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Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841

Name: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 1, July 1841
Author: Various

by Various

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Language: en544 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals Literature -- Periodicals

In: Poetry·Novels·Essays, Letters & Speeches

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #65155.

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The summer is here!—here with its fragrant mornings and its noonday heats, its mellow twilights and its moonlight evenings, its days of glory and its nights of starry beauty. It is summer. Let us go out into the country, away from the stifling air and dull brick walls of the town, into the far, pure, breezy, unsurpassable country. There we shall breathe the fresh air of Heaven. We will lie down on some shady knoll; or stretch ourselves beside the cooling stream; or wander off among the breezy woods; or perchance sit in some quiet arbor of the garden, listening to the low humming of the bees, or the far-off tinkle of the brooklet on the stones. Ay! we will go out into the country. We will gaze on the green grass, the growing flowers, the cloudless azure of the skies. But we will do more. We will gaze on our fellow man such as God made him, and not on the too often mean, grovelling and short-sighted denizens of the town. We will go out into the country. We will go into its stately palaces, secluded among sombre trees; into the airy, fantastic dwellings of retired citizens; into sunny old farm-houses, with their wide porches inviting us to enter; and—oftener than all—into the smiling cottages, which, peeping out from amid overspreading honeysuckles, dozing under willow trees by the brook-side, or nestling beneath the shadow of a green and fragrant hill, are scattered all over the land, in hill and in dell, studding it, as it were, with loveliness. And wherever we go we shall still find beauty. God hath left his impress on the green fields and running brooks, and every leaf that quivers in the breeze, and every bird that carols on the air, speak out His praise.

We are in the country; and yonder is a cottage nestled close under the hill-side, like a dove in the bosom of a young and innocent girl. Hear you not the brook, low pattering before its door; that brook which at eve and morning, ay! in the still watches of the night, may be heard murmuring mysteriously, as if it were angels’ voices conversing on the quiet air? Let us go into that cottage. There are flowers before the house and honeysuckles around the door, and everything, even to the garden flags, is white-washed. There are roses under the window—how fragrant! And yet the owner of that little tenement has a hand horny with labor, and not a day passes, summer or winter, but that he is up before dawn, toiling for his richer neighbor. How does he live? Would you know what cottage life is? Come with us, then, into the fields, and let us sit together by this brawling brook, while we recount the history of a cottage life.

All over this land there are spots like this, of bewildering beauty; where toil and rest, and wo and happiness, have struggled together for years. There are thousands, ay! tens of thousands, of humble cottages, the lives of whose inmates have never won a thought from the rich and proud, and yet in those cottages beat as true hearts as in the most gorgeous mansions of the realm. The rich are born, and great is the rejoicing thereat; they live, and crowds shout triumphs wherever they go; they die, and they are laid by obsequious hands in proud mausoleums; but the poor come and go like the leaves of the forest, and no man careth for their fate. Their childhood of early toil; their youth of premature sorrow; their lives of hard, unyielding, grinding poverty, what does the world care for these? Yet the poor are not without comfort. They have within their own circle as kindly bosoms as the rich; they have dear ones, loved with a fervor wealth can rarely win, to cheer them in distress; they have a fireside, humble, indeed, but still a fireside around which to gather with their prattlers, and smile and be merry after the toils of the day are done.

With early dawn the cottager is up and afield. If he labors at the soil, you will find him with the plough in hand, keeping his monotonous track to and fro, regardless, apparently, of the stifled air, or the sultry rays of noon-day. He may pause an hour or so at dinner, but he is soon at his labor again. The cattle may be dozing under the trees, the birds may be carolling gaily around, the woods, and streams, and all nature may be full of merry play, but still he must keep up his weary toil, until twilight at length releases him, and he hurries home to spend a few hours of fleeting happiness among his little ones, to sleep, and again to resume his toil.

But there is a bright side to the picture. The Cottager was not always a man, he was once a happy child, and in gazing on the frolicks of his little ones, his own youth appears to be renewed. And where do the domestic affections exist with more purity than in our cottages? From the love of a child for its little brother or its sister, up to the love of a mother for her first-born, there is nothing purer, deeper, or more enduring than the affections of those who inhabit our cottages.

We see now two beings at that cottage door, a mother and her boy. The child hath fallen asleep upon her lap, and he reposes with a grace so careless, and there is such an innocent joy upon his face, that one cannot but feel that he is supremely happy. How he nestles on that mother’s knee. The vine that gaily winds around the gentle sapling, or hangs so airily over the little group, is not more beautiful than he. And she!—is not the book held to shade his countenance, and the holy, contemplative emotions which light up her face as with the divinity of an angel, beyond comparison, ay! almost beyond imagination. God be thanked that there are thousands all over this broad land as happy as they!

Sunday is the time for cottage life. Then the new coat is taken out, carefully brushed, and put on—the little ones are clad in their tidy, well-kept Sabbath clothes—and the good house-wife attires herself in her best, adding, often, some little piece of finery, which a month’s savings have tempted her to buy. Directly the bell is heard calling them to church. Away at the signal they go, with a quiet decorum even in the children; and soon they meet others trooping over the hills to the white-steepled meeting house in the glen. And when the sermon is over, and they pass out of the house of God, there are greetings among neighbors, inquiries after old friends, and perchance here and there long conversations betwixt good house-wives, which seem like the fairy’s dream, never to come to an end. And in the afternoon some one is sure to drop in, when the best tea-cups are brought out from the corner cupboard, and the best hot cakes, and such tempting coffee are prepared by the good dame, that your mouth fairly waters until you have tasted thereof. And how merry all are—not with a boisterous mirth, but with a calm happiness, reminding you continually of the day. And all this time the children are playing on the lawn, or gathering buttercups to hold under each others chins, or laughing in their own innocent way so joyously, that their mothers will pause awhile, and look on them and smile. And by and by night will come, and the company will depart, and so, after reading a chapter of the bible, the cottagers will go to bed. Though the stars, on a Sabbath night, look down on many a quiet, happy home, they smile on none where there is more happiness than there. And such is Cottage Life.

J. S.

It is the noon of summer time— How breathless are the trees! No more the sea of yellow corn Is rippling in the breeze; The kine are gasping in the stream, Nor earth nor sky has breath, And sickly waves the sultry air— How like, yet unlike death!

The reapers long have ceased their toil, And idly in the shade They dream away the drowsy noon, Beside each silent blade,— While now and then a snatch of song Some sleeper low will croon, As in his dreams he joins the dance Beneath the harvest moon.

The sun is at his highest point, Yet on that burning field Two youthful gleaners humbly toil, God be to them a shield! Their aged parent bed-rid lies, And want is at their door,— Ah! well young martyrs may you strive— No rest is for the poor.

Their store is gleaned—they homeward hie— How smilingly they go! We little know how light a thing May dry the tears of woe. The pittance slight, the one kind word With which we all can part, May take the sting from poverty, Or save a broken heart.

To view those gleaners on their way It were a pleasant thing— They’re talking of their mother’s joy To see the store they bring. How gracefully the sister moves, As if she stepped to song; And gaily at her statelier side The glad boy trips along.

Smile on! smile on, ye happy pair, God’s blessing on your way! It fills my breast with joy to know That ye can be so gay. Smile on, for soon ye’ll hear her voice, And know her welcome bright,— And happy hearts shall beat I ween Beneath your roof to-night.

It was a glorious day in Rome; the unclouded sun was blazing in the clear azure of a deep Italian sky, filling the universal air with life and lustre; the summer winds were all abroad, crisping the bosom of the yellow Tiber into ten thousand tiny rivulets, tossing ten thousand dewy odors from their wings, and bearing with them, far and near, the myriad harmonies of nature. It was a day of revelry, of loud exulting mirth, of gratified ambition to the one, of haughty triumph to the million.

It was in truth a day of triumph. Marius, the people’s idol, the great plebeian conqueror, had brought the army home—the army, long foiled and often beaten on the parched sands of the Zahara, or by the scanty streams of the Bagradas and Mulucha—had brought the army home, scar-seamed and wearied and war-worn, but glorious and elated and triumphant; for with them came a chained, indignant captive, the bravest, fiercest, wisest of all the kings who yet had dared to strive against the unconquered majesty of the Republic: the murderer, the fratricide Jugurtha; he who had mocked the justice, and with success defied the brazen legions and the superb commanders of Rome’s resistless warfare; he who had driven out from his Numidian confines, whether by force or fraud, two several consular armies, sent one, degraded and debased forever, beneath the ignominious yoke, and for long years possessed his blood-bought throne in spite of all the efforts of his tremendous rival.

Now, therefore, was the day of retribution, and all the fiery passions of the Italian heart were at work hotly in the crowd that thronged the thoroughfares of the great city on that auspicious morning. Well might they throng the streets, for never, from that day to this, has aught of pomp or pageant been invented that could sustain comparison one moment with the unequalled splendors of a Roman triumph. The whole line of proud streets, up from the field of Mars to the Capitoline, was strewn with carpets of the rich Tyrian crimson; cartloads of flowers—rose, violet, narcissus, hyacinth—were scattered everywhere, to send their perfumes forth beneath the trampling feet of the triumphant legions. The walls of every house and palace were hung with glowing tapestries, with waving flags, and laurel-woven garlands. From every shrine and chapel, hundreds of which were there sacred to one or other of Rome’s hundred deities, sang forth the melody of sacrificial hymns, and streamed the breath of incense. The sun had reached the summit of his ascending course, when from the distant campus arose at once the din, piercing the ears and thrilling as it were to the very soul, of the great sacred trumpets, and the earth-shaking shout of Rome’s vast population; then on they came—a long and dazzling line of splendor—three hundred snow-white steers, unblemished and majestic, the far-famed breed of the Clitunnus, led the van, with gilded horns, and fluttering fillets of bright hues about their ample fronts, led by as many youths in sacrificial tunics of pure white; then came the bands of music, trumpet and horn and clarion, and the quick clashing cymbal blent with the deep bass of the Phrygian drum; and then the Flamens of the gods, in the appropriate and gorgeous dresses; the great Dialis, with his red tuft and snow-white robes; the Salian priests of Mars, with brazen helms and corselets and flowery tunics girded up, and on their arms the sacred shields of Numa; the vestals, stoled and veiled and silent, and the mad ministers of Cybele, with their strange instruments of music, leaping and dancing with strange gestures, and waking all the echoes with their barbaric hymnings. After these stately and revered, and almost divine personages, trooped on—strange contrast—a band of mimics and jesters, buffoons with scurrilous songs and obscene gestures, calling forth from the mob of Rome many a plaudit by their licentious wit. Then, with perfumes and steaming censers, scattering bunches of the choicest flowers, all in their purple bordered tunics, with golden balls about their necks, barefooted and bareheaded, the sons of the Patricians passed, the prime of Rome’s young aristocracy. Other musicians followed, and then, caparisoned for war, with castles on their backs and gorgeous housings on their unwieldy carcasses, each driven by a coal-black Ethiopian astride on his huge neck, the captured elephants—an hundred mighty monsters, the like of which had never before gladdened the eyes of the amazed and wonder-stricken populace. Next rolled the wains, slow dragged by snow-white oxen, groaning beneath the weight of the rich spoils of the Numidian empire—armor of gold and silver, weapons thick set with emeralds and diamonds, statues and jars and vases of pure gold—dazzling the eyes and bewildering the senses with their unequalled splendor.

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