THE VILLAGE POET. BY EMMA C. EMBURY. "Brama assai, poco spera e nulla chiede." How deep, how powerful, is the influence of association! How completely will it overcome the effect of present objects, and convert the gayest scene into one of sadness! We are accustomed to associate the musings of pensive thought with the season of autumn; we call its days the saddest of the year, and, therefore, though its gorgeous tinted foliage, its genial breezes, and its warm sunshine, all speak of cheerfulness and enjoyment, we remember only the desolation which they herald, and yield our hearts to the desponding fancies which such presentiments awaken. I look out, now, upon a brighter scene than ever summer painted. The grass wears its rich emerald hue, the trees have put on regal splendor, the trailing grape vines seem like scions from Aladdin's enchanted garden, for their foliage is golden, and the clusters of rich fruit glow in the sunbeam like amethysts. How beautifully the glancing shadows flicker upon that spot of matted turf! With what mellowed softness the light falls upon yonder picturesque old tree, marking out, with wonderful distinctness of outline, every knot on the scarred trunk, every curve in the gnarled branches, every tiny leaf-stem, that quivers in the breeze. The air is as balmy as if it were a breath from the sweet south, and musical with the hum of bees and the carol of birds. All is brightness and beauty, and, as it would seem, gladness; but how different are the influences now abroad from those awakened in the joyous spring! Then, the pulse seems to bound with the buoyancy of renovated youth, and in the budding loveliness which meets the eye on every side, we find, or make analogies, to suit our own feelings; but autumn's gayest garb is one of mourning; we know it is the glory which precedes decay, and we yield our hearts to memory rather than hope. It is the season of quiet thought, of melancholy fancies, of poetic dreams. Alas! are not such dreams ever the shadows of past sorrows? for, what is poetry but the oracular utterance of sad and solemn truths? To one whose moods of mind are swayed even by the passing breeze, the fall of the leaf must ever bring sober visions of life. I may not weave a merry tale for thee, gentle reader; the "griefs and cranks," which Tasso. might amuse a gay circle around a Christmas fire, are all forgotten; and, instead of winning thy smiles, I can only hope to awaken thy sympathies, in the fate of one of those gifted and fore-doomed beings whom the world calls poets. From his earliest infancy, Herbert Langdale was a feeble and sickly child, resting ever, as it seemed, on the very threshold of the grave, and only retained in life by the watchfulness of maternal tenderness. For years he was utterly helpless a dwarfed, decrepid, little creature, swathed like a new born babe, and unable to move a limb by his own volition. His mother, who with true womanly feeling, loved her suffering child far more than all the world beside, devoted to him every hour that she could spare from other duties, while Herbert looked to her for all his solace under privation, and all his pleasures during moments of comparative ease. The merry shouts of his hardier brothers, as they sported in all the wild joy of animal existence, beneath the window where he lay in utter helplessness, never came with so harsh a sound to his ear, if his mother was at his side. Her eye seemed ever to shed sunshine upon him; her voice was the music of his life; her love the measure of his existence; and deceived by his quiet, unrepining gentleness, the fond mother dreamed not of the morbid melancholy which was gradually sapping the foundations of mental strength in her afflicted but gifted boy. Mrs. Langdale was one of those persons, who, to an excitable nervous temperament, unite great vigor of character. She had married early, and, as her husband was a man of ordinary mind, plainly educated, and possessing that good sense which renders the American farmer so useful, so respectable, but at the same time so un-romantic an individual, she would probably have lived and died unconscious of the enthusiastic tenderness of her own nature, had not love for her helpless child stirred the deep fountains of her heart. Those profound and gushing affections which God has placed in the bosom of every woman, affections which sometimes waste themselves in the girlish romance of early love, sometimes lose themselves in the destructive overflow of passion, and sometimes, alas! too rarely, are gathered into the broad deep channel of conjugal and maternal love, seemed in this case to be poured out in all their fulness, upon the blighted life of her child; and if the freshening influence of such tenderness could have availed, the boy's future path would have been one of verdure and flowers. Herbert could not analyze the emotions of her who bent over him with looks of such pitying love, but he could feel their influence, and sympathize in their expression. The sensitiveness of nature, the extreme susceptibility of mind, which usually characterize physical deformity rendered him too like his mother, and she, forgetting that while it is the lot of woman to endure, the destiny of man calls him to actual conflict with his fellows, cherished the tenderness which should have been subdued. Possessing that great precocity of intellect, which, to the philosophic observer appears only as another and more fearful proof of bodily disease, he became the object of his mother's pride as well as love, and with that illjudged ambition which has hurried many a feeble child into an early grave, she urged him forward in the pursuit of knowledge. Reclining on his couch in moments of such excessive debility that even the utterance of a word was painful to him, he tasked his brain to remember and collate the wisdom which came to him from the sages of past time, and was repeated from a mother's lips. She read books which she would once have deemed perfectly incomprehensible; she studied subjects, from which her mind turned with indifference and dislike, in order that she might impart new light to the developing mind of her son; and when his excited imagination began to find utterance, in the vague sweet language of poetry, nothing could exceed her happiness and exultation. Mrs. Langdale had always predicted, that as Herbert's mind strengthened, his physical powers would receive new vigor. She seemed to be impressed with a presentiment, that he was destined to some lofty fate, and to maternal love no miracle seemed improbable. Whether in this case, as in many others, the prophecy produced its own realization, by awakening a belief in its possibility, may not be determined, but certain it is, that ere he had passed his twelfth summer, the boy was able to leave the couch on which he had lain during so many weary years; and, though he still remained dwarfed and distorted in figure, he was no longer helpless and suffering. The devoted mother beheld the first reward of her cares, and confidently anticipated the moment when Herbert's mental gifts would so overpower his physical defects, that the world would learn the value of the priceless gem which so frail a casket now enclosed. But that day she was destined never to see. A slight cold, a few days of apparently trifling indisposition, were suf ficient to sever the fragile thread of life, in one whose strength had been for years overtasked, and a very few months after Herbert had shaken off the fetters of sickness, he sate in mute agony beside the death-bed of his idolized mother. She To describe his terrific emotions, to depict the harrowing wretchedness of the boy's spirit, would exceed the power of language. He seemed crushed to the earth, and the low moans, which issued from his pale lips, were like the last vibrations of his heart to breaking chords. In her last moments Mrs. Langdale had implored her husband to guard with especial tenderness the child on whom so much of her love had been lavished. had no fear for the hardy, robust, and joyous little ones, whose tears were but as the dew-drop on the flower, and whose shouts of ringing laughter would mingle with the faint echo of the passing bell. But for Herbert, who had lived but in her presence, and to whom her tender and gentle care had been more than life itself, for him she uttered her love's last prayer. The sorrowing husband promised all she asked, and doubtless, in that moment of softening grief, felt himself fully equal to any affectionate duty. But Mr. Langdale knew little of the nature of his child. The boy's agony startled and terrified him; he could not understand his wild, fierce, grief; he was unable to contend with so unmanageable a sorrow, and after a few vain attempts at common-place consolation, he left Herbert to the soothing influences of time. - If there be anything which can make us sensible of our own utter insignificance in life anything which can convince us that we are mere ciphers in the vast sum of human existence, deriving a factitious value only from our position it may be found in the fact, that the world, even the little world of love which surrounds each one of us, revolves as quietly, and apparently as regularly, when deprived of our presence, as it did when we considered ourselves indispensable to its movements. Who has not felt this, when returning from a long absence? We remember the gloom which separation seemed to leave upon the hearts of dear friends; we recall the bitter moment, when the agony of a life seemed concentrated in the single word "farewell;" and we return to find, that but for the hope of a distant reunion, our memory would long since have faded from the minds of those who loved us best. Let us contemplate, for a moment, some sweet picture of domestic happiness: Behold the husband, seeking in the calm seclusion of home, a refuge from the turmoil of the busy world, looking in the eyes of his gentle wife for the sunshine which lights his whole existence, and hearing in the prattle of his little ones, a music sweeter than the me lody of birds; see the wife reigning, by the right of chosen affection, a queen over the little realm of love, while she bows in the lowly submission of that sweet devotion which is a woman's richest heritage; observe the blending of those two hearts, the unity of feeling, the oneness of sentiment, the transfusion of spirit, the apparent indivisibility of the bond which unites them. How could one of these exist without the other? Would we not say, "When the stem dies, the leaf that grew Out of its heart, must perish too!" But it is not so. Death crosses the threshold of that quiet home: the wife, the mother, she who never ceased to minister in all things to those for whom she lived, is called to leave them ere her task be done. The sun is yet high in Heaven, she has borne the heat and burden of the day, and she is looking forward to the quiet evening hour, when she may find repose amid those for whom she has toiled. A summons from the grave calls her to lay aside her cares; death waits to lead her to a more unbroken rest, and within the precincts of that narrow house, appointed for all the living, she lies down to sleep in peace. The voice of wailing is heard, the sound of grief goes up to heaven, and the tears of the widowed and the orphaned water the flowers upon the untimely grave. Wait but a few brief months, and then let us look into that desolated home. The children in the gaiety of frolic infancy have forgotten the grief, which to them was but a dark cloud in a sky of sunny hopefulness; they remember no more the dreariness which came upon them when the retreating footsteps of the burial train had left them alone with their sorrow; they have learned to live without her who fancied herself so essential to their welfare. And he, who felt the very fibres of his heart torn asunder when the hand of death had stilled the pulses of his dearer self, how has he endured the loneliness of life? "All suffering doth consume, or is consumed E'en by the sufferer;" he has wrestled with the agony of his wounded spirit; he has struggled against the crushing weight of his affliction; he has gone out into the world, a saddened and heart-sick man, striving, amid the turmoil of business, to drown the voice of hopeless wailing within his bosom. Time, the comforter, has laid his hand of healing upon him, and the bereaved one, who fancied that the life of life was fled forever, is once more numbered amid those who are scheming for future happiness. It may be that the grief is not forgot; for, "what deep wound ever closed without a scar?" and it would be hard indeed, if the endearing tenderness of wedded love had left no trace more lasting than that which the gliding keel leaves on the unfurrowed wave; it may be that in the solemn silence of the midnight hour, the image of past happiness rises before him in all its former beauty; but such thoughts are hushed, such remembrances buried in his bosom, and new hopes, and, it may be, new loves once more spring up around him. "Alas! how vain our noblest feelings, Herbert had been a sick and suffering child, but he could scarcely be deemed an unhappy one, until the hour when death's dark shadow interposed between him and his idolized mother. When the first violence of his grief had subsided, he became silent, moody, almost morose in his deportment, and any approach to gaiety in the words or looks of those around him seemed to him like a species of sacrilege, which was sure to be met with fierce and violent indignation. His father beheld, without comprehending, the changes in the boy's temper, and fancying that he was now suffering the consequences of his mother's past indulgence, it was determined that his mind should be diverted by new scenes. He was accordingly sent with his brothers to the village school, and for the first time in his life, the shrinking and sensitive child was thrown into collision with his fellows. Most of us enter the schoolroom at too early an age to be able fully to recollect the blank dismay with which we first found ourselves in the midst of the noisy and unsympathizing crowd who usually assemble to gaze on the new scholar. We remember it, however, as a season of pain and mortification, while if the feeling of strangeness be accompanied by the consciousness of such personal peculiarities as are likely to attract the notice of all and the ridicule of many, that hour becomes an epoch in existence from which to date our first acquaintance with sorrow. Herbert suffered all that a delicate mind must necessarily endure when thrown amid the coarse, the thoughtless and the unfeeling. He was but a child, one of those young creatures who are supposed by wiser people to be incapable of feeling anything but a blow or a physical privation, and yet never did the sensitive nature of man or woman writhe under severer tortures than those inflicted upon him by the rude jests of his companions. One only solace enabled him to bear all with patience and even with stoical indifference; the tenderness of a female heart again consoled him in his trials. Laura Tracey, then a fair and gentle child of some twelve summers, was the daughter of a wealthy English gentleman, who, after having made a large fortune in one of our commercial cities, had retired to a beautiful estate in the village of Ellesmere, where, amid the charms of American scenery he had gathered around him all the refined luxuries of European life. In her early years Laura had appeared to droop like a delicate exotic, and by advice of a judicious physician, she was sent to the village school, as the only means of securing to her the advantages of that regular instruction and healthful exercise which were essential to the completion of both mental and physical education. The sickly hot-bed culture which would probably have made her a most delicate and useless scion of aristocracy was abandoned; and she soon became one of the prettiest and gayest little romps that ever made the pride and torment of a village schoolmaster. Possessing a penetrating and vigorous mind, together with a great degree of ambition, she had acquired a name for scholarship which enabled her to rule by right of favoritism, and if she sometimes played the tyrant over her young companions, she was always forgiven for the generous tenderness which she lavished upon the feeble and the unresisting. The pity which she felt for the poor deformed boy, who had seemed so very helpless amid his tormentors, first awakened her interest in Herbert Langdale, and the talent which, in a short time, elevated him far above all others, won her respect. She became, on all occasions, his champion, and by her example no less than by the influence of her bolder nature, she taught him how to command respect and attention from his companions. She was his friend, his counsellor; and strange indeed was it to see linked in the bonds of innocent affection, two children so utterly unlike in person and in feelings as that timid, morbid boy, and the frank, fearless creature whose beauty seemed to bring out in stronger relief the painful defects in the person of her companion. From the moment Herbert became aware of the kindliness of Laura's character, he was susceptible to the charm of her beauty. Men learn to admire first and then love, but with the fresh, innocent heart of youth the case is different, and the affection which is born of gentleness and goodness precedes all admiration of mere personal attractions. Herbert learned to watch for Laura's coming, to listen for her step, to await her bidding in all things, and in short to enact in every respect the boy-lover. To those who have forgotten their own childish feelings, such things may seem very absurd, very improper; I can only say they are very natural. Perfectly guileless in heart, neither sought to disguise the interest they felt in each other, and Laura, asserting the privilege of a petted child, insisted on imbuing her father with a similar regard for one whom she thought entitled to every good man's sympathy. Incited by her glowing description of his talents, and moved by her appeals to his kindliness, Mr. Tracey became really interested in the unfortunate boy. Astonished at his wonderful precocity, and charmed by the brilliancy of his fancy, he determined to lend the aid of his influence to improve his future fortunes. Accordingly he brought him to his house, assisted the efforts of his powerful but ill-regulated mind by judicious counsel, and allowed him free access to his library, - a privilege beyond all others valuable to one who thirsted for knowledge. From the moment when the world of literature was thus opened before him, the shy and silent boy became transformed into a new creature. At first, bewildered with the extent of the prospect so suddenly disclosed, he hesitated, as if at a loss which path he should first pursue, but his irresolution was only of momentary duration, and with an earnestness only equalled by his delight, he flung himself amid the woods and wilds of poesy. He looked around with dazzled eye, like one to whom the sense of vision had just been given after a life of darkness. The emotions which had been so long crushed within his heart, the struggling tenderness of a nature which shrunk from the utterance of its own emotions, the beautiful fancies which gathered around his couch, making the night more glorious than the day, all were depicted on the speaking page of the poet of truth and nature; and the agitated boy might have exclaimed, in the impassioned language of the gifted Correggio, when for the first time the veil was lifted from his own glorious genius, "Anch'io sono pittore." Shall I go on? Shall I describe the rapid development of poetry and passion in the youthful aspirant after love and fame? Shall I depict the gradual expansion of the soul? the swift unfolding of the heart's sweet flowers? Alas! how few would listen with interest to the tale; how few would believe that my words were dictated by truth; how few would sympathize in the vagaries of wayward genius! At sixteen, Herbert Langdale had already given promise of that poetic excellence which his after life, brief though it was, so nobly fulfilled. But he seemed destined to work out his future fame in loneliness and sorrow, for the absence of his gentle friend, who had visited England for the completion of her education, saddened everything in life. His was but a boyish passion, and in another heart would perhaps have scarce survived the briefest season of separation; but it had colored his whole existence with brightness and beauty, and time which might have faded, only seemed to mellow its rich tints. He lived but in the past and in the future. The present was only the period of toilsome preparation, while memory brought solace from b-gone days of happiness, and hope sketched He vague but blissful visions yet to come. formed no schemes for himself, but with the unselfish, uncalculating spirit of the true poet, he gave himself up to that dreamy existence in which love best grows and thrives. Six years passed away, but time wrought little change in the youthful bard. Shunning the society of men, he had made himself companions among the illustrious deadthey, who from the grave, yet speak to us in the language of wisdom. He had learned to measure his own powers, the beautiful visions of his poetic fancy were no longer like shadows moving in misty vagueness before him; he had learned to paint them in the glowing language of minstrelsy, and the music of his lonely harp had been echoed by many a gentle heart. His name was cherished in many a quiet dwelling, where his face would have been that of a stranger, and yet he was destined to become as a stranger in the home of his childhood. Too feeble to engage in the active business of life, he had remained in his father's house, a dependant upon his bounty, until the entrance of a second wife, who to his view, seemed an usurper, drove him from this shelter. Too proud to live on the charity of the friends who would willingly have contributed to his support, he sought employment, and, by the kindness of Mr. Tracey, who had never lost sight of his interests, he was placed in charge of the school where his own education had been conducted. Was this the end of all his dreams of fame? Was this the fortune Laura had predicted to the gifted poet? Yet Herbert was content with his lot, for he well knew that with the opening spring Laura would return to her home, and what was obscurity to him who anticipated happiness in its shades? Laura returned to Ellesmere. Herbert knew the very hour when she reëntered her father's door, but, chained to his desk, he was denied the privilege of greeting her first among her former friends. Full of pleasant fancies he mechanically hurried through his duties, and dismissing his school at an early hour, prepared to visit her who for years had been the idol of his dreams. With that desire to please, so inherent in the minds of all, he arranged his simple garb with unusual care, and bestowing great pains upon the flow of his fine hair-the only beauty he could boast proceeded with light heart and buoyant step to meet the lady of his love. But what a meeting was that to him who had lived so long upon its anticipation! Laura had forgotten him; and the irrepressible shudder of aversion with which she looked upon his unshapely form, evinced too plainly the feelings which he now inspired. Herbert's blood seemed to become ice as he marked her expression of disgust; he felt that she regarded him as one might regard some hideous and monstrous creature, and slowly and mechanically, as one might wander in a dream, he went out from her presence forever. It was not long after, that a painful and only half-uttered rumor began to be whispered about the village. Always gentle and quiet in his demeanor, Herbert now became so abstracted, so silent, so absorbed in his own thoughts, and so neglectful of the common forms of society, that men began to ask wherein consisted the difference between such eccentricity and positive insanity. Gradually he sank into a state of mind and body so nearly resembling perfect imbecility that it was found necessary to watch over his safety as one would guard a child. Of all his intellectual gifts only imagination remained to him, and in the wild, erratic, unmeasured strains of a poetic fancy he found his only solace. As long as his strength permitted, he wandered about among the beautiful scenery which surrounded Ellesmere, as if in the companionship of nature he sought the sympathy denied by human hearts. When too feeble to drag his weary steps abroad, he entered the little chamber where his early years of suffering had been passed, and lying down upon his couch as quietly as if for a noon-day slumber, awaited the summons of Ideath. No disease seemed at work in his system, -no fever parched his veins - his malady had no name in the vast catalogue of physical ills which men of science have collected from the records of experience, he was dying of a breaking heart. One bright autumnal morning, about six months after Laura Tracey's return, a gay party was assembled to witness her bridal. She had plighted her troth to one whom she loved as worldly women love, and now, decked with jewels and brilliant in beauty, she was about to become a wife. The last touch had been given to her rich array - the folds of her snowy drapery fell with the proper degree of grace, her curls were carefully arranged in careless simplicity, and she was just clasping a costly bracelet upon her delicate wrist, when a note was handed to her. It was without signature, and a hand tremulous and feeble had apparently traced the irregular characters. The page was blotted too as if with tears, and it was with some difficulty she read these words: They deck thee as a bride, lady, |