THE SEABOY OF ST. EUPHEMIA.
SOFT rose the beam of morn on hill and cape,
And leafy bay, that verge thy golden shores,
Italia, land of dreams! The gushing light,
Warmed with a mellowing glow the purple peaks
Of the far-stretching Appenines, and bade
The prowling Brigand seek his rocky cave,
Down in the misty gorge.
The kingly sun, and bathed the awakened earth
In floods of glory. From each mountain nook
The curling mists retired-each cliff stood out,
And from the holy silence of the grove
Upsprung the darts of song. To their sweet toil
The vintagers went forth-and the fresh dawn
Breathed health and cheerfulness into their souls!
On this fair morn, along Calabrian seas
A stately vessel glided—from the land
Seen like a silver cloud, by light winds borne
From the golden East. But soon, distinct, appeared
Her giant masts, her swelling sails, her prow
Clearing the hissing tide; and ere had sunk
The breeze, gliding majestic o'er the wave,
She bore her course into Euphemia's bay.
Now died the wind, and the tall stranger bark
Slumbered in breathless calm. The infant waves
Climbed in disport her billow-cleaving prow;
And her gigantic sails, that curbed the winds,
Flapped slowly, like the wearied sea-bird's wing,
When wheeling to her nest. Meanwhile her crew
Thronged the wide deck at noisy sport, or tales
Of marvellous style, such as the sailor loves:
But one young SEABOY on the giddy mast
Hung, like a second Icarus, in act
To wing the sky. Far different were his thoughts
From the wild mirth of his rude comrades: joy
Was in his youthful heart; but 'twas a joy
Too deep for laughter-which seems more akin
To sorrow than to gladness. His dark eye
Gazed with wild rapture on Euphemia's walls,
Sweet city of his birth! He had returned
From his first voyage-and his heart did bound
With mingled hopes and fears. He marked the hill,
Of gentlest slope, flower-clad, that overhung
His widowed mother's cot, and deemed he saw
The smoke light-curling from the mossy roof.
Oh! how he longed for the wild sea-bird's wing,
To waft him to that dear and gentle scene
Of infant bliss ;-to his fond mother's arms,
Thanking kind Heaven for her brave boy's return,
And all his tender sister's warm caress,
Weeping for joy! Then, seated by the door,
He would recount his youthful dangers past,
And all the wonders of the distant land
O'er the wide sea. The soul-transporting thought
Brought to his eye the long-forgotten tear
From the warm fountain of his heart, congealed
By cold neglect, and freezing apathy,
And chilling glances of the stranger's eye,
That never glowed in sympathy with his.
In fondly nurtured dreams like these his mind
Was wrapt; and though o'er many a fairy scene
His eye wandered delighted, yet his thoughts
Were in that lonely cot, in the green nook
Of his own valley.
"Twas the hour of noon,
Noon in Hesperia! The sweet convent bells
Rung forth a merry peal, and the loud hum
Of the wide city, labour's cheerful cry,
The rattle of the clattering carriage wheels,
The jingling bells of the low panniered mule,
Journeying townward with his swelling load
Of golden fruitage; the wild chanted song
Of the dark muleteer from the pine dell,
Himself unseen, and childhood's sportive cry
(Dear age! that loves to tell its joy aloud)
Swell'd mingling o'er the golden-waved sea.
Warm'd by the glorious sun, each dome appear'd
Fused in the glowing æther. Beautiful
In varied radiance shone the sacred fane,—
The pillar'd mansion of the senator,
The fair suburban palace, with its sweet
And balmy terrace-gardens, 'mid whose flowers
The infant noble chas'd the azure fly,
Wild as his laughing self,-and the neat cot
Of the laborious peasant, with its door
And windows overarch'd with the ripe vine,
Rear'd from a twig by the fond family,
And trimm'd, at vacant eve, with pious care.
Well suited was the scene, the place, the hour,
To fill the heart with gentlest ecstasy,
And soft emotions, such as pour the oil
Of peace upon the soul, and open up
The springs of pity and universal love.
And longer had the pleasing trance enthrall'a
The sea-boy's breast, but the haste-breathing pipe,
And the loud echoing of the quick-paced deck
Call'd him to duty. No swift-winged gale
Swept with rude wing the sea, nor furrow'd up
Its rough'ning bosom; but from all its depths
A bubbling came, and its wild spirit began
To rouse its sleeping furies, and call forth
Its boisterous company of mountain waves
In strange mysterious heavings, and wild swells
Portentous. The glad sea-birds, with wild whirls,
Bath'd in the surge; and the exulting bark
Did pare the waters with her eager prow.
Silence was on the land, as deep as death,-
All save the city's murmur: the tall pines
On the near shore hung calm and motionless
O'er the perturbed waves, that dash'd beneath
Their sleeping branches, 'mid whose pleasant leaves
The innocent birds were flitting.
Stirred on the mountains; but the churning foam
Whirl'd on the tortured deep, that groan'd aloud,
And madly writh'd and wrestled to be free,
Like a chain'd maniac! There was no strong breeze
To guide their path; and the disorderly waves
Clash'd on each other like a rebel host
That rush to mutual strife; and the tall ship
Danc'd like a light straw on their bounding tops.
Dark ominous clouds roll'd o'er the murky sky,
And blotted out the sun; but Etna's brow
Glar'd forth bright noon-day, with its blazing spires
Of column'd flame. A vast impervious mass
Of pitchy darkness, cloud in cloud involved,
Like a funereal pall, the city wrapt
In its demoniac covering. All at once
A wild unearthly mingling of strange sound
Rose from Euphemia, like the rolling flight
Of countless chariot-wheels, with jarring noise
Commingled, and a low and hollow groan,
As if from Nature's general agony!
It was a scene to blanch the stoutest hearts,
And shake man's boasted courage! The sea-birds,
The children of the storm, congealed with fear,
Dropped lifeless in the billows: terror numbed
The seamen's hearts in the distracted ship;
Some sunk upon the deck; some rushed below
To escape the maddening horror of the sight,
And knees were bent in prayer that ne'er had knelt
Until that instant. All their posts forsook,
All save the helmsman; an old hoary man,
On whose blanched cheek thrice twenty winters' wrath
Had left their furrowed impress. O'er his brow
And aged shoulders wide the grey hair streamed,
As with stout heart and steady hand he grasped
The shivering helm, and steered the vessel on!
But where was ANDREA, the young Seaboy? Where
Was he, the gentle dreamer, whose soft heart
Yearned for his long lost home? On the cold deck
He lay, so pallid and so marble-like,
Ye would have deemed his tender soul had fled,
But that a fearful shudder sometimes passed
Across his frame, and terribly declared
The spirit still was there, though inly wrecked
And shattered. 'Twas not fear that thus unhinged
And mastered him; but the unforseen collision
Of hostile feelings, the bewildered sense,
The freezing blood, the choking agony,
And all the vulture pangs that clutch the heart
When Hope is strangled by the fiend Despair!
But now the weather brightened; first a mass
Of gloomiest shade gave way, and through the chasm
Flashing, one solitary golden beam
Of the rejoicing Sun shot from the midst,
Down to the blackening ocean. Then at once
Severed the murky clouds, and all the scene,
Green shores, peace-breathing mountains, and blue skies,
Shone out in Summer loveliness. The seas
Subsided from their wrath, as wearied out
By their long battling; and the frighted crew,
Cheered by the brightening Sun, and calmer sea,
Betook them to their posts, though doubtful still
And hesitating. But whene'er the mists
That hid the city from their eyes dispersed,
Pale terror seized them, and bewilderedly
Each on the other gazed, but whispered not-
Fear held them dumb.
Where had Euphemia gone-
The fair, the many-peopled! Where her domes,
Her towers, her arches! Where her thronged resorts
Of loitering Luxury or busy Commerce!
Or that proud pile, whose heaven-aspiring top
Was first saluted by the morning Sun ?
All had gone down into the yawning earth,
Nor left a mark behind them! O'er their place
A sulphurous lake, of hideous aspect, spread
Its slimy waters, over which the beams
Of the bright Sun played with a ghastly smile;
Like lights that in the lonely church-yard shine
I' the dark night above the charnelled dead!
Wretched Euphemia! awful was thy doom,
And all thy gentle people's! Ruthless fate
The City of St. Euphemia, in Calabria, was totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1638. Father Kircher states, that after the clouds which had gathered over it had dispersed, nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be seen, where the city had stood.
Enwrapt thee, thoughtless, in his blood-stained arms,
And with demoniac fury hauled thee down
Into one general grave! There was none spared
To tell the tale; all had an equal doom;
The mother and her sleeping child; the sick
And spiritless man, and the light-hearted girl
Just budding into womanhood; the prince,
And simple cottager; the labouring man,
And the young family, or the aged pair
For whom he toiled; the prisoner and the free;
The penitent kneeling at God's holy altar,
And the gay youth laughing at some light jest
Or frolic. Nero's bloody wish was done-
A people swept at once into the tomb!
And now the mariners thronged the busy deck,
Whispering, and o'er the varying murmur ye might hear
That word of fearful sound-" Earthquake," repeated
In tones that told the speaker's inward dread;
And all deplored the unexampled fate
Of the fair city; but no further went
Their lamentations; none were "native there"
Save the lone SEABOY. Him the pitying crew
Raised from the deck, and gently strove to bring
The wavering spirit back. At length he oped
His restless eyes, and sighed, and looked around
Wildly; but as the twilight-glimmering sense returned,
And recollection, to his native shore
He threw an eager glance, with terror fraught
And feverish expectation. Then at once
A thousand harrowing feelings pierced his brain,
And goaded it to madness! "Twas too much
For his young mind, untutored by the rubs
And sorrow-blunting commerce of the world.
The light that, like the morning star, doth pour
Brightness and joy upon the mind, was quenched.
All that remained was like the sickly ray
Of a lone cresset in some charnel-house,
That shines but for the past, and never throws
A beam upon the present. He besought,
With tears and prayers, the thronging mariners
To take him to the land. At first they tried
To sooth and quiet him; but wearied out
By his sad cries, and inly touched with pity,
At length they rowed him to the desolate shore,
And left him there.
Next morn some villagers,
With cautious step, came to the blasted scene,
And led him kindly to their peaceful home.
But aye, with morning beam, he did return
To that dead lake; and the early traveller
At distance viewed him seated on a stone
By its lone brink, with folded arms, and eyes
That gazed upon its waveless breast, as if
They pierced its depths, and summoned from below
The dead-the well-beloved!
"That the sweet convent-bells did ever ring,
And that beneath the waters he beheld
His own sweet cottage; that his mother oft
Gazed from the door along the well-known path
To welcome him, and that his sisters wept
Because he came not; for that a cruel stream,
With dark impassible waters, hemmed him in ;
And oft he called them, but they never heard,
For the wild brawling of the roaring flood !"
TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE-DUTY ON PAPER-DIRECT AND INDIRECT TAXATION.
WE boast that we belong to "The Movement;" that is, to the class of Reformers who maintain that the great measure of Reform obtained, is only a means to an end; that the Reformed Parliament must proceed to lop off every thing that is rotten in our institutions, in order that the machine of Government may work well for the labouring classes, whose interests and undeniable rights have hitherto been sacrificed by Tory oppressors to increase the wealth of the aristocracy. In this important work, to which Ministers and the Reformed Parliament have to address themselves, we farther maintain, that there must be no delay. He has looked with a very superficial eye at what has been going on in this country for some years past, who has not discerned that the spirit of Reform, which has been so conspicuously active, and which has already produced so grand a result as the Reform Bill, has been itself urged to activity by another spirit. The ancient mariner tells us of the spirit" which maketh the ship to go." There is a spirit which maketh the car of Reform to go; that has supplied the force which has kept the wheels of the car in motion, and will continue to impel it forward, in all probability at an accelerated pace, for years to come, and with a force which it will be impossible to resist. The Spirit of Power to which we allude, is the GENIUS of WANT. He it is, although not always visible to the careless observer, who has called every Reform Meeting, who has dictated every Reform Petition, who has set in motion every Reform procession. While Mr. Brodie, as chairman of the Edinburgh Political Union, occupied the precentor's desk in the Cowgate Chapel, we indistinctly saw the Genius of Want in the superior pulpit, presiding over the president We saw him affixing the placards on the public places of Edinburgh, summoning the Political Union to the King's Park, the first great public meeting of the citizens of Edinburgh in the open air. We saw his dusky form immensely dilated, leaning over the chairman at that meeting, and obscuring the sky above the assemblage of twenty thousand people. The same potent spirit was visible to us, at the same place, when the still greater multitude afterwards assembled there, the Whig leaders being compelled by his influence to that unwonted act of decision, the taking part in an openair meeting. Again, we saw him on the same spot overhanging an immense multitude, his features expressing terrible determination, a large black flag in his hand, exhibiting a skull and cross bones, with the ominous inscription, "REFORM or DEATH." Once more we saw him, with his haggard features relaxed into a grim smile, heading the Jubilee Procession. But it were vain to state where we have seen him. He has been the great actor in every revolution, and in every measure of Reform that has taken place. His terrific power is exerted always by one of these two instruments, Reform or Revolution; and the choice is left to the aristocracy, or the privileged orders of the nation, in which he establishes himself. Forty years ago, the French nobles chose the one way: our aristocracy has wisely given way to the wishes of the people, and chosen the other and better alternative.
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