The Bride Of Fort Edward: Founded On An Incident Of The Revolution Part 11

Yon mighty hunter in his silver vest, That o'er those azure fields walks nightly now, In his bright girdle wears the self-same gems That on the watchers of old Babylon Shone once, and to the soldier on her walls Marked the swift hour, as they do now to me.

Prose is the dream, and poetry the truth.

That which we call reality, is but Reality's worn surface, that one thought Into the bright and boundless all might pierce, There's not a fragment of this weary real That hath not in its lines a story hid Stranger than aught wild chivalry could tell.

There's not a scene of this dim, daily life, But, in the splendor of one truthful thought As from creation's palette freshly wet, Might make young romance's loveliest picture dim, And e'en the wonder-land of ancient song,---- Old Fable's fairest dream, a nursery rhyme.

How calm the night moves on, and yet In the dark morrow, that behind those hills Lies sleeping now, who knows what waits?--'Tis well.

He that made this life, I'll trust with another.

To be,--there was the risk. We might have waked Amid a wrathful scene, but this,--with all Its lovely ordinances of calm days, The golden morns, the rosy evenings, Its sweet sabbath hours and holy homes,---- If the same hidden hand from whence these sprung, That dark gate opens, what need we fear there?---- Here's wrath, but none that hath not its sure pathway Upward leading,--there are tears, but 'tis A school-time weariness; and many a breeze And lovely warble from our native hills, Through the dim cas.e.m.e.nt comes, over the worn And tear-wet page, unto the listening ear Of our home sighing--to the _listening_ ear.

Ah, what know we of life?--of that strange life That this, in many a folded rudiment, With nature's low, unlying voice, doth point to.

Is it not very like what the poor grub Knows of the b.u.t.terfly's gay being?---- With its colors strange, fragrance, and song, And robes of floating gold with gorgeous dyes, And loveliest motion o'er wide, blooming worlds.

That dark dream had ne'er imaged!---- Ay, sing on, Sing on, thou bright one, with the news of life, The everlasting, winging o'er our vale.

Oh warble on, thy high, strange song.

What sayest thou?--a land o'er these dark cliffs, A land all glory, where the day ne'er setteth---- Where bright creatures, mid the deathless shades, Go singing, shouting evermore? And yet 'Twere vain. That wild tale hath no meaning here, Thou warbler from afar. Like music Of a foreign tongue, on our dull sense, The rich thought wastes.--We have been nursed in tears, Thro' all we've known of life, we have known grief, And is there none in life's deep essence mixed?

Is sorrow but the young soul's garment then?---- A baby mantle, doffed forever here, Within these lowly walls.

And we were born Amid a glad creation!---then why hear we ne'er The silver shout, filling the unmeasured heaven?---- Why catch we e'er the rich plume's rustle soft, Or sweep of pa.s.sing lyre! Our tearful home Hung 'mid a gay, rejoicing universe, And ne'er a glimpse adown its golden paths?---- Oh are there eyes, soft eyes upon us, In the dark and in the day, s.h.i.+ning unseen, And everlasting smiles, brightening unfelt On all our tears: News sweet and strange ye bring.

Hither we came from our Creator's hands, Bright earnest ones, looking for joy, and lo, A stranger met us at the gate of life, A stranger dark, and wrapped us in her robe, And bore us on through a dim vale.--Ah, not The world we looked for,--for an image in.

Our souls was born, of a high home, that yet We have not seen. And were our childhood's yearnings, Its strange hopes, no dreams then,--dim revealings Of a land that yet we travel to?---- But thou, oh foster-mother, mournful nurse, So long upon thy sable vest we're leaned, Thou art grown dear to us, and when at last At yonder blue and burning gate Thou yieldest up thy trust, and joy at last In her own wild embrace enfolds us once, e'en From the jewelled bosom of that dazzling one, From the young roses of that smiling face, Shall we not turn to thee, for one last glimpse Of that wan cheek, and solemn eye of love, And watch thy stately step, far down This dim world's fading paths? Take us, kind sorrow!

We will lean our young head meekly on thee; Good and holy is thy ministry, Oh handmaid of the Halls thou ne'er mayst tread.

And let the darkness gather round that world, Not for the vision of thy glittering walls We ask, nor glimpse of brilliant troops that roam Thine ancient streets, thou sunless city,-- Wrap thy strange pavillions still in clouds, Let the shades slumber round thy many homes, By faith, and not by sight, through lowly paths Of goodness, sorrow-led, to thee we come.

PART FOURTH.

FULFILMENT.

DIALOGUE I.

SCENE. _The ground before the fort. Baggage wagons. Cannon dismounted.

Confused sounds within. A soldier is seen leaning on his rifle_.

(_Another soldier enters_.)

_2nd Sol_. It's morning! Look in the east there. What are we waiting for?

_1st Sol_. Eh! The devil knows best, I reckon, Sir.

_2nd Sol_. Hillo, John! What's the matter there? Here's day-break upon us! What are we waiting for?

(_Another soldier enters_.)

_3d Sol_. To build a bridge--that is all.

_2nd Sol_. A bridge?

_3d Sol_. We shall be off by to-morrow night, no doubt of it,--if we don't chance to get cooked and eaten before that time,--some little risk of that.

_2nd Sol_. But what's the matter below there, I say? The bridge? what ails it?

_3d Sol_. Just as that last wagon was going over, down comes the bridge, Sirs, or a good piece of it at least.--What else could it do?--timbers half sawn away!

_2nd Sol_. Some of that young jackanape's work! _Aid-de-camp!_ I'd _aid_ him. He must be ordering and fidgetting, and fuming.--Could not wait till we were over.

_1st Sol_. All of a piece, boys!

_3d Sol_. Humph. I wish it had been,--the bridge, I mean.

_1st Sol_. But, I say, don't you see how every thing, little and great, goes one way, and that, against us? Chance has no currents like this!

It's a bad side that Providence frowns on. I think when Heaven deserts a cause, it's time for us poor mortals to begin to think about it.

_3d Sol_. Now, if you are going to do so mean a thing as that, don't talk about Heaven--prythee don't.

[_They pa.s.s on_.

(_Two other soldiers enter_.)

_4th Sol_. (_singing_.)

_Yankee doodle is the tune Americans delight in, 'Twill do to whistle, sing, or play, And just the thing for fighting.

Yankee doodle, boys, huzza_----

(_Breaking off abruptly_.) I do not like the looks of it, Will.

_5th Sol_. Of what?

_4th Sol_. Of the morning that begins to glimmer in the east there.

_5th Sol_. No? Why, I was thinking just now I never saw a handsomer summer's dawning. That first faint light on the woods and meadows, there is nothing I like better. See, it has reached the river now.

_4th Sol_. But the mornings we saw two years ago looked on us with another sort of eye than this,--it is not the glimmer of the long, pleasant harvest day that we see there.

_5th Sol_. We have looked on mornings that promised better, I'll own. I would rather be letting down the bars in the old meadow just now, or hawing with my team down the brake; with the children by my side to pick the ripe blackberries for our morning meal, than standing here in these rags with a gun on my shoulder. Let well alone.--We could not though.

_4th Sol_. (_Handing him a gla.s.s_.) See, they are beginning to form again. It looks for all the world like a funeral train.

_5th Sol_. What was the Stamp Act to us, or all the acts beyond the sea that ever were acted, so long as they left us our golden fields, our Sabbath days, the quiet of the summer evening door, and the merry winter hearth. _The Stamp Act?_ It would have been cheaper for us to have written our bills on gold-leaf, and for tea, to have drunk melted jewels, like the queen I read of once; cheaper and better, a thousand times, than the b.l.o.o.d.y cost we are paying now.

_4th Sol_. It was not the money, Will,--it was not the money, you know.

The wrong it was. We could not be trampled on in that way,--it was not in us--we could not.