Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

But what is truth? "Twas Pilate's question put
To truth itself, that deigned him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart His light
To them that ask it? - Freely: 't is his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up;
But which the poor and the despised of all
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?
Tell me, and I will tell thee what is truth.

4. HARMONY OF EXPRESSION. - Pope.

But most by numbers judge a poet's song;

And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong:
In the bright Musei though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;

Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line;
While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,
With sure returns of still expected rhymes;
Where'er you find " the cooling western breeze,"
In the next line it "whispers through the trees;
If crystal streams" with pleasing murmurs creep,"
The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep;
Then, at the last and only couplet, fraught
With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

[ocr errors]

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know
What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow;
And praise the easy vigor of a line,

Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

"T is not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seems an echo to the sense :
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main

- Campbell.

5. THE HOPE OF AN HEREAFTER.
What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain?
I smile on death, if heavenward Hope remain!
But, if the warring winds of nature's strife
Be all the faithless charter of my life,
If Chance awaked (inexorable power!)
This frail and feverish being of an hour;
Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep,
Swift as the tempest travels on the deep,
To know Delight but by her parting smile,
And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while;-
Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain
This troubled pulse, and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom!
And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!

Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began - but not to fade.—
When all the sister planets have decayed,
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile .

CXCI.

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.

THERE is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
O, the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart!

Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'T was not her soft magic of streamlet or hill;
O, no! it was something more exquisite still.

[ocr errors]

"T was that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near, Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear, And who felt how the best charms of nature improve When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest

In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best!
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

THOMAS MOORE.

• The rivers Avon and Avoca, in the county of Wicklow, Ireland.

The sacred organ's praise !
Notes inspiring holy love,

Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirses above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre;

But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher :
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appeared,
Mistaking earth for heaven.

DRYDEN

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

On the departure of his vessels, Pizarro marched into the interior, in the hope of finding the pleasant champaign country which had been promised him by the natives. But at every step the forests seemed to grow denser and darker, and the trees towered to a height such as he had never seen, even in these fruitful regions, where nature works on so gigantic a scale. Hill continued to rise above hill, as he advanced, rolling onward, as it were, by successive waves, to join that colossal barrier of the Andes, whose frosty sides, far away above the clouds, spread out like a curtain of burnished silver, that seemed to connect the heavens with the earth.

On crossing these woody eminences, the forlorn adventurers would plunge into ravines' of frightful depth, where the exhalations of a humid soil steamed up amidst the incense of sweetscented flowers, which shone through the deep glooms in every conceivable variety of color. Birds, especially of the parrot tribe, mocked this fantastic variety of nature with tints as brilliant as those of the vegetable world. Monkeys chattered in crowds above their heads, and made grima'ces like the fiendish spirits of these solitudes; while hideous reptiles, engendered in the slimy depths of the pools, gathered round the footsteps of the wanderers.

Here was seen the gigantic boä, coiling his unwieldy folds about the trees, so as hardly to be distinguished from their trunks, till he was ready to dart upon his prey; and alligators lay basking on the borders of the streams, or, gliding under the waters, seized their incautious victim before he was aware of their approach. Many of the Spaniards perished miserably in

this way and others were waylaid by the natives, who kept a jealous eye on their movements, and availed themselves of every opportunity to take them at advantage. Fourteen of Pizarro's men were cut off at once in a canoe which had stranded on the bank of a stream.

Famine came in addition to other troubles, and it was with difficulty that they found the means of sustaining life on the scanty fare of the forest, occasionally the potato, as it grew without cultivation, or the wild cocoa-nut, or, on the shore, the salt and bitter fruit of the mangrove; though the shore was less tolerable than the forest, from the swarms of mosquitos, which compelled the wretched adventurers to bury their bodies up to their very faces in the sand. In this extremity of suffering they thought only of return; and all schemes of avarice and ambition-except with Pizarro and a few dauntless spirits were exchanged for the one craving desire to return to Pan

ama'.

ΕΙ

2.- ON THE ISLAND OF GALLO.

A ray of hope was enough for the courageous spirit of Pizarro. It does not appear that he himself had entertained, at any time, thoughts of returning. He prepared to stand the fortune of the cast on which he had so desperately ventured. He knew, however, that solicitations or remonstrances would avail little with the companions of his enterprise; and he probably did not care to win over the more timid spirits, who, by perpetually looking back, would only be a clog on his future movements. He announced his own purpose, however, in a laconic but decided manner, characteristic of a man more accustomed to act than to talk, and well calculated to make an impression on his rough followers.

Drawing his sword, he traced a line with it on the sand from east to west. Then, turning towards the south, "Friends and comrades!" he said, "on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches: here, Panama' and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." So saying, he stepped across the line. He was followed by the brave pilot Ruiz; next by Pedro de Candia, a cavalier, born, as his name implies, in one of the isles of Greece. Eleven others successively crossed the line, thus intimating their willingness to abide the fortunes of their leader, for good or for evil.

There is something striking to the imagination in the spectacle of these few brave spirits, thus consecrating themselves to

a daring enterprise, which seemed as far above their strength as any recorded in the fabulous annals of knight-errantry. A handful of men, without food, without clothing, almost without arms, without knowledge of the land to which they were bound, without vessel to transport them, were here left on a lonely rock in the ocean, with the avowed purpose of carrying on a crusade against a powerful empire, staking their lives on its success. What is there in the legends of chivalry that surpasses it? This was the crisis of Pizarro's fate.

There are moments in the lives of men, which, as they are seized or neglected, decide their future destiny. Had Pizarro faltered from his strong purpose, and yielded to the occasion now so temptingly presented, for extricating himself and his broken band from their desperate position, his name would have been buried with his fortunes, and the conquest of Peru would have been left for other and more successful adventurers. But his constancy was equal to the occasion, and his conduct here proved him competent to the perilous post he had assumed, and inspired others with a confidence in him which was the best

assurance of success.

PRESCOTT

CXCVII.

EI

EI

HUMAN SCIENCE SOMETIMES AT FAULT.

1. WITH all due respect for the calculations of men of science, I cannot but remember that when most confident they have sometimes erred. They have too often asserted as a demonstration what was, after all, a mere fallible opinion, which time has contradicted. They sneered at Columbus, when he set forth on his expedition in search of a land beyond the unexplored ocean; at Harvey, when he announced the circulation of the blood; at Jenner, when he propounded his theory of vaccination. They told us that steamboats could not cross the Atlantic. They shook the head at Buena Vista. Ah! that was a battle against all rule, in violation of all the principles of military calculation. An old American general, seated on his white horse, looked forth over the field through his telescope, and said, "We will fight here." And the result was a victory won by five thousand against twenty thousand. A most unscientific and informal victory!

EI

2. Some years ago, a book came out in France, on the subject of a carriage, which had been contrived in England, I believe for a wager at Newmarket, to go a certain distance in a given time. The author of the book undertook to prove, very learnedly, that

« AnkstesnisTęsti »