Man's story is soon told; he is born, he lives, he dies. Where, how, when, are questions which friendship asks, and memory gives the reply. But to dwell on the history of past mischances for any other purpose than that of regulating our future conduct, is neither wise nor beneficial. While we deplore the brevity of time, let us at least occupy it; since, while we also deprecate the operations of fate, we cannot evade them. Let us endeavour to leave behind us a name untarnished; a character, which posterity shall contemplate with approbation and imitate with profit. Among our duties let us attend to that of self-examination. Have we misjudged no man's motives; undermined no man's reputation ; intrigued against no man's prosperity? Have we reported what should have been concealed? Have we smothered in secret, virtues, which should have been proclaimed? Have we swallowed no slanders without requiring good authority? The records of a year conclude with this day; to us a last day must also come! A time shall arrive, too, when the proud and the meek, the backbiter and the accused, the heretic who misgives, and the bigot who dares to prescribe bounds to celestial mercy, must lie together among the undistinguished trophies of implacable death. A LAST DAY for time and for death itself shall also succeed; a day of perennial glory for that soul, which, while dwelling amidst the atoms of this fragile system, shall have put forth its energies, independent of all sectarian professions, in the unwearied practice of the moral virtues.
XVI. THE SHAD SPIRIT.
[Connecticut Mirror.]
There is a superstition in many places which bears, that the shad are conducted from the gulf of Mexico into Connecticut river, by a kind of Yankee "bogle” in the shape of a bird, popularly called the SHAD SPIRIT.
Know ye the shepherd that gathers his flock
Where the gales of the equinox blow,
From each unknown reef and sunken rock,
In the gulf of Mexico?
Now draw the bolt, and securely nail
The horseshoe over the door,
'Tis a wise precaution; and if it should fail, It never failed before.
While the monsoons growl, and the trade-winds bark, And the watch dogs of the surge
Pursue, through the wild waves the ravenous shark,
That prowls around their charge!
To fair Connecticut's northernmost source,
O'er sand-bars, rapids and falls,
The Shad Spirit holds his onward course,
With the flock that his whistle calls.
O how shall we know where he went before?
Will he wander around forever?
The last year's shad heads shall shine on the shore,
And light him up the river!
And who can tell him the fated time
To undertake his task?
When the pork barrel's low, he sits on the chime,
And drums on the empty cider cask.
Though the wind is light, the wave is white
With the fleece of the flock that is near,
And he sweeps on high, like the scud of the sky,
And faithfully leads them here.
And now he has passed the bolted door,
Where the rusty horseshoe clings--
Then carry the nets to the river shore,
And take what the Shad Spirit brings.
XVII. THE REQUIEM.
[Commercial Advertiser. New-York.]
"Well hast thou left in life's best bloom
"The cup of wo for me to drain.”
BENEATH the burial clay!
Beneath the cold funereal stone-
Wrapped in the mantle of decay,
Thy form of graceful youth has gone!
Oh there was sorrow, long and loud,
When thou wast gathered in the shroud;
And tears in fast profusion fell,
When wailing love bade thee, farewell-
But now, whose hearts more deeply bled
Than his, by whom no tears were shed?
His grief was echoless;
It had no sound, or voice, or breath,
And his lone feelings of distress
Had all the solitude of death;
But the sad tear-drops of the soul
Flowed inwardly, without control,
And earnestly his mournful eye
Was fixed, in wild intensity,
Upon that lonely coffin lid,
Where all he loved, on earth, was hid.
He wept his lot with none,
Nor told the misery of his fate;
The world for him held only one,
She died--and he was desolate.
Oh! how he watched her beauty pine,
And perish in its slow decline,
When sickness blanched her cheek with care,
Stealing the rose that flourished there
And how he knelt, at love's command,
To kiss that soft and lily hand,
And gaze upon that failing eye,
Once glowing with love's witchery.
She was so beautiful-
Even as a seraph to his eyes;
The hand of death did never cull
A sweeter flower for paradise!
Yes-partial nature never drew
A lovelier form of fairer hue--
A smile, of more bewitching grace
Than that which played upon her face;
He deemed she was an angel, given
To make, for him, this earth a heaven.
Enchanted hours to him!
And over-fraught with every bliss-
Joy sparkled upwards to the brim,
And seemed to woo his fervent kiss.
He wreathed his harp with summer flowers,
And the sweet music of those hours
Was like the melody of spring,
When all his birds are on the wing.
How changed! that heart is cold--
Her bosom rests within the earth,
And memory's dirge hath fondly told
Of all her sweetness, all her worth.
Unsparing death! must then the young,
The innocent in heart and tongue;
The loved, the loving, and the gay,
Ah, be the first to fall thy prey?
Alas! that mild, unchiding breast,
Is in the icy grave compressed;
And the dull earth-worm riots now
Upon that smooth and marble brow.
The flowers of spring shall wave
Above her solitary bed;
The grey-green grass shall deck her grave,
And freshly blossom o'er her head.
But long unheeded must he sigh,
When year on year is sweeping by ;
And spring oft wither and return,
Before his heart shall cease to mourn.
But love can never die-
It fastens on the fearful tomb,
And lifts to heaven a trusting eye,
To hail a blighted, happier doom.
In the deep caverns of the grave,
Hope lingers, though it cannot save,
Yea, in the mansions of the dust,
Affection springs, and ever must.
Another dream shall break
Upon this cold enveloped night-
That lovely being shall awake
To bloom in heaven's bowers of light.
Though deep affection's hope was vain,
And tears of anguish felt like rain,
When death descended, and no prayer
Could ward the blow from one so fair;
Yet in a happier world than this,
A world of unimbittered bliss,
Where joy hath never rung its knell,
That pure and stainless heart shall dwell.
XVIII. A MAN OF SORROWS. [From the same.]
A MAN of sorrows and of wo
'Twas thus, of old, the prophet sung,
Who felt the words of heaven flow
In inspiration from his tongue :
Well might the prophet's words be sooth
To all beneath the golden sun;
But be it mine to paint their truth
In the dark destiny of ONE.
Kind nature gave him feelings strong,
Lofty, impetuous and sincere,
But envy, perfidy, and wrong
Conspired to lay those feelings sear→
Deceived, deserted, and betrayed,
By many a shaft of fate pursued,
The earth to him became a shade,
A melancholy solitude.
He knelt at many an idol's shrine,
But found congenial warmth in none:
And every wreath his hope could twine
Was quickly blighted, and undone ;
And then he bowed beneath the wo,
That brooded o'er life's little span ;
He bent him to affliction's blow-
He bent, but bore it like a man.
In proud and uncomplaining grief,
He walked upon his lonely way;
But have ye marked the yellow leaf,
Consuming on the broken spray?
He loved its dying beauty well;
To him it had a warning tone,
And when its bloom to ruin fell,
It seemed an emblem of his own.
He loved to watch the setting sun
Go down beneath the crimson west;
And wished his own career was run,
That he might also be at rest.
He thought the sod would lighter press,
Than life's accumulated wo;
He thought the wave of cold distress,
Perchance would there forget to flow!
There was a time-what boots it now,
On spectres of the past to call?
For will it cool his burning brow--
Or will it gild his spirit's pall?
But yet there was a joyous time,
When youthful hope delighted sung,
And o'er his bright and golden prime,
The sunny sky of fortune hung.
His heart was then in freshest play,
And in its fair unclouded spring;
And blithesome was his roundelay,
Like that of wild-birds on the wing.
Oh, for that soul-enchanting song,
Which charmed his boyhood's rosy hours,
When being's current swept along
A shore of verdure and of flowers.
When freely flowed life's fountain wave
In waters of the purest blue,
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