are singing
From each throat
A merry note,
Welcome to my coming bringing.’
When that happy time shall be,
From all pain and anguish free,
I shall join you, full of life and full of glee.”
Then, thou fearful Stethoscope!
Thou dost seem thy lips to ope,
Saying, “Bid farewell to hope:
I foretell thee days of gloom,
I pronounce thy note of doom —
Make thee ready for the tomb!
Cease thy weeping, tears avail not,
Pray to God thy courage fail not.
He who knoweth no repenting,
Sympathy or sad relenting,
Will not heed thy sore lamenting —
Death, who soon will be thy guide
To his couch, will hold thee fast;
As a lover at thy side
Will be with thee to the last,
Longing for thy latest gasp,
When within his iron grasp
As his bride he will thee clasp.”
Shifts the scene. The Earth is sleeping,
With her weary eyelids closed,
Hushed by darkness into slumber;
Whilst in burning ranks disposed,
High above, in countless number,
All the heavens, in radiance steeping,
Watch and ward
And loving guard
O’er her rest the stars are keeping.
Often has the turret-chime
Of the hasty flight of time
Warning utterance given;
And the stars are growing dim
On the gray horizon’s rim,
In the dawning light of heaven.
But there sits, the Bear out-tiring,
As if no repose requiring,
One pale youth, all unattending
To the hour; with bright eye bending
O’er the loved and honoured pages,
Where are writ the words of sages,
And the heroic deeds and thoughts of far distant ages.
Closed the book,
With gladsome look
Still he sits and visions weaveth.
Fancy with her wiles deceiveth;
Days to come with glory gildet;
And though all is bleak and bare,
With perversest labour buildeth
Wondrous castles in the air.
He who shall possess each palace,
Fortune has for him no malice,
Only countless joys in store:
Over rim,
And mantling brim,
His full cup of life shall pour.
Whilst he dreams,
The future seems
Like the present spread before him:
Nought to fear him,
All to cheer him,
Coming greatness gathers o’er him;
And into the ear of Night
Thus he tells his visions bright: —
“I shall be a glorious Poet!
All the wond’ring world shall know it,
Listening to melodious hymning;
I shall write immortal songs.
“I shall be a Painter limning
Pictures that shall never fade;
Round the scenes I have portrayed
Shall be gathered gazing throngs:
Mine shall be a Titian’s palette!
“I shall wield a Phidias’ mallet!
Stone shall grow to life before me,
Looks of love shall hover o’er me,
Beauty shall in heart adore me
That I make her charms immortal.
Now my foot is on the portal
Of the house of Fame:
Soon her trumpet shall proclaim
Even this now unhonoured name,
And the doings of this hand
Shall be known in every land.
“Music! my bewitching pen
Shall enchant the souls of men.
Aria, fugue, and strange sonata,
Opera, and gay cantata,
Through my brain,
In linkéd train,
Hark! I hear them winding go,
Now with half-hushed whisper stealing,
Now in full-voiced accent pealing,
Ringing loud, and murmuring low.
Scarcely can I now refrain,
Whilst these blessed notes remain,
From pouring forth one undying angel-strain.
“Eloquence! my lips shall speak
As no living lips have spoken —
Advocate the poor and weak,
Plead the cause of the heart-broken;
Listening senates shall be still,
I shall wield them at my will,
And this little tongue, the earth
With its burning words shall fill.
“Ye stars which bloom like flowers on high,
Ye flowers which are the stars of earth,
Ye rocks that deep in darkness lie,
Ye seas that with a loving eye
Gaze upwards on the azure sky,
Ye waves that leap with mirth;
Ye elements in constant strife,
Ye creatures full of bounding life:
I shall unfold the hidden laws,
And each unthought-of wondrous cause,
That waked ye into birth.
A high-priest I, by Nature taught
Her mysteries to reveal:
The secrets that she long hath sought
In darkness to conceal
Shall have their mantle rent away,
And stand uncovered to the light of day.
O Newton! thou and I shall be
Twin brothers then!
Together link’d, our names shall sound
Upon the lips of men.”
Like the sullen heavy boom
Of a signal gun at sea,
When athwart the gathering gloom,
Awful rocks are seen to loom
Frowning on the lee;
Like the muffled kettle-drum,
With the measured tread,
And the wailing trumpet’s hum,
Telling that a soldier’s dead;
Like the deep cathedral bell
Tolling forth its doleful knell,
Saying, “Now the strife is o’er,
Death hath won a victim more” —
So, thou doleful Stethoscope!
Thou dost seem to say,
“Hope thou on against all hope,
Dream thy life away:
Little is there now to spend;
And that little’s near an end.
Saddest sign of thy condition
is thy bounding wild ambition;
Only dying eyes can gaze on so bright a vision.
Ere the spring again is here,
Low shall be thy head,
Vainly shall thy mother dear,
Strive her breaking heart to cheer,
Vainly strive to hide the tear
Oft in silence shed.
Pangs and pains are drawing near,
To plant with thorns thy bed:
Lo! they come, a ghastly troop,
Like fierce vultures from afar;
Where the bleeding quarry is,
There the eagles gathered are!
Ague chill, and fever burning,
Soon away, but swift returning,
In unceasing alternation;
Cold and clammy perspiration,
Heart with sickening palpitation,
Panting, heaving respiration;
Aching brow, and wasted limb,
Troubled brain, and vision dim,
Hollow cough like dooming knell
Saying, ‘Bid the world farewell!’
Parchéd lips, and quenchless thirst,
Every thing as if accurst;
Nothing to the senses grateful;
All things to the eye grown hateful;
Flowers without the least perfume;
Gone from every thing its bloom;
Music but an idle jangling;
Sweetest tongues but weary wrangling;
Books, which were most dearly cherished,
Come to be, each one, disrelished;
Clearest plans grown all confusion;
Kindest friends but an intrusion:
Weary day, and weary night —
Weary night, and weary day;
Would God it were the morning light!
Would God the light were pass’d away!
And when all is dark and dreary,
And thou art all worn and weary,
When thy heart is sad and cheerless,
And thine eyes are seldom tearless,
When thy very soul is weak,
Satan shall his victim seek.
Day by day he will be by thee,
Night by night will hover nigh thee,
With accursed wiles will try thee,
Soul and spirit seek to buy thee.
Faithfully he’ll keep his tryst,
Tell thee that there is no Christ,
No long-suffering gracious Father,
But an angry tyrant rather;
No benignant Holy Spirit,
Nor a heaven to inherit,
Only darkness, desolation,
Hopelessness of thy salvation,
And at best annihilation.
“God with his great power defend thee!
Christ with his great love attend thee!
May the blessed Spirit lend thee
Strength to bear, and all needful succour send thee!”
Close we here. My eyes behold,
As upon a sculpture old,
Life all warm and Death all cold
Struggling which alone shall hold —
Sign of wo, or sign of hope! —
To his lips the Stethoscope.
But the strife at length is past,
They have made a truce at last,
And the settling die is cast.
Life shall sometimes sound a blast,
But it shall be but “Tantivy,”
Like a hurrying war reveillie,
Or the hasty notes that levy
Eager horse, and man, and hound,
On an autumn morn,
When the sheaves are off the ground,
And the echoing bugle-horn
Sends them racing o’er the scanty stubble corn.
But when I a-hunting go,
I, King Death,
I that funeral trump shall blow
With no bated breath.
Long drawn out, and deep and slow
Shall the wailing music go;
Winding horn shall presage meet
Be of coming winding-sheet,
And all living men shall know
That beyond the gates of gloom,
In my mansions of the tomb,
I for every one keep room,
And shall hold and house them all, till the very
Day of Doom.
V. V.
EPIGRAMS
Bait, hook, and hair, are used by angler fine;
Emma’s bright hair alone were bait, hook, line.
Faraday was the first to elicit the electric spark from the magnet; he found that it is visible at the instants of breaking and of renewing the contact of the conducting wires; and only then.