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GOLD DUST.

OH! the sunny hours of boyhood!
Do you ever now remember

The long days in our old homestead by that northern river's shore,
The wide hall hung with antlers,

The low rooms decked with pictures,

And that watching mother, leaning o'er the old half-opened door?

Then the garden, all box-bordered,
Where the guelder-roses blossomed,

And the tulips ranged in order, flaunted in the sun-shine gay;
I have crossed the golden tropics,

But no groves of orange blossoms

Ever bore the fragrance breathing round those flower-beds far away.

And the arbor by the river,

With the spreading chestnut o'er it,

Where we sheltered from the sun-beams in the hottest of the day, To read o'er some olden legend,

Or some wild and wondrous fable,

Some tale of love or sorrow that for years had passed away.

Think

And thou, fair and stately HELEN !

With those large eyes filled with weeping,

you ever of that garden, and the river sweeping by?
How we acted those old stories?

Some were heroes, some were victims;

But the lover and the loving, they were always you and I!

Now our arbor was a palace,

And you a sleeping beauty,

And I a brave prince waiting for a glance from that dark eye
Now it was a rock uprising,

With the wild sea-surges dashing,

And you were ANDROMEDA with your white arms tossing high!

Then a gayer legend taking,

You were ARIADNE straying,

When the tide beneath the alders left the sands all red and bare;

Not like ARIADNE sighing,

But like ARIADNE smiling,

With the purple clusters clinging all about your shining hair.

Now I waken in the mid-night,

In a land more wild and wondrous

Than any that we read of in those legends strange and old;
And from my tent I listen

To the rippling of the waters

Of a river whose bright current rushes over sands of gold.

But you light another's dwelling,
Another's child caressing,

And what care I for the treasure I have gathered all too late!
'T will not buy me back my boyhood,
'T will not bring the lost and loving;
For the full and perfect meeting I can only trust and wait!

H. L. P.

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A MONTH WITH THE BLUE NOSES.

BY FREDERIC 8. COZZENS.

Exordium Vague rumors of Nova Scotia

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A fortnight upon Salt Water-Interesting Sketch of the Atlantic- Halifax! Determine to stay in the Province Province Building and Pictures Coast Scenery - Liberty in Language and Aspirations of the People - Evangeline and Relics of Acadia. Market Place The Encampment at Point Pleasant - Kissing Bridge The Himalaya' — A Sabbath in a Garrison Town Grand Celebration of the Peace, and Natal Day of Halifax — And a Hint of a Visit to Chezzetcook.

It is pleasant to visit Nova Scotia in the month of June. Pack up your flannels and your fishing tackle, leave behind you your prejudices and your summer clothing, take your trout-pole in one hand and a copy of Haliburton's History in the other, and step on board a Cunarder at Boston. In thirty-six hours you are in the loyal little province, and above you floats the red flag and the cross of St. George. My word for it, you will not regret the trip.

That the idea of visiting Nova Scotia ever struck any living person as something peculiarly pleasant and cheerful, is not within the bounds of probability. Very rude people are wont to speak of Halifax in connection with the name of a place that is never alluded to in polite society, except by clergymen. As for the rest of the Province, there are certain vague rumors of extensive and constant fogs, but nothing more. The land is a sort of terra incognita. Many take it to be a part of Canada, and others firmly believe it is somewhere in Newfoundland. In justice to Nova Scotia, it is proper to state that the Province is a Province by itself; that it hath its own Governor and Parliament, and its own proper, and copper currency. How I chanced to go there was altogether a matter of destiny. It was a severe illness, a gastric disorder of the most obstinate kind that cast me upon its balmy shores. One day, after a protracted relapse, as I was creeping feebly along Broadway, sunning myself, whom should I meet but St. Leger, my friend. You look pale,' said St. Leger. To which I replied by giving him a full, complete, and accurate history of my ailments, after the manner of valetudinarians. Why do you not try change of air?' he asked, and then briskly added: 'you could spare a couple of weeks or so, could you not, to go to the Springs?' I could,' said I feebly. 'Then,' said St. Leger, take the two weeks, but do not go to the Springs. Spend your fortnight on the salt-water-get out of sight of land—that is the thing for you.' And so, shaking my hand warmly, St. Leger passed on and left me to my reflections.

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A fortnight upon salt water? Whither? Cape Cod at once loomed up; Nantucket, and Martha's Vinegard! And why not the Bermudas?

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said a voice within me; the enchanted Islands of Prospero, and Ariel and Miranda; the still-vexed Bermoothes, of Shakspeare, and Raleigh, and Irving?' And echo answered: Why not?' It is but a day-anda-half to Halifax; thence by a British mailer across to those neighboring isles. Say a week on the salt-water and you are amid the magnificent scenery of the Tempest. A fortnight?' said I. I will take a month for it;' and in less than a week I was bidding farewell to some dear friends at East-Boston wharf as Captain Lang, of the Canada,' in a very briny voice, shouted out: Let go the starboard bow chain. Go slow.'

It would be presumptuous in me to speak of the Atlantic, from the limited acquaintance I had with it. The note-book of an invalid for two days at sea, with a heavy ground swell, and the wind in the most favorable quarter, can scarcely be attractive. As the breeze freshened, and the tars of old England ran aloft, to strip from the black sails the wrappers of white canvas that had hid them when in port; and as these leathern, bat-like pinions spread out on each side of the funnel, there was a moment's glimpse of the picturesque ; but it was a glimpse only, and no more. One does not enjoy at first the rise and dip of the bow of a steamer, however graceful it may be in the abstract. To be sure there were some things else interesting. For instance, three brides aboard! And one of them lovely enough to awaken interest on sea or land, in any body, but a Halifax passenger. I hope those fair ladies have had a pleasant tour, one and all, and that the view they have had of the great world, so early in life, will make them more contented with that minor world, henceforth to be within the limits of their dominion. Lullaby to the young wives! there will be rocking enough

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'And this is Halifax?' said I, as that quaint, mouldy old town poked its wooden gables through the fog of the second morning. This is Halifax? This the capital of Nova Scotia? This the city that harbored those loyal heroes of the Revolution who gallantly and gayly fought, and bled, and ran for their king? Ah! you brave old Tories; you staunch upholders of the crown; cavaliers without ringlets or feathers, russet boots, or steeple-crown hats, it seems as if you were still hovering over this venerable tabernacle of seven hundred gables, and wreathing each particular ridge-hole, pigeon-hole and shingle with a halo of fog.

It was an inspiriting morning, that which I met upon the well-docked shores of Halifax, and although the side-walks of the city were neither bricked nor paved with flags, and the middle street was in its original and aboriginal clay, yet there was novelty in making its acquaintance. There were a few vehicles on the wharf for the accommodation of strangers; square, black, funereal-like, wheeled sarcophagii, eminently suggestive of burials and crape. Of course I did not ride in one on account of unpleasant associations, but placing my trunk in charge of a cart-boy with a long-tailed dray and a diminutive pony, I walked through the silent streets toward The Waverley.' Every body was asleep in that early fog, and when every body woke up it was done so quietly that the change was scarcely apparent.

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But the Merlin,' British mailer, is to sail at noon for the Shakspeare Island, and breakfast must be discussed, and then once more I am with you, my anti-bilious ocean. It chanced, however, I heard at breakfast, that the Curlew,' the mate of the 'Merlin,' had been lost a short time before at sea, and as there was but one, and not two steamers on the route, so that I would be detained longer with Prospero and Miranda than might be comfortable in the approaching hot weather, it came to pass that I had reluctantly to forego the projected voyage, and anchor my trunk of tropical clothing in room Number Twenty, Hotel Waverley. Let the 'Merlin' sail! I will visit, instead of those Islas Encantadas, The Acadian land on the shore of the Basin of Minas.' Let the Merlin' sail! I will see the ruined walls of Louisburgh, and the harbors that once sheltered the Venetian sailor, Cabot. 'Let her sail!' said I, and when the morn passed I saw her slender thread of smoke far off on the glassy ocean, without a sigh of regret, and resolutely turned my face from the promised palms to welcome the sturdy pines of the province. The city and hill of Halifax rises proudly from its wharfs and shipping in a multitude of mouse-colored wooden houses, until it is crowned by the citadel. As it is a garrison town as well as a naval station, you meet in the streets red-coats and blue-jackets without number; yonder, with a brilliant staff, rides the Governor, Sir John Gaspard le Marchant, and here, in a carriage, is Admiral Fanshawe, C. B., of the Boscawen Flag-ship. Every thing is suggestive of impending hostilities; war, in burnished trappings, encounters you at the street corners, and the air vibrates from time to time with bugles, fifes, and drums. But oh what a slow place it is! Even two Crimean regiments with medals and decorations could not wake it up. The little old houses seem to look with wondrous apathy as these pass by, as though they had given each other a quiet nudge with their quaint old gables, and whispered Keep still!'

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I wandered up and down those old streets in search of something novel and picturesque, but in vain; there was scarcely any thing remarkable to arrest or interest a stranger. Such, too, might have been the appearance of other places I wot of, if those staunch old loyalists had had their way in the days gone by!

The Province House, which is built of a sort of yellow sand-stone, with pillars in front, and trees around it, is a well-proportioned building, with an air of great solidity and respectability. There are in it very fine full-lengths of King George II. and Queen Caroline, and two fulllengths of King George III. and Queen Charlotte; a full-length of Chief-Justice Haliburton, by West, and another full-length of another Chief-Justice, in a red robe and a formidable wig. Of these portraits, the two first-named are the most attractive; there is something so gay and festive in the appearance of King George II. and Queen Caroline, so courtly and sprightly, so graceful and amiable, that one is tempted to exclaim: Bless the painter! what a genius he had!'

And now, after taking a look at Dalhousie College with the parade in front, and the square town-clock, built by his graceless Highness the Duke of Kent, let us climb Citadel Hill, and see the formidable protector of town and harbor. Lively enough it is, this great stone fortress, with

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