Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848

"Auch, Peggy, will ye have us hung for parjery, out and out!" exclaimed the terrified husband, casting a deprecating look at Puck. "Poor craythur, she doesn't know what she is saying."

At this juncture the young Paudeen made his appearance, and put a stop to a conversation that was becoming decidedly stupid. He made his respects cordially to Puck; and when he heard his errand, seemed amazed and delighted. After a good deal of difficulty, the old lady was made to understand what was the desire of the king.

"Hooh!" exclaimed the old crone, leaping from her seat and dancing about the room, "the dhrame's come true at last! Och, hullybaloo! didn't I know that the pretty Paudeen wasn't born for the pig-stye! Bedad, but he'll ruffle the gentles! Wont you, darlint?" and the old woman fell upon her son's neck, smothering him with kisses, while the poor youth could hardly keep his legs under the vigor of her maternal caresses.

PART II

In a few days after the interview of Puck and Paudeen in the hut of the forester, there was great excitement at the court of Fairyland. The fashionable milliners and dress-makers never had seen such a time – orders from the aristocracy poured in upon them by scores, and their doors were beset by fashionable carriages, and little fairy footmen caparisoned in long coats with many capes, and broad, red bands fastened with shining buckles round their hats. The great artistes who were at the head of these establishments saw themselves amassing fortunes from the sudden influx of fashionable custom. But the poor little fairy seamstresses, who sat up all night, sometimes without time to eat or sleep, from sunset to sunset, so that all these splendid dresses might be finished in time – they did not fare so well. They grew pale and sick, and sat swaying and swinging about as they worked, until one might have thought them the ghosts of fairy workers, come back for a ghostly midnight frolic in their old haunts. It was melancholy enough, truly; but then nobody knew any thing about it. The rich ladies, when their splendid robes came home, did not stop to think that good, earnest, faithful fairy hearts had embroidered the roses that adorned the skirts from their own cheeks, and spangled them with the broken fragments of their youth's faded dreams. If they had —

Well, and if they had?

That is not at all to the purport of my story; and so I will proceed to let the reader into the secret of all this flutter and fluster. A great prince had made his appearance at the court of Paterflor, and had created almost as great an excitement in Fairyland as a new prima donna with bright eyes and a sfogato voice among mere mortals. Nobody knew exactly who he was, but he came from a great way off, and had a name as long as a province, and, beside being incalculably wealthy, it was universally voted (ladies vote in Fairyland) that he was the very handsomest love of a fairy knight that ever jingled spurs, or sighed at the feet of beauty. He had come to court evidently with the "highest recommendations" to the king, such as would have procured him immediate access into the first "circles," even in Philadelphia, where society lives behind barred doors, and goes about armed cap-a-pie against encroachment or intrusion. He had been at once received at the royal table, and a splendid suite of apartments had been assigned him in the palace itself. Such extraordinary attentions from the imperial family, of course, made the stranger a favorite and a welcome guest wherever he appeared; and there was not a lady at court who would not have given her eyes – if it would not have spoiled her beauty – for a smile from his magnificent mouth.

It was discovered, however, at a very early stage of the proceedings, that the chief object of the prince's admiration was the lady Dewbell, who, proud as she was, could not help feeling flattered by the evident and special devotion of one for whom the whole of her sex were dying. Sir Timothy Lawn, who, from pique or melancholy, or from some unknown cause, had left the court the very day after the arrival of the new prince, was not entirely forgotten, but was laid away carefully on a back shelf of her heart; and the lady Dewbell never had been so beautiful, so fascinating, so joyous and irresistible. Courts are as fickle as coquettes; and before the month had passed, in a series of brilliant fêtes and entertainments, at all of which the prince and princess were the reigning toast, it was regarded as a settled thing that there would, ere the maple leaves grew red in the dying gaze of the year, be a royal marriage in Fairyland.

But while to all around the beautiful Dewbell was ever the same careless, saucy and happy creature as ever, in her heart she nursed a bitter sorrow. After many and severe struggles, she was forced at last to make to herself the humiliating acknowledgment that she deeply and truly loved Sir Timothy Lawn, that noble and chivalric spirit, whom her unworthy trifling had driven – so her frightened heart interpreted it – in disgust from her. Compelled in common courtesy to receive the devoted attentions of the stranger prince, and to hear every day and every hour repeated the earnest solicitations of her father that she should school herself to regard the stranger as her future husband, her little fairy heart was quite broken with its ceaseless struggles. Her pride and self-will were entirely vanquished, and she felt herself truly the most miserable of fairy maidens. Suicide is of course a thing strictly prohibited among immortals; but had it been otherwise, I sadly fear that one of the lady Dewbell's spider-web silk hose would some morning have been found without a garter, and she herself hanging like a beauteous exhalation among the elm-leaves in the morning sunshine. Oh, had Sir Timothy been there then, he would have found, instead of his imperious and tantalizing coquette, the tenderest and truest of disconsolate maidens, ready to melt into his arms between the delicious pause of a sigh and a kiss. "Naughty, cruel Sir Timothy! Horrid creature! to take all my nonsense for real earnest, and to go away and leave me to be persecuted to death!" exclaimed the lady Dewbell, with an uncontrollable burst of tears, as she threw herself, her toilet half finished, and her hair all strewn over her face and shoulders, upon her little praying cushion. "What will become of poor Bell!"

"What ails my daughter?" said the sweet, soft voice of the queen mother, as she knelt tenderly over her child, and pressed her head to her bosom. "Tell your sorrows to your mother."

"Oh, mother, I am the most wretched fairy that ever existed. I don't want to marry that odious, red-haired stranger; and my father has made me promise that the wedding shall take place on Halloween – and I – I have consented. But I love Sir Timothy; and I wont marry any body but him," sobbed the poor creature, convulsively, as she cast herself upon the floor, and looked up to her mother, terrified and half frantic.

"But, dearest, you know you laughed at poor Sir Timothy's vows – and he is so sensitive."

"Oh, yes, I know I did, but I'll never do so any more. If Sir Timothy will only come back and forgive me, and marry me, just this once, I will never, never offend him again as long as I live – never, never, never! Do, mamma, do make him come back!"

"Poor child! I will certainly do all I can. But you have promised to be married on Halloween."

"Oh, yes, but that is a good fortnight off, and you can bring Sir Timothy back before then, you know, and he can kill this horrid stranger, and then every body will be so happy!" and the face of the volatile creature began already to re-clothe itself in smiles.

"I fear you are mistaken, love," said her mother, solemnly, and shaking her head in an impressive manner, she added, "do not deceive yourself with such fallacies, my daughter; your princely word is passed, your father's royal honor is pledged, and you must be married on Halloween."

The lady Dewbell, sobbing hysterically, again looked up. She was alone; at the same moment the cat-and-baby face of Puck glanced by the window, and a wild, mischievous laugh melted away into a song, of which the lady only caught the two last lines:

"He rideth fast, and he rideth well,But his heart still clings to the pretty Bell."

"Oh, bless thee, dear Puck!" sighed the haply wondering lady, rising and leaning from the window. "May thy sweet prophecy come true!"

PART III.

'T is Halloween midnight. Through the tall windows of the venerable church streamed in the broad moonlight, in bright silver floods, that lost themselves in the profound recesses of the distant aisles, or fell like many-colored snow-flakes upon the marble floor. Entering without sound, came up the middle aisle the royal wedding-procession. First walked the father, the royal Paterflor, looking stern and determined, yet, it must be confessed, a little roguish about the crowsfeet. Upon his arm leaned his pale and stricken daughter, the once proud, joyous and imperious Princess Dewbell. She was pale as a lily's cup, and drooping as its stem. She never raised her head from her bosom, and her eyes, once sparkling like fountains of light, were hidden beneath their willowy lids. Next comes the "red-haired prince," as the lady Dewbell had scornfully denominated him, (his head was a little inclined to flame, dear reader, between you and me,) respectfully conducting the ever sweet and placid Queen Woodbine; and after them a troop of merry and gayly-dressed fairies, both ladies and gentlemen, but very demure and solemn; while Puck, in the united capacity of Hymen and Grand Usher, was dodging about with his flaming torch, now in front, now in rear, now here, now there, and every where imparting an air of grotesqueness to the whole affair.

At the altar the party stopped, and ranging themselves in the approved order for such occasions, the priest – a grave and reverend bullfrog, whose surplice was scrupulously neat and tidy – proceeded with the ceremony. When he came to the question, "dost thou, my daughter, freely and voluntarily bestow thy hand and thy affections upon this man, Paudeen O'Rafferty, commonly called Pat?"

The pale and shrinking lady raised her head and opened her great ox-like eyes; the bridegroom looked sheepish and hung his head; King Paterflor seemed suddenly troubled with a severe fit of coughing, and the priest could scarcely forbear a chuckle.

"Father, dear father, what is the meaning of this cruel joke?" exclaimed the poor lady Dewbell, running to her father and catching hold of his arm. But the old king's cough was still very troublesome. She then appealed to the priest, but he seemed deaf, and only made a grum kind of noise in his throat, that sounded a good deal like "Pat O'Rafferty."

"Who, then, are you, sir?" demanded she, at last, of the groom, turning suddenly and imperiously upon him her piercing gaze.

"So plaze yer ladyship, I am Paudeen O'Rafferty, the son of the forester – at yer ladyship's sarvice."

The fairy princess was about to faint, in the most approved manner, and had already selected a convenient cushion upon which to fall, when a tall and noble form crossed the moon-ray, and Sir Timothy Lawn stood before her.

"Beloved princess," said he, kneeling, and respectfully taking her hand, "I hope my presence is not disagreeable to the queen of my heart, for whose love I have so long pined. Speak to me frankly, sweet lady Dewbell, tell me, can you love me? Will you permit me to call you mine forever?"

The lady Dewbell changed her intention respecting the cushion upon which she had intended to faint, and, somehow, found herself before she was half conscious of it, in her lover's arms. An explanation ensued; the prince Paudeen gave up his post of honor to Sir Timothy; the ceremony was concluded on the spot; and as the gay and joyous party left the church, Puck was seen sitting at the organ accompanying himself in a sort of wild yet sweet chant, of which the lady Dewbell easily distinguished —

"Oh, a merry tale will the gossips tell,Of the happy mishap of the proud lady Bell."

A NIGHT THOUGHT

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READLong have I gazed upon all lovely things,Until my soul was melted into song,Melted with love till from its thousand springsThe stream of adoration, swift and strong,Swept in its ardor, drowning brain and tongue,Till what I most would say was borne away unsung.The brook is silent when it mirrors mostWhate'er is grand or beautiful above;The billow which would woo the flowery coastDies in the first expression of its love;And could the bard consign to living breathFeelings too deep for thought, the utterance were death!The starless heavens at noon are a delight;The clouds a wonder in their varying play,And beautiful when from their mountainous heightThe lightning's hand illumes the wall of day: —The noisy storm bursts down – and passing bringsThe rainbow poised in air on unsubstantial wings.But most I love the melancholy night —When with fixed gaze I single out a starA feeling floods me with a tender light —A sense of an existence from afar,A life in other spheres of love and bliss,Communion of true souls – a loneliness in this!There is a sadness in the midnight sky —An answering fullness in the heart and brain,Which tells the spirit's vain attempt to flyAnd occupy those distant worlds again.At such an hour Death's were a loving trust,If life could then depart in its contempt of dust.It may be that this deep and longing senseIs but the prophecy of life to come;It may be that the soul in going henceMay find in some bright star its promised home;And that the Eden lost forever hereSmiles welcome to me now from yon suspended sphere.There is a wisdom in the light of stars,A wordless lore which summons me away —This ignorance belongs to earth which barsThe spirit in these darkened walls of clay,And stifles all the soul's aspiring breath; —True knowledge only dawns within the gales of Death.Imprisoned thus, why fear we then to meetThe angel who shall ope the dungeon-door,And break these galling fetters from our feet,To lead us up from Time's benighted shore?Is it for love of this dark cell of dust,Which, tenantless, awakes but horror and disgust?Long have I mused upon all lovely things;But thou, oh Death! art lovelier than all;Thou sheddest from thy recompensing wingsA glory which is hidden by the pall —The excess of radiance falling from thy plumeThrows from the gates of Time a shadow on the tomb.

THE BARD

BY S. ANNA LEWISWhy should my anxious heart repineThat Wealth and Power can ne'er be mine,And Love has flown —That Friendship changes as the breeze?Mine is a joy unknown to these;In Song's bright zone,To sit by Helicon serene,And hear the waves of HippocreneLave Phœbus' throne.Here deathless lyres the strains prolong,That gush from living founts of song,Without a cross;Here spirits never feel the weightOf Wrong, or Envy, or of Hate,Or earthly loss;The pomp of Pelf – the pride of Birth —The gilded trappings of this earthReturn to dross.Oh, ye! who would forget the illsOf earth, and all the bosom fillsWith agony!Come dwell with me in Fancy's dream,Beside this lovely fabled streamOf minstrelsy;And let its draughts celestial rollInto the deep wells of thy soulEternally.God always sets along the wayOf weary souls some beacon rayOf light divine;And only when my spirit's wingsAre weary in the quest of springsOf Song, I pine;If I could always heavenward fly,And never earthward turn mine eye,Bliss would be mine.

THE WILL

BY MISS E. A. DUPUY

PART I

There is peace in the Night of the Early Dead —

It will yield to a glorious morrow! Clarke.

Amid all the brightness and bloom which the imagination conjures up, when we think of the sunny islands lying within the tropics, many mournful associations arise and cast a sadness over the picture. Very few have not had within the circle of their relatives, or friends, some cherished one, who has vainly sought the balmy breezes of those favored spots, with the feverish hope that amid their loveliness Death would forget to launch his arrows for them.

Alas! to die among strangers is usually the fate of those who are thus lured from their homes by a deceitful hope. There, where Nature wears a perpetual verdure – where the fervid sun brings forth a luxuriance of vegetation unknown in more northern regions, the wearied spirit sinks to repose, soothed, or saddened, by the glow of existence around.

A spacious apartment on the southern side of a highly ornamented villa, opened into a magnificent garden, filled with orange-trees, oleanders, and many other gorgeous flowers peculiar to the climate of Cuba; while in the distance the sunlight gleamed upon a row of towering palms, whose stately columns, crowned by their verdant coronal, resembled the pillars of some mighty temple, which found a fitting canopy in the blue arch of heaven, glowing with the gorgeous hues of a tropical sunset.

The floor of this room was inlaid with marble of different colors, and the couch and windows were draped with snowy lace, lightly embroidered at the edges, and looped with cords of blue and silver – tables with marble tops, supporting porcelain vases filled with flowers, were placed between the windows, for these ephemeral children of sunshine were dear to the heart of the dying one. Beside one of these stood a large cushioned chair, in which reclined a young man of delicate features and wasted form. He appeared in the last stages of his fell disease, and the friends who had received him beneath their roof to die, wondered that he should have been deluded with the hope that health could ever again reanimate his bowed and shrunken form. There was an expression of care upon his sharpened features – a feverish restlessness in his manner, which betrayed the spirit's unrest.

At his feet sat a young girl, whose brilliant complexion and pale-brown hair betrayed her Saxon origin; the finely rounded figure, the delicately formed feet and hands, and the gracefully turned head and bust, were all evidences of the grade of life to which she belonged. She held the burning hand of the invalid between her own soft, cool palms, and sung in a sweet low voice an old ballad which told of the ancient greatness of the Saxon race. At a short distance from them sat an elderly lady, clad in deep mourning, and her saddened countenance corresponded well with her weeds.

The young man made an impatient movement, and said – "Sing not to me England's former prowess, dear Edith. What to the dying can such themes be but a bitter mockery? Take your guitar, my sister, and throw your soul into its vibrating strings, while you sing me such a lay as I can fancy the angels of Heaven to be pouring forth around the throne of God."

"Shall I sing the chants of our church, dearest Edgar?" said Edith in a subdued voice.

"Yes – yes – they breathe peace and resignation into my restless soul. When I am dying, my sister, stifle your own feelings as you love me, and pour into my failing senses those magnificent strains. If God sees fit to tear me from you before I can legally provide for you and my beloved mother, I shall be enabled to forget the bitter truth in listening to your sweet voice. You promise me this, Edith?"

"I do – Heaven will sustain me even then, my darling brother, and give me power to forget my own anguish in soothing your last moments."

Edith Euston pressed his hand to her lips, and raising from the floor a guitar which lay beside her, she poured forth a strain of melody which seemed to soothe the senses of the invalid to rest. His eyes closed, and an expression of repose rested on his worn features.

Twilight deepened over the earth – a single ray of light, from the reddened sky, fell through the open window upon the figure of the young girl, and the mother, who sat silent and abstracted, thought as she glanced upon her that even in a higher world her beloved Edith could wear no lovelier outward semblance than was now hers. There was an expression of elevated feeling, of pure tenderness in her upturned face which revealed the high and noble soul within. One fitted to suffer and conquer in the dark struggle which she felt awaited her.

Hers were not the only eyes which contemplated that lovely picture of sisterly devotion upon that twilight eve. Another stood without, beneath the shadow of a high hedge, and gazed upon the unconscious musician with even deeper admiration; and his dark, expressive features lighted up with an emotion almost of reverence. The stars came forth in the translucent depths of ether; the young moon cast her tremulous light over the garden, yet still the intruder lingered in his place of concealment. Twice he put the boughs aside, as if to approach the room and announce his presence, but again receded, as if irresolute and uncertain as to the effect his presence might produce.

At length all became silent. The tones of the instrument died slowly away, and the voice of the singer ceased to pour forth its song. The windows were still unclosed, for the invalid had reached that distressing stage in his malady, when his oppressed breathing required a constant circulation of free air. A lamp burning beneath an alabaster shade was swung from the centre of the ceiling, and its mellow lustre diffused a faint moonlight radiance throughout the apartment.

With suppressed breathing the two ladies watched the sleep of the sick youth, and he who had so earnestly observed every movement of Edith, ventured to approach so near the open window that the heavy and interrupted respiration of young Euston was distinctly audible to him; while his eagle eye sought to penetrate the shadow in which his features reposed, that he might read upon them the ravages made by approaching dissolution.

As he stood thus, the moonlight revealed a tall, well proportioned figure, clad in a suit of black, well fitted to his form. His prominent features and flashing black eyes were half concealed by a large straw hat, which was carelessly placed upon his head. As he gazed upon the sleeping form, his lips curled, and a strange expression of exultation came to his face; his eye wandered triumphantly to the fair brow of Edith.

"Twice rejected," he muttered half audibly – "twice rejected, and with scorn, by yon dainty girl; now methinks my vengeance is almost within my grasp. I hold her future destiny in my power; for this boy cannot drag out his existence another week. Yes, Edith – to labor you have not been bred – to beg you will be ashamed, and he who vainly hopes that time will be granted him to deprive me of my inheritance, will perish from my path, just as he believes himself on the verge of consummating his hatred to me."

Edith softly arose, and making a sign to her mother, glided noiselessly from the room by a distant window, which opened to the floor. The intruder hesitated a moment, and then followed her with light and rapid steps. The flutter of her white dress guided him to the retreat she had chosen, and she had scarcely thrown herself upon a rustic seat beneath the shelter of some orange-boughs, and given vent to her painfully repressed emotion, by a burst of tears, when the dark stranger stood before her. She started up and would have fled, but he spoke, and the sound of his voice seemed to bind her to the spot as by a spell.

"Why would you fly from me, Edith?" he asked. "I come in the spirit of good-will to you and yours."

A struggle seemed to be passing in the mind of the young girl. She wiped her tears away, and after a pause answered in a tone which faltered at first, but grew firm, and even haughty as she proceeded,

"What has brought you hither, Mr. Barclay? Yet why do I ask? To exult in the fate of your unfortunate victim; to watch each painful breath which brings him nearer to his grave, with the certainty that the very eagerness with which he desires a few more days of existence, that he may fulfill a sacred duty, is fast wearing away the faint thread that yet binds him to life. Oh false, unfeeling man! depart, I pray you, if one human instinct yet remains within your callous heart, and leave my unhappy brother to die in peace."

She turned to depart, but Barclay stepped forward and placed his hand on her arm, as if to detain her. She shrunk from his touch with an expression of loathing, which called the crimson to his cheek, but he suppressed his emotion, and said calmly —

"I knew that you would soon need a protector, Miss Euston, and I came hither with the faint hope that I might be able to overcome your cruel prejudices against me – that I might become to you a friend at least, if no dearer title were allowed me."