6 Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain 25 She shuddered and paused, like a frighted Then leaped her cable's length. Come hither! come hither! my little daugh- And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale 30 THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 50 With his face turned to the skies, snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. She has a bosom as white as snow, Take care! She knows how much it is best to show, Beware! Beware! Trust her not, She is fooling thee! 20 25 30 Of daylight and its toil and strife, May listen with a calm delight 55 To the poet's melodies, Till he hears, or dreams he hears, Intermingled with the song, Thoughts that he has cherished long; I see the lights of the village 60 1845. Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me That my soul cannot resist : A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. 65 10 favorably known to the literary world in a new magazine he was about to establish in order to raise the character of American literature, which, in his opinion, the 5 existing reviews and magazines had entirely failed to accomplish. A daily increasing want of something better was felt by the public; and the time had come for the establishment of such a periodical 10 as he proposed. After explaining in a rather florid and exuberant manner his plans and prospects, he entered more at large into the subject of American literature, which it was his design to foster and patronize. Meanwhile, things had gone on very quietly and monotonously in Mr. Churchill's family. Only one event, and that a mysterious one, had disturbed its serenity. It was the sudden disappearance of Lucy, the pretty orphan girl; and as the 15 booted centipede, who had so much excited Mr. Churchill's curiosity, disappeared at the same time, there was little doubt that they had gone away together. But whither gone, and wherefore, re- 20 mained a mystery. Mr. Churchill, also, had had his profile, and those of his wife and children, taken, in a very humble style, by Mr. Bantam, whose advertisement he had noticed on 25 his way to school nearly a year before. His own was considered the best, as a work of art. The face was cut out entirely; the color of the coat velvet; the shirt-collar very high and white; and the 30 top of his head ornamented with a crest of hair turning up in front, though his own turned down,-- which slight deviation from nature was explained and justified by the painter as a license allowable 35 in art. One evening, as he was sitting down to begin for at least the hundredth time the great Romance,- subject of so many resolves and so much remorse, so often de- 40 termined upon but never begun,— a loud knock at the street-door, which stood wide open, announced a visitor. Unluckily, the study-door was likewise open; and consequently, being in full view, he found it im- 45 possible to refuse himself; nor, in fact, would have done so, had all the doors been shut and bolted,— the art of refusing one's self being at that time but imperfectly understood at Fairmeadow. Accordingly, 50 the vistor was shown in. He announced himself as Mr. Hathaway. Passing through the village, he could not deny himself the pleasure of calling on Mr. Churchill, whom he knew 55 by his writings in the periodicals, though not personally. He wished, moreover, to secure the coöperation of one already so 'I think, Mr. Churchill,' said he, ‘that we want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers,commensurate with Niagara and the Alleghanies, and the Great Lakes.' Oh!' 'We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country; that shall be to all other epics what Banvard's Panorama of the Mississippi is to all other paintings, the largest in the world.' 'Ah!' 'We want a national drama in which scope enough shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity and progress of our people!' 'Of course. 'In a word, we want a national literature altogether shaggy and unshorn, that shall shake the earth, like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies.' 'Precisely,' interrupted Mr. Churchill; 'but excuse me! - are you not confounding things that have no analogy? Great has a very different meaning when applied to a river and when applied to a literature. Large and shallow may perhaps be applied to both. Literature is rather an image of the spiritual world. than of the physical, is it not? - of the internal, rather than the external. Mountains, lakes, and rivers are, after all, only its scenery and decorations, not its substance and essence. A man will not necessarily be a great poet because he lives near a great mountain. Nor, being a poet, will he necessarily write better poems than another, because he lives nearer Niagara.' But, Mr. Churchill, you do not certainly mean to deny the influence of scenery on the mind?" |