\ CAP SHEAF Btmble. BY LEWIS MYRTLE. REDFIELD, 110 & 112 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 1853. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-three, by J. S. KEDFIELD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of New York. A. CUVXl.VGHAM, S 183 WILLIAM STRICT, N. V. TO HER, WHOSE SINGLENESS OF DEVOTION NO CHANGE CAN AFFECT, AND OF THE PROMPTINGS OF WHOSE EARNEST HEART THESE PAGES ARE THE GROWTH, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED AND INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. 1694432 THIS Book has nothing like an Ambition. It is only a collection of such simple and earnest Stories as may find brief lodgment in the reader's Heart. The very fancies that run through it, though they can lay no claim to brilliancy, at least may ask some degree of favor for the sake of the feeling of which they were begot. In a day so fruitful of books as this, there are few without some high pretension. There is nothing of the kind, however, to this. If the still life it pursues, or the natural sentiment it utters, or the simple topics it illustrates, shall kindle a fancy or warm a heart, it will have reached its end. I had no higher thought, when these pages were first put on paper ; and I have no higher hope now. While Romance and Travel open broad and delight- ful walks to readers everywhere, the hidden by-paths may not be without their own quiet pleasures ; paths that are bordered with Heart's-Ease and Sweet-Brier, 6 PREFATORY. and fragrant with Hawthorn and Fern ; where dews lie freshest on leaves and grass ; and golden sunshine nestles in the swart bosom of the shadows. I do not say that these by-paths in literature are new ; but they are not overmuch traveled, and that gives them almost the attractiveness of a new dis- covery. The grass grows in them ; and they look thus greener. The flowers one plucks in them smell sweeter, and seem fresher. In fine, the life that lies all along them, is a life of beauty, and simplicity, and truth. The Book was not written for the critics ; yet if any, or all of it shall furnish them with a savory morsel, I wish them much joy of their repast. While there may be much in its style, or its temper, that they will probably order to be recast, I still feel a secret satisfaction in knowing that its heart, at least, is sound to the core. Not a line of it can be charged with an affectation of feeling. And in the earnest hope that the reader will be willing to respond with some cordiality to its tone and its topics, I subscribe myself, simply and sincerely, LEWIS MYRTLE. NEW YORK, Nov., 1852. CONTENTS. PACE. A SHADOW ON THE ROOF, 9 WOODS, 32 BUBBLES, 47 SUMMER RAIN, 62 THE AUTUMN TINTS, 72 THE FIRST SNOW, 85 THE FIRE FIENDS, 95 OLD COUNTRY INNS, 102 UNDER THE TREES, 109 RUTH, 119 THE LITTLE RAZOR-MAN, 138 THE LONE HEART, 147 THE POOR SCHOLAR, 165 THE VILLAGE FUNERAL, 184 TRACKS IN THE SNOW, 199 ASPS AND FLOWERS, 210 A FROLIC WITH FORTUNE, 232 A COUSIN FROM TOWN, 260 THE OLD WOMAN OF THE COURT, 278 A HEART EXHUMED, 298 A SHADOW ON THE EOOF. HOME is a foretaste of Heaven ! At least, so I could not help thinking, while the fire-dogs glowed with the bright flame that jetted against their ruddy cheeks. I had been musing on the endless chances there were in a man's life ; the varied views we take, as we get on ; the ceaseless turmoil, that bewilders us; and the greedy scramble, that jostles us this way and that : and I thought there was left us one nook of safety, where the maddest world-storms cannot reach. My heart grew grateful ; and my fancies ran on at once to weave into the tapestry of my thoughts the picture of the Home Spot, that always melts us into love. 1* 10 CAP SHEAF. Everybody looks forward to the time when he shall have a HOME. No matter what it is, or where the spot ; no matter how rich, or how poor ; the golden atmosphere that hangs about the name of Home, is the medium through which we view the object itself. A garret, or a palace; a hovel, or a hall ; pinching poverty, or wasteful wealth ; to our hearts it is ever the same. Only let it be Home. The name itself is a magnet ; and all our brightest hopes, like glittering steel-filings, are caught up by it as by instinct. It binds us by cords that are stronger than bands of iron; by mystic powers above all worldly rules, beyond all systems, irresistible, and ever-enduring. What statutes so binding as the unwritten code of the fireside ! I drew a picture of an odd little moss- speckled roof, dropped down in a clump of living green. It was all walled in with dense leaves and flowers. Vines clambered to the eaves, twining leafy garlands about the columns on their way, and hang- ing trembling bunches of blossoms just over my head. Honeysuckles poured rich streams of fragrance into the little parlor from out their ruby goblets ; and gadding sprays burst through the opened win- dow in upon the floor. A neat piazza belted the building, around which grew an intertwisted lattice of leafy shelter. There was a low and broad bench A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 11 on the piazza, where three might comfortably sit in the cool of the summer evenings, and drink in the exhilarating draught that drew through the screen. I imagined I sat on that bench already. A lawn of the deepest emerald stretches down to the road, threaded by but a single walk, on either side of which the rich turf rolls itself up in smooth and full ridges. Clumps of syringas stand like sentries here and there, and the air is loaded with their sweet fragrance. A dwarf fir on one side, and a dwarf fir on the other. No tawdry-looking flower-beds, laid out at such pains to catch the vacant eye ; no gaudy and glaring flowers, to inspire only discontent by their contrast with the unpre- tending green all around them : only wild-roses, honeysuckles, trumpet-creepers, and luxuriant woodbines. They fling a leafy veil all over the spot. They wreathe the posts ; shadow the light screen ; fringe the casements ; hide the rough an- gles of carpentry ; and thatch the low roof with their ten thousand leaves. Behind this little homestead, that now seems to rise out of the living wood-coals before me, there is a carefully plotted garden; where the squash- vines run riot over the mellow soil, and on the rough back of the old stone wall ; and bees keep up their busy hum all through the summer day among the yellow squash-blossoms ; and the airy 12 CAP SHEAT. humming-bird daintily sips honey and dew from the white and scarlet bean-blossoms ; and the green and plump currants hang in myriad clusters, for the length of the garden avenue. A little gate swings back at your touch, and shuts itself as you enter. A clean and hard walk conducts you to the extreme end of the ground. There are no terraces; no uplands ; nor lowlands; nor miry, swampy places. It is all an unbroken plain, into which you can almost step from your kitchen door. It is your little kitchen farm ; and the owner of a thousand acres boasts not more of his vast heaps, than you do of your little stores. What phalanxes of fruit-trees ! The rich dam- sons look plump and pulpy, in among the leaves ; and white, and red, and black cherries are bursting out in bunches from the limbs ; and pears, that will soon moisten your palate with their delicious juices, are swelling, and softening, and ripening in the sun ; and smooth-cheeked peaches are begin- ning to wear their most tempting blushes, as the down begins to wear away ; and the luscious green- ings are thrusting their round heads through the glossy leaves, to get a word of commendation from their owner ; and the grapes are forming in long clusters on the vines that run over yonder trellised arbor. A neat row of white hives is sheltered from the A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 13 cutting edge of the north, wind by the wall, out from which streams a steady line of little laborers all through the day. They buzz in the squash- blossoms, and hum drowsily about the bean-flowers. They people the cherry, and plum, and ruddy apple-blows, and wing their way over into the adja- cent field, where the sweet white-clover blooms, and beds of thyme breathe out their balm. All day long they keep at their work ; up before you in the morning, and hardly quiet when you loiter in your garden at evening. Their street is never silent nor deserted, while Summer reigns in the fields and gardens. You own a rich meadow beyond that pasture, and the grass is already rolling like waves in the sweeping breeze. Your heart swells, to see it glis- ten so in the sun ; and you confess to yourself, that there is a secret joy in the very thought that it is yours. A few trees dot the pasture-land, and pa- tient cows stand chewing their cuds, and stamping their hoofs, in the shade. They look mildly at you, as you pass, but never stop grinding the cud. You almost wonder if they, like yourself, have " sweet and bitter fancies !" A belt of wood bounds your pasturage on the north side, where you often go with your young wife, on these balmy mornings in June, and gather primroses, and violets, or saunter thoughtfully in 14 CAP SHEAF. the shadows. A thousand memories your lips can- not fashion into expression, hang up, like golden fruitage, among those old tree-boughs, and linger about the aisles. You feel that you know " Each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild-wood, And every bosky bourn from side to side, Your daily walks, and ancient neighborhood." A noisy brook riots through the solitude, curling its waters darkly beneath some gnarled old root, and leaping up to kiss the leaves of the wild- vines that dangle from the branches. Its noisy echoes people the place. It washes over shining pebbles, slips between rank sedges, upon a muddy bed, steals softly through the emerald turf, and rattles off with a gay laugh, and a saucy clapping of its hands, down by the fence, and away through the low meadow. Home, thought I, taking a new start in my musings, is not altogether without doors ; and, with this thought, I began to paint the inner Home Life, that fuses all our thoughts, in its mystic crucible, into thoughts of Love. A wife ! a young wife, all love ! The little cottage is full of sunshine. There never, surely, were such smiles before ; never such musical laugh- ter, bubbling all the way up from the heart. She reads to you, when you are restless and ill ; and A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 15 you read to her in turn, when she is weary with the never-broken round of household cares. She watches your breathing, when you are curtained in the sick-room ; binds up your head with damp and cool bandages ; places a wine-glass of fresh flowers on the little stand beside your bed ; and talks to you in the low music of her soft and melting voice. She is as airy as a Sprite, and as graceful as a fawn ; yet she is none too ethereal to repay your love with genial sympathy, and welcome words, and patient, self-denying deeds. She does her hair in papers to please your boyish whim, but never breaks a link of the chain that binds her heart to the Home Hearth. She chats with you of Mon- taigne, and Suckling, and Spencer, and sweet Jeremy Taylor ; and drinks in your syllables, when you talk to her of Cordelia, and Corinne, of Jean Jacques, and Coleridge, and Keats ; yet you never harbor the suspicion that she is a blue. And she always dresses so charmingly, too! Nothing can surpass, for sweet and unpretending grace, those summer morning costumes, in which she trips out through the open door, and slips her dainty hand through your arm for an early walk. Her throat is as fair as the fairest alabaster ; and the scarlet just tinges her cheeks with matchless beauty; and as she looks at you so lovingly from out those large, dark, dreamy eyes, you almost un- 16 CAP SHEAF. consciously draw her closer to your side, and press your lips to the forehead of your child-wife. It is home, wherever she is. If you stroll with her down the green lane, chasing the playing sun- blotches that fall on your path your cottage, and all its wealth, is in the lane with you. Without her, it is home nowhere. You seem to lose your reckoning. The sun is blotted out of the sky. You grope your way. The birds do not sing. You see no flowers, nor silver-winged insects nor gaudy butterflies. Your heart swells with misgiv- ings for her, lest some impossible harm has come nigh her. And your spirits grow weary, and faint; and your thoughts brood in desolate places; and your hold on life grows weaker, and weaker ; till you catch her smile again in the low doorway, or fling your arms around her at the little wicket. Home is Heaven say you to yourself, as you draw your boots at evening, and in slippered feet sit down to hear the simple story of her day's life. She draws her chair beside your own and looks alternately in the glowing fire, and your delighted eyes. Foolish little creature ! you tell her ; she sees only herself in your eyes ! It is conceit ! And she will shake her head at you so playfully, and lay her little white hand over your mouth so lovingly, and in such a childish tone, tell you A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 17 that you are her " naughty boy," that she makes you love her ten times the more, in very spite of yourself. As you sit before the gleaming hearth, you read to her from large books of travels, or from charm- ing and simple poems, or from some sad and touch- ing tales ; and when you suddenly look up, you unexpectedly see the tears swimming in her eyes. You stop to ask her what it is that so saddens*her ; but the sunshine instantly breaks out in the midst of the April rain, and she only laughs at you for your inquisitive folly. And then you tell her, half seriously and half in jest, that woman is just what she is now, half smiles, and the other half tears. For your impudence you get a kiss, and struggle valiantly to free yotirself from her embrace. But your release is only on condition that she is ex- cepted from your remark. And in a sudden im- pulse again, you confess that there is no truth at all in the libel you have just uttered. Your friends wonder how it is, that some men can stumble on such a mine of happiness as you have ; and in the midst of their compliments and self-reproaches, they get urgent invitations to visit you as often as they will. And then they protest, that your -dear Maggie is so charming ;, and has so much grace ; and presides at table with such sim- ple dignity ! They will tell you, when you stroll 18 CAP SHEAF. with them out on the piazza, they would have mar- ried long ago, if they could only have been assured of- You interrupt them at this point. You know that it had better remain unspoken. It is flattery you can bear but little better than Maggie herself. Your relations come a great way to see you in your new and quiet home : some to congratulate, some to advise and forewarn, and some to study out the secret weaknesses. But they are all alike melted by the magic of her simple and ear- nest love. Their cynical syllables die on their lips. They forget all their own perplexities, in the sun- shine of your complete happiness. They even become envious, and almost tell you so. But that they need not do : you can read it in their looks. Maggie is perfection, they say to themselves. Never need a man have a better wife. Never found man a truer one. But she is only a child ! Ah ! would they, then, rob you of the untold wealth of her early love? of the fragrance of her freshest feelings ? of the dew, of which you found her young heart so full ? Can there be no love, except the fruit of policy ? no marriages, but those of convenience ? no heart-riches, save those of years ? Is your child- wife any the less a woman, because her love is so undivided ? any the less a A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 19 helpmeet, because she is such an innocent? any the less a blessing, because she knows the world only through you ? Must our hearts be torn, and seared, and probed, and worn with the iron, before we can learn to love ? Doth profounder happiness lie in the broad ways of world-wisdom, than broods all along the by-ways of innocence? Can any statutes limit the impulses of the heart that is early inclined to love? Can there be no maturity, then, even in childishness? no bliss, except it be embittered with the aloes of a cruel experience ? You reason your heart into conclusions that abundantly satisfy you, and leave your near-sighted relations to conclude what they will. So you are but strengthened in your happiness, and grounded in your hope of the future, it is enough. They do not see through your eyes. Their hearts do not throb like yours. They would laugh at you re- morselessly for your fine sentiments ; and tell you, with a profoundly wise wag of their heads, Love is'nt bread and butter 1 But what of that ? What care you ? You re- tort to yourself, of course, But what blessing would bread and butter be without -Love ? And you stoutly resolve, laying aside the tenderness of your feelings for the moment, that you will make your Home Life a deep sermon for these blind rela- 20 CAP SHEAF. tions ; and that each year shall be a new and brighter page for them to peruse. Your and your wife's heart are knit by a new tie : stronger, deeper, fuller, than any you have yet known. She shows you her infant ; and begs, by the ten- der looks of her moistened eyes, that you will love it for her sake. Ay, you respond, and for its own, too ! It is a girl. It comes to you like an angel in a dream. It has the innocent, yet mysterious smile of a seraph. You lean long over it while it sleeps, and your heart goes up to God in a psalm of thanksgiving. A new root has struck into the heart-soil. You feel that you must watch it patiently, and guard it with the tenderest solicitude. It is a part of your child wife ; it is a part of yourself. Your souls have been knit mysteriously together, and this is the new form they have taken. Oh, how you yearn towards it already ! How you wish it could receive into itself the crowded feelings that swell your heart ! How you desire that you could read the hidden history of its spirit life, and satisfy yourself that it is really an offshoot from your own soul ! And yet, there hangs a strange feeling about you, A SHADOW ON THE EOOF. 21 that it can be no other than the twin-soul of your- self and your dear Maggie. " A babe in a house, is a well-spring of pleasure." So the poet tells you, and so your heart believes. The countenance of your wife tells you so. Her cares are doubled; but her troubles are divided. Your sympathies are instinctively more ready, and full, and effective, for her; and the burdens, in consequence, only become the lighter. She does not now^top so often, to humor your little caprices ; but your caprices, you find, have all vanished. You do not now exact so much of her precious time. You readily give it all up to another. Ay, and you give up very much of your own pre- cious time, too. The little cottage was full of sunshine before : now it is all ablaze. A new life has begun within it. A mysterious germ has suddenly shot up be- neath the little roof-tree. What was before only a pictured fancy, has now become a living fact. Your tenderness has budded into a palpable form. Your love has become impersonated. Mysteries are expanding, and ripening into experiences. The wealth of your heart you can now hold in your hands. And still the mystery lurks in the revela- tion ; and the dream sleeps in the reality ; and the spirit does not altogether reveal itself in the living 22 CAP SHEAF. form. You catch only bright and broken glimpses ; the brighter, because broken. And this is the study that Heaven has given your heart. It will surely serve to perplex you more and more, every day of your life ; and the more accustomed to your outward senses it be- comes, the less will your heart have learned of its real nature. And it is by so divine a mystery, that God has promised to keep your heart full of joy, while yet it continues to hunger for more. But time does not stop for your happiness. It rather seems envious of your possession. What a calm, quiet day, is the day of the Christ- ening ! How sweetly your little cherub looks, in that snowy lace cap ! And how she makes all the spectators smile, as she throws out her chubby hands, and, with bubbling syllables, looks up so earnestly into the face of the white-robed clergy- man ! How the soft air of the morning, the fra- grant drifts from the clustering roses and clumps of lilacs, and the mellow warmth of the bright sun- shine, all help to swell the joy of your heart, till it seems that it must at length overflow in tears ! The baby goes before, in the arms of the maid ; and Maggie, now dearer to you than ever, lean- ing on your arm, follows close behind. Your spirits are all in a glow. You scent the blossoms, and tell your wife how ravishingly sweet they "are to the A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 23 senses, though, she knows it quite as well as your- self. You look up into the stainless bosom of the sky, and down again to the earth. Your eyes chase swarming butterflies, and you fancy for the moment that the flowers have taken wings. You peep over into neighboring gardens, and across rolling lawns. And then your eyes come back to your wife again, and you draw her still closer to your side. "Be careful not to stumble!" you caution the maid. Maggie releases herself from your arm for a moment, and takes a few hasty steps forward to see that the child is safe. She lays her own cam- bric kerchief over its face, that the, garish sunlight may not weaken its eyes, and is at your side again. You ask yourself if ever two loving hearts were so happy before ! Your little Alice soon becomes the pet of the whole neighborhood. Children drop in at the cot- tage on their way to school, and ask to see "the baby." And maids from distant houses bring other babies to see this beautiful wonder of yours ; and you laugh till you cry, to see the inexpressibly wise looks with which they will regard each other. You catch her up, in one of your sudden impulses, and toss her -quite to the ceiling ; and she will be so full of glee with your playful effort, that her fat 24 CAP SHEAF. little arms will instantly go up to you again, for a repetition of the fun. Books ! what are books to you now ? There is not a tithe of the life on all their pages, that you read every moment in the face of your own off- spring. And how burdensome become your daily duties, at thinking of the hours that must elapse before you can see your idol child again. How heavily lag the moments between morning and afternoon. You quite begrudge time of the hap- piness of which it is robbing you. No weary, heart-saddened school-boy ever looked forward more wistfully to his dismissal. Your child at length syllables your name "papa!" What a fresh joy ! To feel that you are recognized by a new spirit ; that your very smiles are at last rightly interpreted ; that your love is beginning to bud and blossom in the warmth of home ! To know that your day-dreams are faster and faster ripening into realities ; that what you once regarded as a beautiful myth, is every day becom- ing less a fable ; that the ripe, red bud, is steadily coming through the parted leaves ! Never was there such a child before ! Never, you think, was there so devoted a father. You carry it to the door in your arms, and let its A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 25 ruthless little hands crush the swinging bells of the fragrant columbines. You learn it to creep about upon the thick carpet, pushing before it smooth and red-lipped sea-shells. You teach it to pick open your lips with its playful fingers, and reward it by a song beginning with "Bah! bah! black sheep !" You blow kisses into its dimpled neck, till it hiccoughs for violent laughter. As you sing it to sleep, it will open faintly its drowsy lids, and hum with a baby discord the last syllables of your lullaby. And when it has finally sunk into deep slumber, you gaze long and ear- nestly upon its passionless face, and silently pray God it may long keep your heart as fresh and pure as it is at this moment. And then your dear Mag- gie comes into the room, and looks into the shaded face, and whispers, as if in the holiest confidence to you, " She's asleep !" Maggie prepares the cradle, and into its depth you carefully lay your treasure. It partly turns its head, as you move to lay it down, but the sleep is unbroken. Your wife throws a long veil over its face, and you both leave the room together. And are there any noisy world-joys, that usurp the reign of a man's heart, at all comparable to so simple a joy as this ? Sleeps there anywhere a fountain so full of sweet and clear waters as here ? Can a man from any source so readily bring 2 26 CAP SHEAF. down the fertilizing dew of heaven upon the soil of his heart ? Is busy street-life as fruitful in deep and abiding happiness, as this innocent, almost child-like Home Life ? Doth the ring of dollars echo one half as pleasantly as the ring of your musical baby -laugh ? Tell me, busy world-schemer, if all your successful speculations can compensate your inner heart for the remorse that must ever gnaw, when you reckon up the few short hours you spend at your hearth ? if the hollow voices of men do not mock all your hopes, when a swift memory of Home rushes over your brain? if the fruits of success do not turn to dry ashes on the lips of enjoyment, as your heart reproaches you with their uncounted cost ? But the scene suddenly shifts. You are in the little nursery. The curtains are all closely drawn, and the light is subdued and sombre. Your angel-child lies on the bed. Her face is burning with feverish fires. Her hands are hot, and her head throbs with the fever. But her lips are parched and colorless. The dreamy eye has lost its lustre. She tosses her hands about restlessly, and murmurs faint and broken syllables. Her breathing is short, and fearfully quick. You bend over the bed, and lay your own cheek close to her hot cheek, and ask her, in a sad whis- A SHADOW OX THE EOOF. 27 per, if she is very sick, as if she could catch the meaning of your words. But she interprets the caress, though the words go unheeded by her. Maggie stands by you, and you gaze long and anxiously at your child together. You both trem- ble, to see that the expression has died out from her eyes. You fear far more than you dare trust to words, when you behold their growing glassiness. Your wife stoops down and kisses the child's fore- head, and gently smooths back its straggling hair, and talks mournfully to it of sickness, and tells it, tremulously, she hopes it will soon be better again. You cannot stay to listen, and to witness, longer. Your eyes are growing moist, and you dash away a glittering, tear, as you glide swiftly through the door. The doctor meets you on the embowered little piazza. He is a kind and gentle man, and you place full confidence in his skill. "Doctor," you say, " save my child !" He has not a word for you in reply, but walks steadily in. There is a terrible earnestness in his tread. It smites upon your sore heart fearfully. You have not the courage to follow after him, but remain on the little bench on the piazza. The moments seem like hours to you. You wish he would return again; and yet you have not the heart to go back and learn the fate of your off- 28 CAP SHEAF. spring. You dread to hear even the best, fearing it may be the worst. Again in the nursery. Your darling child is dead, just gone! Oh ! was ever such wo ! Maggie throws herself upon your breast, and buries her face from your sight. You hear her low moans, and feel the deep, strong throes of her agony. Now it is that you feel the need of a strong arm on which to lean yourself. But you have no words. They would but vainly mock your grief. Your sorrows are dumb ; they cannot find their way to your lips. Nothing now but silence and sobs and tears. You gaze at the face of your dead child, stand- ing by the bedside, and your grief looms up big and gloomy before you. You would cast off your hold on life altogether. The bud has been blasted before it had time to round into the fullness of maturity. But another moan from your equally bereaved wife, recalls you to yourself; and you now feel that you are bound to her by a double bond, that will grow stronger through your lifetime. You keep your eyes, however, still fixed upon your dead child ; and the sad lines of the Poet sing in your sadder heart, -. * A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 29 " There is no fold, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there ; There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair." It is as bright and balmy a morning in summer, as ever dawned. The odors of the lilacs and laburnums float through the open window into the little parlor. There is a dense crowd in the rooms ; and people loiter about the outer doors, talking in low tones. Everything looks dark, and fearful, and forbidding. The crowd seems but a bank of gloom. A little coffin, polished and smooth, stands upon the table in the middle of the room. Its lid is laid back, and your dead child's face is upturned to your own ; but the light has gone out of the beau- tiful eyes, and the prattle has died forever on the pale lips. A few white snow-drops are strewn over the coffin ; and mothers lift their blue-eyed children in their arms, and let them look in silence at the face of the little corpse. And parents, who have been themselves be- reaved, strive to keep down the choking sensation in their throats, and turn suddenly away with their eyes full of blinding tears. They sing a hymn. Your young wife now all the world to your bleeding heart leans heavily 30 CAP SHEAF. the while against you, and sobs as if she would not be comforted. You draw her closer closer to you. Oh, how much more deep is your love for her now! How much stronger is the bond that has been strained with sorrow ! Back again from the silent cemetery. Lit- tle Alice you have left behind you. The house is deserted. Your wife has thrown herself upon the bed, and buried her face deeply in the pillows. You enter the little parlor. How silent ! How sad are all the voices of the summer morning, as they reach you through the open win- dows! You seat yourself by one of the windows, and pluck leaf after leaf of the vine that shelters it. How desolate ! How deserted ! Was ever trial like this ! You wonder why your heart was schooled so mysteriously to love, and then cruelly crushed with such a weight of grief. You think there must be something wrong in the ordering of events, and your untutored heart broods over unformed thoughts of rebellion against God's goodness. The agony is so great, that you become, temporarily, its victim. And then there comes slowly, after long reflection, after fervid prayer, a recollection of your heart's earlier desire ; a remembrance of your A SHADOW ON THE ROOF. 31 earnest hope, that your infant might be the means of keeping your heart full, and fresh, and free. A golden gleam of consolation breaks through the clouds that beset your soul. A bright ray of light comes dancing across the dark and troubled waters of your heart. You remember your early prayer, uttered when this angel-child first began to grow into the heart of your nature ; and you believe that the prayer reached Heaven ! All through your lifetime now, little Alice will ever be your CHILD. She will add nothing to her years, in your memory. Her image, enshrined in your heart, will keep it ever fresh and young, through the silent lapse of years. And when you lie down to die yourself, weary, and worn, and heart-broken with the world's selfishness, you will be consoled beyond all measure, with the hope of regaining your child again : the same gentle, pure, spotless child, that has been for years so mysteri- ously drawing you to her with the golden-linked memory of her brief existence ! Maggie lays her head upon your shoulder, and you weep together for deep and unutterable joy- 'WOODS. IT is not the silence ; nor the weird and sombre thoughts ; nor the unbroken circle of subdued feelings: but it is the Presence, the Spirit Pres- ence, that ever draws me to these dim old Woods. Not drowsy Dryads nor fabulous Fauns nor Satyrs nor Gnomes nor any of the thronging tribes that infest mythology : these are but mate- rial creations, whose fantastic freaks can do no more than entangle the fancy in the glittering mesh they fling about it. They exercise no spell over the heart. There is a spirit in these mysterious Woods, that seems twin-born of your own soul. It plays about the gnarled and knotted tree-trunks, like the gos- samer gray moss that trails in long plumes from their branches. It dances, like a thing of life, about the edges of the emerald leaves. It rides upon the bars of golden sunshine, that break through the leafy lattice overhead, and struggles with the eyes that would perseveringly seek to behold its form. It breathes delicious airs upon WOODS. 33 your bared brow, airs that do not enervate, but refresh. It meets your delighted glance from the crystal of the cloistered pool ; and you think you have caught a sweet glimpse of Heaven. You stretch yourself on moss-carpets, and look into the sky. There is but a hand's-breadth there. Yet it is all Heaven. It seems larger, the longer you gaze into its azure. You wander, in vision, through the shadowy vistas that stretch away so boundlessly before you. There is especially at the hour of sunset a feeling in your heart, that you are in some huge cathedral. Yet these woods are grander than any cathedral. You think of tinted windows so chastened are the sun's rays, coming through the braided branches. You feed your heart freely on ravishing pictures of Madonnas ; with gay and grand strains of music, blended strangely into seraphic chorals, and inde- scribable symphonies. You catch faintly notes that run through the whole diapason. 1 have built rne wooden seats, and cushioned rocks with tufted mosses, at different points of the woods ; and in one chosen place, I have erected a rude Kiosque, where, at all times of the day, I may enjoy the emotions that live nowhere but in this unbroken solitude. These spots are but so many stand-points for me, from which I have a habit of viewing the world about me. And many a mem- 2* 34 CAP SHEAF. ory, and many a grief, and many a hope, at each one of them, has lived and died again. Indeed, these spots are associated in my mind only with the nameless feelings that have, at each, come regu- larly to meet me ; just as the sight of the half-for- gotten initials you have carved upon some smooth tree-rind, will people your heart again with the most painful or pleasurable emotions. Noon high noon ! Midsummer, and in the heart of the wood ! What power has pen to seize the outlines even of the ethereal feelings, that distil like dew upon the heart at such a time? What life has language, when it would seek to dress them in the tricked tinselry of words ? What sympathy has thought, when it would try to run a parallel with their viewless course ? I am at this hour seated on a gray rock, in the deep silence of a little ravine. The garish sun is at the meridian. The distant hedgerows are pow- dered with the dust raised by rattling wains ; and laborers trudge languidly along to dinner, their vests, like heavy burdens, thrown across their be- smirched arms. How refreshing a cup of cool water, trickling from this mossy fountain at my feet, would be to them at this moment ! Home is yet a good way off; yet they persevere. Their WOODS. 35 tongues are parched and swollen. They can see the lines of heat, wavering over the plain, and above the road before them ; and it makes them feel faint, only the sight of them. They even think of " giving out ;" so oppressed are they. But there is no sun here ; no dust; no heat. Sirius rages fiercely without ; but Elysium is lapped here within. The air does not oppress you; it only makes you drowsy. Your spirit is lulled by the silence, a silence you can almost feel into the sweetest dreams. You fancy you hear the mu- sical tinkle of the emerald leaves, as a wanton gust rattles them together like so many shields. The dripping of the water upon the dark stones that pave the brooklet, sounds like the melodious chime of silver bells. And the gurgling of the stream in its narrow throat below, fills your fancy with the quaintest and the simplest similitudes. Blotches of golden sunlight play upon the long and coarse grasses about me, chequering the place, and chequering all my thoughts. I hear the hoarse caw of a crow in the resounding distance, and the cry is instantly caught up by the innumerable com- pany. I look up at the sky; but boughs, and sprays, and leaves, have screened it all. I think that by retreating from the heat of the sun, I have shut out from my vision all the blue Heaven also. And then my eye falls upon the little gem of a 36 CAP SHEAF. pool near me, set so deeply in its frame-work of mosses, and fringed about with the rare arbuscles and pale water-flowers. And there I see Heaven again. The blue field sleeps calmly in the depth of the fountain. I grow suddenly eager to satisfy myself. In my fever, I thrust my hand into the water. Alas ! my glimpse of Heaven is dashed into a thousand fragments I So it is I think with those who, in the excess of their selfishness, would make all enjoy- ment material. At sunset, nowhere can such charming visions, such endeared associations and such holy thoughts be found as in the Wood. On the hill-side, or on the mountain-heights, nothing offers itself to the soul but grandeur. In the broad meadows and champaigns, only soothing visions. But in the Woods, refulgent with the golden gleams of the sun, there are rich and match- less paintings ; the framework of a lifetime of dreams ; the most quiet and tender fancies, crossing and re-crossing each other, like yonder bars of yel- low light; and the most genial and placid emo- tions. You feel now, as your picture-filled eyes rove in their delightful rounds, that this is not the old earth WOODS. 87 with which you have been familiar. You seriously question yourself, whether you may not have been mysteriously transplanted to another, and an ethe- real region. You think that the Woods about the old homestead never wore such a beauty before. It is only because your own heart was never rightly attuned before to the enjoyment of the spiritual, that still lingers about the material. Now, your soul's inner chambers are opened. The sunlight turns all their furniture at once to gold ! Seated beneath these venerable oaks, your eye swims with the scenes that crowd upon it. At first, you fancy it is some grand panorama, slowly un- rolling itself before you. Here go pictures of the rarest beauty. There glide and go by scenes of the deepest interest. Here move visions of men and women, gaily attired, as for some masquerade. Here are troops of Hopes, all moving forward to an uniform tread, with banners of azure and gold above them. And there are Dreams, you recog- nize them all at a glance bedizened gaily with rich cloths, and costly fringes; and flaunting in the yellow- light the rare broideries that are only theirs. You carry your eyes back to the point at which they started, determined to go over with such charming illusions again. They move slowly for- 88 CAP SHEAF. ward ; but they do not catch the glimpses of the same pictures as before. The illusion, however, has not vanished ; it has only changed. This time you see arrowy rivers, shooting their glistening lengths through smooth-shaven meadows, or glancing swiftly between vine-bedecked hills. You hear their roar at the dark gorges, and look up at the beetling cliffs that topple over them. Your eyes revel among the walls of strong old feudal castles, from whose turrets and pinnacles wave long locks of golden grass. You try to think it may be only the streaming mosses from the oak- boughs ; but your Fancy is on fire, and you can think of nothing but the castles. Gay cities pass before you, as before the eyes of some swift traveler ; cities upon the plain, and cities by the bounding flood. And waters glancing and gleaming are inextricably entangled with them, like threads of silken skeins. You see spires and domes above you, on every hand. You behold long lines of streets and avenues, throbbing and pulsating, like veins, with human life. You meet smiling faces, and catch echoes of musical sounds. You hear the click of a thousand hammers, and the crystal ring of a thousand anvils. You never stop, however. There is too much to be seen, that you should not delay. WOODS. 89 You are in glittering Brussels, where are innumerable associations to enchain you. Again you are in gay Florence ; and the brimming Arno presents you with the clearest transcripts of heaven in its pellucid bosom. Now you are in Venice ; and the broad Laguna stretches out before you, like a shield of burnished silver. You see gondolas going noiselessly on their liquid way ; and catch entrancing strains from golden-stringed guitars. You see rows of pearly teeth in the balconies ; you are pierced by bright eyes through ugly dominos ; you hear musical laughter from faces tossed dex- terously aside; and are imperceptibly bewitched with the soft airs that blow from every quarter upon you. Then come visions of more cities, and of vil- lages, and of quiet hamlets, sleeping in shadowy glens, or nestling upon the declivous sides of lofty mountains. Then you see the sun-embrowned peasant men and women, gathering the empurpled grapes from a thousand vineyards, and chatting gaily in their homely attire. You likewise hear their vineyard-songs ; but they are not the saturna- lian songs of the train of Bacchus. They stir your heart with the remembrance of sweetest joys. And some sudden snapping of a bough, some passing wind-gust, that seems to shake out showers of gold from clustering leaves, breaks off the thread 40 CAP SHEAF. of this bright dream, or puft's it all away, like feathery fancies, into the air above my head. But the dream leaves its outline behind. Though the reality doth not exist before the eyes, yet it hath deeply drawn its marks upon the heart. Un- told associations have suddenly sprung into being, that will dance about these old boughs, each time rny eyes linger among them. So, they are not merely crooked, gnarled, moss-spotted outlines to me. So, they are not simply branching oak- antlers. They have a life. They frame in pictures of gay scenes, and support the work and activity of proud cities. And my dreams climb up through these branches upon the golden bars of sunlight, till they are all lost in the deep of the stainless blue beyond. And my indefinable longings go out through them, till they soar and reach the very heaven they would attain at last. And sweet hopes hang clustered upon them, like the blushing branches of wild grapes they yearly bear. Morning noon and night, these "Woods haunt me with the spirit that broods in their aisles and arches. I cannot seize it, and question it of its origin or its purpose. I only know its power. If I enter these sombre recesses, it matters little at what time or season, this Spirit is sure to be upon me. It silently subdues my heart. I feel a finger WOODS. 41 lightly laid upon the lip of my thoughts, that they may not grow suddenly tumultuous and uncon- trollable. It silences all my complaints, and strengthens my soul with the repose it most needs. For blithe and ringing woodland melodies, how- ever, no time surpasses the magical autumn time. Then it is, that the brush of an invisible artist has been skillfully and mysteriously employed. Every imaginable tint shades the crowding leaves. All Gobelin dyes stain the huge cloths that are flung over the trees. Merry children are in the upland, on their regular autumnal excursion for nuts. Their shrill voices ring far through the wide soli- tudes. They scream, in the overflow of their new delight. The air is bracing and keen; and no blood bounds so swiftly in the veins, as the blood of trooping children. Their echoes people the dim Woods with living thoughts. You think of ruddy health of dancing spirits of innocence of heart of yefr untasted sorrows of heart-life, not yet crushed out ; and you wish, from your soul, you were only a child again ! What a magic in those merry voices ! How they break, and swell, and spread, and die away upon the air, like concentric circles in the broken surface of a lake ! How contagious are they to the heart, the heart that is in health, and feels the life it truly enjoys I 42 CAP SHEAF. And if fairies and fays do, in reality, dwell in these solitudes, it is easiest for me to believe that these are they. They have their chosen retreats, their sacred fountains, their cool grottos, their airy arbors, and their shaded avenues. Each leaf- crested column has for them its charm. Every vine-girt trunk is encircled likewise with their love. They unwittingly make themselves tutelar divini- ties ; and certainly none in mythology ever guarded the special objects of their care with a more single faith. Here, too, one can see the source whence sprung the Gothic style, of architecture. The im- perious and ravaging clan, whose name has given the term its derivation, were roving denizens of the forests. And their rude instincts not to dignify them with the title of tastes have been built upon, and added to, till the rugged and enduring Gothic structure has come to associate itself with all that is massive and imposing. You sit on this rude seat, and delight your eyes with carrying out the comparison your mind has thus suggested. About you are standing the solid and enduring columns. Here are the shafts, firm, upright, and immovable. You behold here the solemn aisles, and the sombre arches. Here is entablature ; and cornice ; and molding ; and frieze. Here, among WOODS. 43 the boughs, are those bewildering traceries, that branch out from the mullions into arches, and curves, and mystic lines, which the eye can scarcely follow for their entangling intricacy. Here are stretching fretted vaults, and groined ceilings, through which you catch sight of the deep