Town and Country; Or, Life at Home and Abroad Part 37

THE summer days are coming, The glorious summer hours, When Nature decks her gorgeous robe With sunbeams and with flowers; And gathers all her choristers In plumage bright and gay, Till every vale is echoing with Their joyous roundelay.

No more shall frosty winter Hold in its cold embrace The water; but the river Shall join again the race; And down the mountain's valley, And o'er its rocky side, The glistening streams shall rush and leap In all their bounding pride.

There's pleasure in the winter, When o'er the frozen snow With faithful friend and n.o.ble steed Right merrily we go!

But give to me the summer, The pleasant summer days, When blooming flowers and sparkling streams Enliven all our ways.

THE MAN WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING.

SANSECRAT is one of that cla.s.s of persons who think they know everything. If anything occurs, and you seek to inform him, he will interrupt you by saying that he knows it all,--that he was on the spot when the occurrence happened, or that he had met a man who was an eye-witness.

Such a person, though he be the possessor of much a.s.surance, is sadly deficient in manners; and no doubt the super-abundancy of the former is caused by the great lack of the latter.

Such men as he will thrive; there is no mistake about it. This has been called an age of invention and of humbug. Nothing is so popular, or so much sought after, as that which cannot be explained, and around which a mysterious shroud is closely woven.

My friend Arca.n.u.s came sweating and puffing into my room. I had just finished my dinner, and was seated leisurely looking over a few pages of ma.n.u.script, when he entered.

"News!" said he; and before I could hand him a chair he had told me all about the last battle, and his tongue flew about with so much rapidity, that a conflagration might have been produced by such excessive friction, had not a rap at the door put a clog under the wheels of his talkative locomotive, and stayed its progress, which luckily gave me an opportunity to take his hat and request him to be seated.

The door was opened, and who but Sansecrat stood before me.

"Have you heard the news?" was the first interrogatory of my friend Arca.n.u.s, in reply to which Sansecrat said that he knew it all half an hour previous,--was at the railroad station when the express arrived, and was the first man to open the Southern papers.

In vain Arca.n.u.s told him that the information came by a private letter. He averred, point blank, that it was no such thing; that he had the papers in his pocket; and was about to exhibit them as proof of what he had said, when he suddenly recollected that he had sold them to an editor for one-and-sixpence.

Notwithstanding the proverb of "Man, know thyself," Sansecrat seems to know everything but himself. Thousands of times has it been said that man can see innumerable faults and foibles in his neighbors, but none in himself. Very true; and man can see his own character, just as he can see his own face in a mirror. His own a.s.sociates mirror forth his own character; and the faults, be they great or small, that he sees in them, are but the true reflection of his own errors. Yet, blind to this, and fondly imagining that he is the very "pink of excellence," he flatters his own vain feeling with the cherished idea that, while others have faults, he has none, and so slumbers on in the sweet repose of ignorance.

Sansecrat imagines that he knows everything; that to teach him would be like "carrying coals to Newcastle," or sending s.h.i.+p-loads of ice to Greenland, or furnaces to the coast of Africa; yet he is as ignorant as the greatest dunce, who, parrot-like, repeats that he has heard, without having the least understanding of what he says.

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that Sansecrat will prosper in the world; for, though dest.i.tute of those qualifications which render their possessor worthy of success, he has an abundance of brazen-facedness, with which he will work himself into the good opinion of not a few, who look more closely upon exterior appearance than they do upon inward worth, and judge their fellowmen more by the good quality of their cloth than by the good quality of their hearts, and set more value on a s.h.i.+ning hat and an unpatched boot than they do on a brilliant intellect and a n.o.ble soul.

PRIDE AND POVERTY.

I CANNOT brook the proud. I cannot love The selfish man; he seems to have no heart; And why he lives and moves upon this earth Which G.o.d has made so fair, I cannot tell.

He has no soul but that within his purse, And all his hopes are centred on its fate; That lost, and all is lost.

I knew a man Who had abundant riches. He was proud,-- Too oft the effect of riches when abused,-- His step was haughty, and his eye glanced at The honest poor as base intruders on The earth he trod and fondly called his own; Unwelcome guests at Nature's banqueting.

Years pa.s.sed away,--that youth became a man; His beetled brow, his sullen countenance, His eye that looked a fiery command, Betrayed that his ambition was to rule.

He smiled not, save in scorn on humble men, Whom he would have bow down and wors.h.i.+p him.

Thus with his strength his pride did grow, until He did become aristocrat indeed.

The humble beggar, whose loose rags scarce gave Protection to him from the cold north wind, He scarce would look upon, and vainly said, As in his hand he held the ready coin, "No mortal need be poor,--'t is his own fault If such he be;--if he court poverty, Let all its miseries be his to bear."

'T is many years since he the proud spake thus, And men and things have greatly changed since then.

No more in wealth he rolls,--men's fortunes change.

I met a lonely hea.r.s.e, slowly it pa.s.sed Toward the church-yard. 'T was unattended Save by one old man, and he the s.e.xton.

With spade beneath his arm he trudged along, Whistling a homely tune, and stopping not.

He seemed to be in haste, for now and then He'd urge to quicker pace his walking beast, With the rough handle of his rusty spade.

Him I approached, and eagerly inquired Whose body thus was borne so rudely to Its final resting-place, the deep, dark grave.

"His name was Albro," was the prompt reply.

"Too proud to beg, we found him starved to death, In a lone garret, which the rats and mice Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy.

An' I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once He deemed too poor and low to look upon, Am come to bury him."

The s.e.xton smiled,-- Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag, Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along.

Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,-- But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled.

The truth flashed in an instant on my mind, Though sad, yet deep, unchanging truth to me.

'T was he, thus borne, who, in his younger days, Blest with abundance, used it not aright.

He, who blamed the poor because they were such; Behold his end!-too proud to beg, he died.

A sad example, teaching all to shun The rock on which he s.h.i.+pwrecked,--warning take, That they too fall not as he rashly fell.

WORDS THAT TOUCH THE INNER HEART.

WORDS, words! O give me these, Words befitting what I feel, That I may on every breeze Waft to those whose riven steel Fetters souls and shackles hands Born to be as free as air, Yet crushed and cramped by Slavery's bands,-- Words that have an influence there.

Words, words! give me to write Such as touch the inner heart; Not mere flitting forms of light, That please the ear and then depart; But burning words, that reach the soul, That bring the shreds of error out, That with resistless power do roll, And put the hosts of Wrong to rout.

Let others tune their lyres, and sing Illusive dreams of fancied joy; But, my own harp,--its every string Shall find in Truth enough employ.

It shall not breathe of Freedom here, While millions clank the galling chain; Or e'en one slave doth bow in fear, Within our country's broad domain.

Go where the slave-gang trembling stands, Herded with every stable stock,-- Woman with fetters on her hands, And infants on the auction-block!

See, as she bends, how flow her tears!

Hark! hear her broken, trembling sighs; Then hear the oaths, the threats, the jeers, Of men who lash her as she cries!

O, men! who have the power to weave In poesy's web deep, searching thought, Be truth thy aim; henceforward leave The lyre too much with fancy fraught!

Come up, and let the words you write Be those which every chain would break, And every sentence you indite Be pledged to Truth for Freedom's sake.