and beautify my house? In the same proportion that my last abode shall be tranquil, solemn, and confined, should this I now inhabit be spacious, gay, and busy. All the persons I love best shall live with me beneath its roof, or at least, assemble often there, for the purposes of joy and friendship. Yes, joy shall consecrate these walls; peace shall be our inmate; the gentlest slumbers shall refresh our senses; and never shall the tear of despair fall on our unsullied boards. I then paused: "Merciful God," exclaimed I, raising my hands to heaven, after a moment of recollection, "how vain a being is man, when he depends on a constant series of prosperity! This house may exist for a hundred years! How many different persons may in that interval be its inhabitants!-Every room may witness the tears of misfortune, and every bed be the receptacle of a corporeal sufferer! It will, perhaps, belong to some wretched martyr to the gout, and its walls will echo no other sounds for forty years than his cries. At this moment, I see before me the father of a family on his death-bed; his wife, with his children at her side, contemplating, in the silence of despair, the wasted figure of her expiring husband! But, gracious God! it cannot be, that no sounds but those of grief shall here be heard! No; happiness shall have its turn with sorrow, in my dwelling; should I at some time or other experience the rigours of fate, I would say with a smile"this I have merited. But my wife! my brother! Oh God! their sufferings I could not support! should fate pursue either of these with misfortunes, where should I find consolation? Ah! had I but a child! he, ignorant of sorrow, would smile and sport around us; or, were he more advanced in age, would, with his hopes and projects, rejoice our anxious hearts." rise upon But, wherefore do we for ever complain? is there a being so unfortunate, on whom a ray of hope does not shine, as the first rays of the sun penetrate through the darkness of night? Does not the light of eternal life the unfortunate, as the sun in the midst of darkness? Is not the unfortunate permitted to unfold all his griefs to the being whom he loves, and by whom he is beloved? God of infinite goodness! can this consolation be taken from the most unhappy of the human race? If he is alone in the world, if he has not a single friend to whom he can communicate his sorrows, may he not cast his eyes to heaven? Will he not there find a friend, a protector, a father? If misfortune must ever enter within the threshold of my door, ah! let it be in the form of a weeping angel! not as a fury to destroy the tranquillity of my soul. Dark and small is our last abode, but there is peace. Let me approach it with resignation, even with pleasure. And, oh! if ever I must quit this dwelling, let it be with the same resignation, the same pleasure which I felt when I entered it. Ah! I have one more wish, but I desire what is impossible; yet it is the nature of man to form new wishes. May we all, my wife, my brother, and I, quit this dwelling at the same instant. GONDOLINE. A Ballad. In the Style of the Ancient Reliques. THE night it was dark, and the moon it shone Serenely on the sea, And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock When Gondoline roam'd along the shore, Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek, Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear As oft she heard, in fancy's ear, Her Bertrand was the bravest youth And he was gone to the Holy Land And many a month had passed away, And many a rolling year, But nothing the maid from Palestine Could of her lover hear. Full oft she vainly tried to pierce The Ocean's misty face; Full oft she thought her lover's bark And every night she plac'd a light Should the murky tempest low'r. But now despair had seiz'd her breast, She wander'd o'er the lonely shore, She heard the scream with a sickening heart, Yet still she kept her lonely way, "Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live, And now she came to a horrible rift And pendant from its dismal top The hemlock and the aconite Across the mouth were flung. And all within was dark and drear, Yet Gondoline enter'd, her soul upheld By some deep-working charm. And, as she enter'd the cavern wide, And she saw a snake on the craggy rock, Her foot it slipp'd, and she stood aghast, Yet still, upheld by the secret charm, And now upon her frozen ear So, on the mountain's piny top The blust'ring north-wind blows. Then furious peals of laughter loud Were heard with thund'ring sound, Till they died away, in soft decay, Low whisp'ring o'er the ground. Yet still the maiden onward went, But now a pale-blue light she saw, She stood appall'd; yet still the charm Upheld her sinking soul, Yet each bent knee the other smote, And each wild eye did roll. |