The Tell-Tale Heart - The Pioneer, January 1843 — reading text

was groping bewildered. Middleton has The sparkles fiy through cities ; hese one takes, Another catches there, and in short time, shown his deep knowledge of art and nature, Waste all to cinders. by that strict appreciation of his own weak- ness, which is the hardest wisdom to gain, Our author’s aptness in comparison is strik- and which can only be the fruit of an earnest, ing. He says of the shameful deed of a great willing, and humble study in his own heart, man, of those primitive laws of spirit which lie at the bottom of all hearts. It is much easier to Great men are never sound men after it, feel our own strength than our want of it ; It leaves some ache er other in their names still, Which their posterity feels at every weather. indeed a feeling of the one blinds us to the other. Middleton is wise in choosing rather to CHARITY. give mysterious hints which the mind may You should love those you are not tied to love ; follow out, than to strive to lead the imagina- That ’s the right trial of a woman’s charity. tion, which is most powerful in conjuring up HONOR. images of horror, beyond where he could guide it with bold and unwavering certainty. With The fame that a man wins himselfis best ; That he may call his own. Honors put to him * Coleridge’s eloquent reasoning in opposition to Make him no more a man than his clothes do, And are as soon ta’en off. this theory, never seemed to us at all satisfactory, and the very instances he adduces, are, to our mind, against WANT OF NOBLENESS. him. See his ‘Apologetic Preface,’ which, however unconvincing, is certainly a magnificent specimen of O, what vile prisons acute and thorough analysis. Make we our bodies to our immortal souls !  THE PLAYS OF THOMAS MIDDLETON. 39 SENSE OF GUILT. There is a simplicity and manly directness in Still my adulterous guilt hovers aloft, our old writers of tragedy, which comes to us And with her black wings beats down all my prayers with the more freshness in a time so conven- Ere they be half-way up. tional as our own. In their day, if the barrier PRUDENCE. between castes was more marked than it is Wisely to fear is to be free from fear. now, that between hearts was less so. ‘They PATIENCE. were seers, indeed, using reverently that rare Patience, my lord: why, ’tis the soul of peace ; gift of inward sight which God had blessed Of all the virtues ‘tis nearest kin to heaven ; them with, and not daring to blaspheme the It makes men look like Gods. The best of men divinity of Beauty, by writing of what they That e’er wore earth about him was a sufferer had not seen and truly felt in their own hearts A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, and lives. It is one of the refinements of a The first true Gentleman that ever breathed. more modern school which teaches artists to The stock of patience then cannot be poor, All it desires it has ; what monarch more ? open their mouths and shut their eyes, as child- ren are playfully told to, and wait for some ’Tis the perpetual prisoner’s liberty, mysterious power to make them wise. They His walks and orchards: ’tis the bond-slave’s free- wrote from warm, beating hearts, not from a dom, pitiful, dry pericardium of fashion, or taste And makes him seem proud of each iron chain ‘¢ formed after the purest models.’’ They be- As though he wore it more for state than pain : It is the beggar’s music, and thus sings, came worthy to lead, by having too much faith Although our bodies beg, our souls are kings : in nature to follow any but her. We find in O, my dread liege it is the sap of bliss, them lessons for to-day, as fresh as when they Rears us aloft, makes men and angels kiss. were spoken, showing us that poetry is true A HAPPY MAN. for ever ; that the spiritual presences which He that in his coffin is richer than before, haunted their lonely hours with images of He that counts youth his sword, and age his staff, beauty, and precious inward promptings to He whose riglit hand carves his own epitaph. truth and love, still walk the earth, seeking Here is the sweetest description of the pas- communion with all who are free enough and sage of time, expressed by an outward refe- pure enough to behold them. rence, that we recollect ever to have seen. In our day, the accursed hunger after gold, and the no less accursed repletion of it, which The moon hath through her bow scarce drawn to the brings with it a stagnation of life, and ends in head, Like to twelve silver arrows, all the months, an ossification of the whole heart, have ren- Since, — dered us less fit for the reception and proper cherishing of the wondrous gifts of song. But os TWILIGHT. I come, dear love, that the day of poetry has gone by is no more To take my last farewell ; fitting this hour, true than that the day of the soul has gone Which nor bright day will claim, nor pitehy night, by, for they were born, and must live and An hour fit to part conjoined souls. die together. ‘The soul mounts higher and THE WORLD. higher, and its horizon widens from age to age. Poesy also grows wiser as she grows older. Stoop thou to the world, ’t will on thy bosom tread ; Poetry can never be all written. ‘There is It stoops to thee, if thou advance thy head. more in the heart of man than any the wisest The following is a revelation of the spiritual poet has ever seen there,—more in the soul world, full of truth and beauty. Men whose than any has ever guessed. Our age may material part predominates in them, are afraid have no great poets, for there are some who of spirits ; but a body walking the earth after have but just now gone forth into the silence, its heavenly tenant has left it, is a more awful some who yet linger on the doubtful brink, and sight to spiritual minds. there are successions in poesy as in nature; My son was dead ; whoe’er outlives his virtues pines spring up where oaks are cut down,— Is a dead man; for when you hear of spirits the lyrical follows the epic. But of whatever That walk in real bodies, to the amaze kind or degree, there will ever yet be some And cold astonishment of such as meet them, poets. They are needed as historians of won- those are men of vices derful facts which, but for them, would be Who nothing have but what is visible, And so, by consequence, they have no souls. unrecorded,— facts high above the grasp of the diligent recorders of outward events ; and THE BODY. materials of history will never be wanting to There ’s but this wall betwixt you and destruction, them, since there is nothing so beautiful but When you are at strongest, and but poor thin clay. has in it the promise of a higher beauty, no- OVER-CUNNING. thing so true but enfolds the elements of a wider Grow not too cunning for your soul, good brother. and more universal truth.  40 THE PIONEER. SeRes eg a In his tower sate the poet Gazing on the roaring sea, ‘¢ Take this rose,’’ he sighed, ‘‘ and throw it Where there ’s none that loveth me. 2. v ask ‘¢ On the rock the billow bursteth SP MSM And sinks back into the seas, 2B But in vain my spirit thirsteth So to burst and be at ease. 3. ‘*'Take, oh sea, the tender blossom That hath lain against my breast, On thy black and angry bosom It will find a surer rest. 4. Life is vain and love is hollow, Ugly death stands there behind, Hate and scorn and hunger follow Him that toileth for his kind.’’ 5 : Forth into the night he hurled it And with bitter smile did mark How the surly tempest whirled it Swift into the hungry dark. CAE ETI EE ENA Aa or‘ } 6. Foam and spray drive back to leeward, And the gale