THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.-HOOD. "Drowned! drowned!"-Hamlet One more Unfortunate, Take her up tenderly, Look at her garments Touch her not scornfully, Make no deep scrutiny Past all dishonor, Death has left on her Only the beautiful. Or was there a dearer one Alas for the rarity Sisterly, brotherly, Fatherly, motherly, Feelings had changed: Where the lamps quiver With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood with amazement, Houseless by night. The bleak winds of March Made her tremble and shiver; But nor the dark arch, Or the black flowing river. In she plunged boldly Take her up tenderly, Ere her limbs frigidly Decently-kindly Smoothe and compose them; And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly, Dreadfully staring Through muddy impurity, Perishing gloomily, Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Owning her weakness, Her evil behavior, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour' CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE-FREDERICK 8. Cozzens. We begin to enjoy the clouds since we have moved out of town. The city sky is all strips and patches; but the sky of the country forms a very comfortable whole. Then, you have the horizon, of which you get an imperfect idea if you live in a crooked street; and besides, you can see distant rain storms passing over far-off landscapes, and as the light-winged breeze comes sweeping up and you feel the approaching dampness, there is a freshness and fragrance in it which is not at all like the miasmatic exhalations of a great city. Then, when the rain does come it is not simply an inconvenience, as it always is in town, but a real blessing, which even the stupid old cabbages know enough to enjoy. I think our musk-melons feel better now, as they lie there in sandy beds sucking the delicious fluid through their long vinous tubes. I think our Shaker corn, as he gives himself a rousing shake, and flings the big drops around him, does so with a species of boisterous joy, as if he could not have too much of it; and Monsieur Tomato, who is capering like Humpty Dumpty on the wall, is evidently in high feather, which is not the case with our forlorn rooster, who is but poorly protected under the old basket, yonder. The rain came from the southwest. We saw the clouds rolling up over the Palisades in round masses, with a movement like puffs of smoke rolling up from the guns of a frigate. It was a dead calm; not a pensile leaf twinkled; the flat expanse of the river was without a ripple. We saw the conglomerated volumes of snow-white vapor ascending to.the zenith, and below lay the Hudson, roughening in the now audibly approaching breeze. Meanwhile the sky grew ashy pale in the southwest, and the big clouds overhead were sometimes veined with lightning, which was reflected momently by the darkening water. Just below us we heard the quick rattle of the rings, as the wood sloops dropped and reefed their broad sails in anticipation of the squall. Everything around us reposed in a sort of supernatural twilight, the grass turned gray and old, the tree trunks changed to iron, the air seemed denser, sullener, sultrier. Then a little breeze prattled through the chestnuts, and whitened the poplars. Then it subsided. Then the white cloud above appeared a tangle of dazzling light, and a sharp fusilade followed on the instant. Then Mrs. Sparrowgrass got frightened, and said she must go in, and as she said so, the wind pounced upon her and carried up her sunbonnet at least three hundred feet above tide water. Then it slammed to every door in the house, prostrated my Lima beans, howled down the chimney, roared and whistled through the trees, tore the dust from the road, and poured it through our open windows, hurried off the big gate, laid it on my pie-plants, blew down my bee-hive, liberated all my bees, who instantly settled upon our watch dog and stung him so that he ran away and did not return until the following Sunday. Nevertheless, the scenery around was marvellously beautiful. South of us a grey rain-curtain was drawn across the river, shutting out everything beyond, except the spectral masts and spars of a schooner riding at anchor. The Palisades started up in the gloom, as their precipitous masses were revealed by the flashes of unearthly light that played through the rolling clouds. The river before us, flecked with snow, stretched away to the north, where it lay partly in sunshine, under a blue sky, dappled with fleecy vapors. Inland, the trees were twisted in attitudes strikingly picturesque and novel; the scud flew before the blast like spray, and below it the swells and slopes of livid green had an aspect so unusual that it seemed as if I had been transported into a strange place—a far countrie. Our cottage, too, which I had planned and built, changed its tinted walls to stark, staring white, with window-panes black as ink. From room to room Mrs. Sparrowgrass flitted like a phantom, closing the sashes, and making all secure. Then the electric prattled overhead for a moment, and wound up with a roar like the explosion of a stone quarry. Then a big drop fell and rolled itself up in a globule of dust in the path; then another— another-another. Then I bethought me of my new straw hat, and retreated into the house, and then-it rained! Reader, did you ever see rain in the country? I hope you rave; my pen is impotent; I cannot describe it. The storm hushed by degrees, and went off amid saffron flushes, and a glitter of hail. The western sky parted its ashy curtains, and the rugged Palisades lay warm and beautiful under the evening sun. Now the sun sinks amid melted topaz and rubies; and above it, on one side, stretching aloft from the rocky precipices high up in the azure, is a crescent of crimson and golden fragments of clouds! Once more in the sunlight, and so we wil throw open all the windows and let in the cool air. The splendor falls on castle walls, And the wild cataract breaks in glory. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! |