TO AN EOLIAN HARP. WHENCE, oh wild melodies, Come ye, thus strangely sweet, with your sad sighing, Murmurs its viewless way through yon old waving trees? Night's blessed spell hath now Lulled every sound of earth in slumber deep, Brings not its balm to soothe this fevered brain and brow. My spirit is oppressed With thoughts too dimly dark for utt'rance-burning To flee away--away-and find some home of rest. No more, entranced, my soul In that bright Eden of its own may dwell,— Ye seem-thus murmuring on the still night air, And come ye to impart, With the sweet power of holy sympathy, A soothing spell to this sad bosom's smart To pour a charm of heavenly harmony Upon the troubled waves of this wild throbbing heart? Or come ye from afar, Faint echoings of the music of the spheres, Or angel voices from some distant star, Sorrowing gently over human tears, The passions, sins, and griefs, this lovely world that mar! Or haply may ye be Dim voices of the dead, whom love gives power Hark now, how faintly shrill, Tremble the breathings of the unearthly strain! Sigh not, oh Wind, o'er the sad lyre again! Too deeply hath it stirred the founts, mine eyes with tears that fill. "SANS CRAINTE !" "FEARLESS" mounts, on wing untiring, Fixing still his burning eye. Never flag that gallant pinion— Never quail that daring gaze,- Proud as thine, proud heaven-seeker, Like thee, scorning meaner stooping, Thy high motto still its drooping Shall inspire and cheer-" SANS CRAINTE!" REMINISCENSES OF A WALKER ROUND BOSTON. Ir is a lovely morning. August is just gracefully giving place to her gentler sister. The atmosphere is stirred with cooler airs, and loaded with the rich fragrance of autumn; and yet the earth is clothed with deep verdure, and shadowed by thick foliage still,where the tenderest green of summer, blends in magic beauty with the brighter and more mellowed tints with which "decay's effacing fingers" delight to supersede the softer hues of the early year. It is a delightful season, and creates a mood of mind, that I love to indulge. Such a day as this was never meant to be imprisoned between dingy rows of brick walls, or to be used as a mere drudge for the hurried despatch of the business of a city. Candle-light or torchlight has always seemed to me good enough to light men to their counting-houses, and to preside over the prosaic, though necessary, mechanism which supplies our animal wants. I have ever begrudged the blessed light of the sun to the throngs that fill the narrow streets where what is called the business of the world is carried on, who think no more of the life-giving orb than they do of the wick-light that shows them the way to bed. The cloud that ever hangs over London is the fit canopy of a great city. The everlasting fogs, the perpetual drizzle, the thick irrespirable air, the copper luminary, which they ironically call the sun, have ever seemed to me good enough for the willing captives of that vast prison-house. The hill-side, the over-arching wood walk, the borders of the haunted stream, are the true temples of the God of Day. Gentle reader, squander not the golden minutes of morning in the solemn foolery which you fancifully call business, nor even in poring over the pages of this best of magazines; but come away with me and waste an hour in the pleasant walks which extend themselves around the good town of Boston. Though we cannot boast of a far-reaching antiquity, still the two hundred years which have swept over the capital of old Massachusetts-Bay have left some traces in their flight, which "may give us pause if pondered fittingly." At all events the features of nature herself are the same as when she first smiled a welcome to the stern puritan exiles from their native land. The lovely heights which looked down upon them, the silver waves which invited their curious oar, the green plains from which they stripped the aboriginal forests, still remain unchanged. Let us stroll together among those charming scenes, and live, at least a while, with the generations who once dwelt in their midst, and loved them well. I know that you love to dwell upon the past, and to revisit, in spirit, the daily walks and ways of the men who lived before us on the earth, and bequeathed to us almost all we have that is worth having. Had I not thought so I should not have sought your company; so take my arm and I will guide you through the devious maze of Washington Street, and bring you soon to where fields are green and waters glide. We are at the head of State Street, King Street in the "good old colonial days." The antiquated building which, like an island in some broad stream, divides the busy tide into two equal currents, is the old Town House, where the spirit of resistance to the parent State was fostered in the Provincial Legislature for many years before it broke out into open war. It was the scene of many a stormy conflict between the royal Governors and the impracticable representatives of the people from Andross down to Hutchinson. The ungainly erection opposite stands on the site of the earliest substantial edifice raised by the fathers to the worship of God. There you may see the spot where the house of John Winthrop stoodone of the noblest spirits that have adorned the world. That brick church with the lofty spire is the Old South, which was transformed by the desecrating hands of the besieged British troops into a stable and a riding school. If you will look down Milk Street, of which the Old South Church makes the corner, you may see the place where Franklin was born-not the house, alas! but the place where it once stood. The humble roof which should have been immortal has bowed itself in the dust, and in its place a thin six-storied Babel rears its front towards Heaven. I marvel that it has never toppled down upon the head of the inventor. But we must hasten on. I may not stop to show you the old Province-House, the scene of the provincial splendors of the representatives of majesty; where they held their court and dispensed their hospitalities. The Democratic Review has already taken up its traditions, and when the "Tales of the Province-House" are narrated by the pen of Hawthorne, who would be aught else than a listener or a reader? I only dare to indicate that dark and narrow alley, sneaking between the vulgar red-brick houses which fill up the fine old Court-yard, that leads to that once famous centre of the colonial world. These two story brick houses with attic windows in their roofs, of which you see many modestly shrinking from the society of their more pretending, but less substantial, modern neighbours, are of the beginning of the last century, and have looked forth from their windows upon many a revolutionary scene. They have witnessed many a military pomp when the besieged British troops marched before them confident of success; and joyful eyes looked from them when the army of deliverance marched its rude legions through the streets at the heels of the departing invaders. They saw, too, the tumultuous throngs that hurried, in the times which preceded the Revolution, to the Liberty Tree, there to inflame their zeal and mature their plans beneath its shadow. Do you see that flag-staff planted opposite the shambles of the Boylston Market? Well, from that spot grew the Liberty Treehewn down with a malicious pleasure by the mercenary hands of the British soldiers during the siege, and consumed as firewood during the bitter winter of 1775, '6. Would that it might have stood and put forth its annual leaves to this day! That tree, it its time, bore strange fruit. When the news arrived of the passage of the Stamp Act, and of the appointment of Mr. Oliver as Stamp Distributer, there was discovered one morning depending from its boughs, an effigy of the obnoxious officer, and also a boot (symbolical of Lord Bute.) with the Devil peeping out of it with the Stamp Act in his hand. Under the same shade the same unfortunate Distributer was compelled to abjure his office. And again, when the news arrived that the odious act was repealed, the Liberty Tree bore a conspicuous part in the rejoicings which that event called forth. During the day its branches streamed with flags and pennants, and at night bent beneath the weight of the variegated lanterns that illuminated it. It was the idol of our fathers-and its fame extended not only over this continent, but was familiar in men's mouths beyond the Atlantic. And now nothing remains to mark where it stood but that bare, unsightly pole! What associations can cluster around a smooth, barkless stick? How many of the thousands that daily brush past it ever give a thought to the fallen patriarch of the wood whose place is so unworthily filled? How many of them even know that the tree of which they have heard their fathers tell, and which flourished in their early dreams, grew by the wayside of their daily walks? But though the very tree no longer overshadows their path, puts out its buds in spring, or rains down its withered leaves in autumn, its memory will not the less endure for ages. Unborn generations will preserve for it the same veneration which would have been accorded to its honored age, had the "Liberty Tree" stood until centuries had shattered its branches and rived its trunk, rendering it more and more precious to their hearts. But come, we must not loiter about this scene of our father's love. I will now show you some faint traces of yet fiercer times, when the cloud of battle had actually burst over the land. Do you see that black circle of some ten inches diameter which is described upon the rear of that white wooden house? And now, that we have gained its front you may discern a ring answering to the one behind, but somewhat higher up. Well, that indicates the passage of one of the last arguments of kings or nations, uttered by some brazen VOL. III. NO. IX.-SEPTEMBER. F |