The Portland Sketch Book Part 8

Give me ripe fruit with the green-- Fresh leaves mingling with the sear; As in tropic climes are seen Blending through the deathless year.

I am alarmed at the changes which are taking place in society. While many are lauding the _spirit of the age_ and holding up to my gaze the picture of forth-coming improvements--opening broad and charming vistas into the almost _present future_ of mental and moral perfection, I cannot help casting a lingering look upon the past. Time was when old age and infancy, manhood and youth, walked the path of life together; when the strength of young limbs aided the feebleness of the old, and the joyousness of youth enlivened the gravity of age. But the son has now left the father to totter on alone, and the daughter has outstripped the mother in the race. Beauty and strength have separated from decrepitude and weakness. The vine has uncoiled from its natural support, and the ivy has ceased to entwine the oak.

There is an increasing disposition on the part of the young and the old to cla.s.sify their pleasures according to their age. Those pastimes which used to be enjoyed by both together, are now separated. This is an evil of too serious a character to pa.s.s unfelt, unlamented or unrebuked. It is easy to refer back to days when parents were more happy with their children, and children more honorable and useful to parents than at present. It is not long since the old and the young were to be seen together in the blithesome dance and the merry play. And why this change? Why do we find that, within a few years, the old have abandoned amus.e.m.e.nts to the young? Is it that they think their children can profit more by their amus.e.m.e.nts than if they were present? If this be the impression it is to be regretted. No course could they possibly adopt so injurious to the character of their children. For youth need the direction and the advice of age, and age requires the exhilaration and cheerfulness of youth. How many lonely evenings would be enlivened--how many dark visions of the future would be dissipated, and how many hours of gloom and despondency would be put to flight, if fathers would keep pace with their sons, and mothers with their daughters, in the innocent pleasures of life. Here, as it appears to me, is the grand secret of happiness for the young and the old. For the old, who are too apt to dwell on the glories of the past and to see nothing that is lovely in the present; and for the young, who throw too strong and gaudy a light upon the present and the future. Nature did not so intend it. So long as there is life, she intended we should innocently enjoy it. And the barrier which has, by some unaccountable mishap, been thrown between the young and the old is, therefore, greatly to be lamented. But how shall it be removed? How shall we get back again to the good old times of the merry husking, the joyous dance, the happy commingling in the same company, of the priest and his deacon, the father and his child, the husband and his wife?

It would not be difficult to trace directly to the discontinuance of the practice of joining with the young in their amus.e.m.e.nts, the great increase of youthful dissipation of every description. By being removed from the advice, restraint and example of the old and experienced, they have, by degrees, fallen into usages which were almost unknown in years gone by. When accompanied by parents, the hours of pleasure were seasonable. Daughters were under the inspection of mothers, and sons were guided by the wisdom of fathers. Homes were happier, the community more virtuous, and the world at large a gainer by such judicious customs. We now hear the complaint that sons have gone astray, that daughters have behaved indiscreetly, and that families have been disgraced. But can there be a doubt, if the practice were general of accompanying our children in those pastimes in which they ought to be reasonably indulged, that many of these evils would be prevented? Here then must begin the reform. Complain not that your son is out late, if you might have been with him to bring him to your fire-side at a seasonable hour. Complain not that your daughter has formed an unsuitable or untimely connexion, if a mother's care might have avoided the evil. Youth _will_ go astray without the protection of age. And it is a crying sin that these old-fashioned moral restraints have been removed. What, I ask, can be your object in thus leaving your children to their own direction? Do they love you the better for it? Are their manners more agreeable--their conduct more respectful while at home? Is not rather the reverse of this the case? Do they not give you more trouble at home? Are they not every day incurring new and useless expenses in consequence of allowing them to legislate and plan for themselves? Rashness is the characteristic of youth. But allowing them to be capable of governing themselves, you are a great loser by drawing this strong division line between their pleasures and your own. Your own years are less in number and in happiness. Your children are dead to you, though alive to themselves. Your sympathies are not linked with theirs step by step in life; and thus, although surrounded by children, you go childless, unhappy and gloomy to the grave. Reform then, I say, reform at once. Annihilate this cla.s.sification of junior and senior pleasures. Join with your children in the dance, the song and the play.

Enjoy with them every harmless pleasure and sport of life. Encompa.s.s yourself as often as possible with the gay faces of the young. Teach them by example, to be happy like rational beings, and to enjoy life without abusing it. Let the ripe fruit be seen with the green--the blossom with the bud--the green with the fading leaf and the vine with its natural support:

Show the ripe fruit with the green-- Fresh leaves twining with the sear; As in tropic climes are seen Harmonizing through the year.

AUTUMNAL DAYS.

By P. H. Greenleaf.

"The melancholy days are come--the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear; Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the summer leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying wind, and to the rabbit's tread: The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, thro' all the gloomy day."

Stern and forbidding as are the general features of our northern climate--cold and chilling as the gay Southron may deem, even the very air we breathe,--we have still some characteristics of climate peculiar to ourselves, and none the less pleasing to us from this fact. Our hearts must indeed be as hard and as cold as the very granite of our craggy sh.o.r.es, did they not glow with delight in the possession of that, (be it what it may) which is peculiar to and markedly characteristic of our native home. And of all these peculiarities not one is so delightful--not one finds us so rich in New England feeling, as that beautiful season called the Indian Summer. It occurs in October, and is characterized by a soft, hazy atmosphere--by those quiet, and balmy days, which seem so like the last whisperings of a Spring morning. The appearance of the landscape is like any thing, but the fresh and lively scenery of Spring; and yet the delicious softness of the atmosphere is so like it, that it brings back fresh to the mind all the beautiful a.s.sociations connected with a vernal day. Our forests too, at this season are, for a brief s.p.a.ce, clothed in the most gorgeous and magnificent array; their brilliant and changing hues, and the magnificence of their whole appearance, almost give their rich and mellow tint to the atmosphere itself; and render this period unrivalled in beauty, and unequalled in the more equable climes of our western neighbors. The calm sobriety of the scenery--the splendid variety of the forest coloring, from deep scarlet to russet gray, and the quiet and dreamy expression of the autumnal atmosphere make a deeper impression on the mind than all the verdant promises of spring, or the luxuriant possession of summer. The aspen birch in its pallid white--the walnut in its deep yellow--the brilliant maple in its scarlet drapery--and the magical colors of the whole vegetable world, from the aster by the brook to the vine on the trellis, combine to render the autumnal scenery of New-England the most splendid and magnificent in the world.

But we cannot forget, if we would, that this beautiful magnificence of the forests is but the livery of death; and the changing hues of the leaves, beautiful though they are, still are but indications of the sure, but gradual progress of decay.

'Lightly falls the foot of death Whene'er he treads on flowers:'

and though he has breathed beauty on the cl.u.s.tered trees of the forest--it is to them the breath of the Sirocco.

We have in the wasting consumption a parallel to this splendid decay of the leaves and flowers of Summer. Day by day we see its victim with the seal of death upon him--failing and decaying in strength--increasing in beauty. While the brilliant and intellectual glances of the eye speak, in language too plain for the sceptic's denial, the immortality of the soul. The changing and brilliant hues of the forest trees give to us the most lively type of the frailty of beauty and the brevity of human existence, while their death and burial during the winter and their resurrection in the springtime, are almost an a.s.sured pledge of our own immortality and resurrection to an eternity.

Truly 'the melancholy days are come'--Death annually lifts up his solemn hymn, and the rustling of the dying leaves and the certainty of their speedy death afford to us all 'eloquent teachings.' The gay and exhilarating spring has long since pa.s.sed away--the genial and joyous warmth of summer is no more; and the grateful abundance and varied scenes of Autumn are about yielding to the inclemency of h.o.a.ry winter.

The gay variety of nature has at length departed--the countless throng of the gaudy flowerets of summer are all returned to their native dust--the light of the sun himself is often veiled; and the bright livery of earth is hidden from our sight by the gray mantle of the iron-bound surface, or the unbroken whiteness of a snowy covering.

Reading thus the language of decay written by the finger of G.o.d upon all the works of nature--reminded too of the rapid flight of time by the ceaseless revolution of seasons, we naturally turn our thoughts from the contemplation of external objects to that of the soul, and of unseen worlds. The appearances of other seasons lead our thoughts to the world we inhabit, and by the variety of objects presented to our view rather confine them to sensible things, and matters immediately connected with them. But the buried flowers and the eddying leaves of this season teach us n.o.bler lessons; and the mind expands, while it loses itself in the infinity of being; and the gloom of the natural world shows us the splendors of other worlds, and other states of being;

'As darkness shows us worlds of light We never saw by day.'

They tell us, that in the magnificent system of the government of G.o.d there exists no evil; and the mighty resurrections annually accomplished in the mult.i.tude of by gone years a.s.sure us, that the gloom of the night is but the prelude to the brightness of the day--that the funeral pall of autumnal and wintry days is the harbinger of a glorious, joyous and life-giving spring; and to that man the gates of the dark valley of the shadow of death are designed as the crystal portals of an eternity of bliss.

'Of the innumerable eyes, that open upon nature, none but those of man, see its author and its end.' This solemn privilege is the birth-right of the beings of immortality--of those, who perish not in time, but were formed, in some greater hour, to be companions in eternity. The mighty Being, who watches the revolutions of the material world, opens in this manner to our eyes the laws of his government; and tells us, that it is not the momentary state, but the final issue, which is to disclose its eternal design. Indeed the whole volume of nature is a natural revelation to man, often overlooked--often misused--seldom understood--but plain and solemn in its language, and full of the wisdom, justice and mercy of its author.

While, then, all inferior nature shrinks instinctively from the winds of Autumn and the storms of winter, to the high intellect of man they teach enn.o.bling lessons. To him the inclemency of winter is no less eloquent than the abundance of Autumn, or the joyous promise of Spring. He knows, that the fair and beautiful of nature now buried in an icy covering, have still a principle of life within them; and that the gay tendrils of the vine and the blushing buds of the rose will soon be put forth in the breath of summer. The stiffened earth, he knows, will soon send forth her children in renewed beauty, and he believes, that he himself, leaving the chrysalis form of earthly clay will wing his flight in the regions of eternity.

THE PLAGUE.

By Charles P. Ilsley.

"And they that took the disease died suddenly; and immediately their bodies became covered with spots; and they were hurried away to the grave without delay: And the men who bore the corpse, as they went their way, cried with a loud voice, "_Room for the dead!_" and whosoever heard the cry, fled from the sound thereof with great fear and trembling."

_Anon._

"Room for the dead!"--a cry went forth-- "A grave--a grave prepare!"

The solemn words rose fearfully Up through the stilly air: "Room for the dead!"--and a corse was borne And laid within the pit; But a mother's voice was sadly heard-- And a breaking heart was in each word-- "Oh, bury him not yet!"

The mother knelt beside the grave, And prayed to see her son; 'Twas death to stop--but by her prayers The wretched boon was won, And they raised the coffin from the pit, And then afar they fled-- For the once fair face was spotted now-- But the mother pressed her dead child's brow, And in a faint voice said--

"Nor plague nor spots shall hinder me From kissing thee, lost one!

For what, alas! is life or death Since thou art gone, my son!"

And she bent and kissed the livid brow, While tearless was her eye; Then her voice rang wildly in the air-- "Widow and childless!--G.o.d, is there Aught left me but--to die!"

The words were said, and there uprose A low and stifled moan-- Then all was still--The spirit of That stricken one had flown!

They widened the pit, and side by side Mother and son were laid; No mourning train to the grave went forth, Nor prayer was said as they heaped the earth Above the plague-struck dead!

"OH, THIS IS NOT MY HOME!"

By Charles P. Ilsley.

Oh, this is not my home-- I miss the glorious sea, Its white and sparkling foam, And lofty melody.

All things seem strange to me-- I miss the rocky sh.o.r.e, Where broke so sullenly The waves with deaf'ning roar:

The sands that shone like gold Beneath the blazing sun, O'er which the waters roll'd, Soft chanting as they run:

And oh, the glorious sight!

Ships moving to and fro, Like birds upon their flight, So silently they go!

I climb the mountain's height, And sadly gaze around, No waters meet my sight, I hear no rushing sound.

Oh, would I were at home, Beside the glorious sea, To bathe within its foam And list its melody!

THE VILLAGE PRIZE.

By Joseph Ingraham.