The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ him home with me. On the way he would talk uneasily about garrote robberies, but I refused to encourage him.

      "You want to know about that alarming conversation? Well,"—(here Mr. Glover was so overcome with merriment, that, after a proper time, the interposition of official authority became necessary,)—"well, I am an engraver. My business is mainly to cut heads. Sometimes I use steel, sometimes copper. My brother, who is also an engraver, and I were discussing a new commission. I told him I should make use of a good bit of steel, which had already been engraved upon, but not so deeply but that the lines could be easily removed, excepting the eyes, which would have to be scraped away. My allusion to proof is easily explained: it is common for engravers to have a proof-impression taken of their work after it is finished, by which they are enabled to detect any imperfections, and remedy them.

      "I am very sorry that my young friend should have considered me so much of a blood-thirsty ruffian. But the ale of Boston is no doubt strange to him, and his confusion at finding himself in a large city quite natural. Besides, his suspicions were in some degree reciprocated. When I saw him flying out of the window, I was convinced that he must be an ingenious burglar, and instantly ran back to examine my tools. I am glad to find that I was wrong. If he will return now with me, he shall be welcome to his share of the bed."

      Mr. Lorrimer politely, but positively, declined.

      Captain Morrill urbanely apologized to Mr. Glover, and engaged himself to make it right in the morning; whereupon Mr. Glover withdrew in cachinnatory convulsions. Mr. Lorrimer was instructed to resume his proper garments, and was then conveyed safely to his hotel, where he remained in deep abstraction until Monday, when, after transacting his business, he took the afternoon return-train for New York.

      The case was not entered upon the records of the Third District Police.

* * * * *

      THE GRANADAN GIRL'S SONG

      All day the lime blows in the sun,

      All day the silver aspens quiver,

      All day along the far blue plain

      Winds serpent-like the golden river.

      From clustering flower and myrtle bower

      Sweet sounds arise forever,

      From gleaming tower with crescent dower

      Our banner floats forever.

      Its purple bloom the grape puts on,

      Pulping to this Granadan summer,

      And heavy dews shake through the globes

      Scarce stirred by some bright-winged new-comer,

      On gyon brown hill, where all is still,

      Where lightly rides the muleteer,

      With jangling bells, whose burden swells

      Till shaft and arch rise fine and clear.

      As one by one the shadows creep

      Back to their lairs in hilly hollows,

      A broader splendor issues forth

      And on their track in silence follows;

      A fuller air swims everywhere,

      A freer murmur shakes the bough,

      A thousand fires surprise the spires,

      And all the city wakes below.

      What morn shall rise, what cursed morn,

      To find this bright pomp all surrendered,

      These palaces an empty shell,

      This vigor listless ruin rendered,—

      While every sprite of its delight

      Mocks fickle echoes through the court,

      And in our place a sculptured trace

      Saddens some stranger's careless sport?

      Oh, gay with all the stately stir,

      And bending to your silken flowing,

      One day, my banner-poles, ye creak

      Naked beneath the high winds blowing!

      One day ye fall across the wall

      And moulder in the moat's green bosom,

      While in the cleft the wild tree left

      Bursts into spikes of cruel blossom!

      Ah, never dawn that day for me!

      O Fate, its fierce foreboding banish!

      When all our hosts, like pallid ghosts

      Blown on by morning, melt and vanish!

      Oh, in the fires of their desires

      Consume the toil of those invaders!

      And let the brand divide the hand

      That grasps the hilt of the Crusaders!

      Yet idle words in such a scene!

      Yon rosy mists on high careering,—

      The Moorish cavaliers who fleet

      With hawk and hound and distant cheering,—

      The dipping sail puffed to the gale,

      The prow that spurns the billow's fawning,—

      How can they fade to dimmer shade,

      And how this day desert its dawning?

      Forget to soar, thou rosy rack!

      Ye riders, bronze your airy motion!

      Still skim the seas, so snowy craft,—

      Forever sail to meet the ocean!

      There bid the tide refuse to slide,

      Glassing, below, thy drooping pinion,—

      Forever cease its wild caprice,

      Fallen at the feet of our dominion!

* * * * *

      THE HUMMING-BIRD

      May 9th.

      To-day, Estelle, your special messenger, the Humming-Bird, comes darting to our oriel, my Orient. As I sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me look up. How did he know that the very first Japan-pear-bud opened this morning? Flower and bird came together by some wise prescience.

      He has been sipping honey from your passion-flowers, and now has come to taste my blossoms. What bright-winged thought of yours sent him so straight to me, across that wide space of sea and land? Did he dart like a sunbeam all the way? There were many of them voyaged together; a little line of wavering light pierced the dark that night.

      A large, brave heart has our bold sailor of the upper deep. Old Pindar never saw our little pet, this darling of the New World; yet he says,—

      "Were it the will of Heaven, an osier-bough Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough."

      Here he is, safe enough, not one tiny feather ruffled,—all the intense life of the tropics condensed into this one live jewel,—the glance of the sun on emeralds and rubies. Is it soft downy feathers that take this rich metallic glow, changing their hue with every rapid turn?

      Other birds fly: he darts quick as the glance of the eye,—sudden as thought, he is here, he is there. No floating, balancing motion, like the lazy butterfly, who fans the air with her broad sails. To the point, always to the point, he turns in straight lines. How stumbling and heavy is the flight of the "burly, dozing bumblebee," beside this quick intelligence! Our knight of the ruby throat, with lance in rest, makes wild and rapid sallies on this "little mundane bird,"—this bumblebee,—this rolling sailor, never off his sea-legs, always spinning his long homespun yarns. This rich bed of golden СКАЧАТЬ