Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.

[Born, 1807.]

THE author of "Guy Rivers," "Southern Passages and Pictures," etc., was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in the spring of 1807. His mother died during his infancy, and his father soon after emigrated to one of the western territories, leaving him under the guardianship of a grandmother, who superintended his early education. When not more than nine or ten years old, he began to write verses; at fifteen he was a contributor to the poetical department of the gazettes printed near his home; and at eighteen he published his first volume, entitled Lyrical and other Poems," which was followed in the next two years by "Early Lays," and "The Vision of Cortez and other Pieces," and in 1830, by "The Tricolor, or Three Days of Blood in Paris." In each of these four volumes there were poetical ideas, and occasionally well-finished verses; but they are worthy of little regard, except as indications of the early tendency of the author's mind.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

When twenty-one years old, Mr. SIMMS was admitted to the bar, and began to practise his profession in his native district; but feeling a deep interest in the political questions which then agitated the country, he soon abandoned the courts, and purchased a daily gazette at Charleston, which he edited for several years, with industry, integrity, and ability. It was, however, unsuccessful, and he lost by it all his property, as well as the prospective earnings of several years. His ardour was not lessened by this failure, and, confident of success, he determined to retrieve his fortune by authorship. He had been married at an early age; his wife, as well as his father, was now dead; and no domestic ties binding him to Charleston, he in the spring of 1832 visited for the first time the northern states. After travelling over the most interesting portions of the country, he paused at the rural village of Hingham, in Massachusetts, and there prepared for the press his principal poetical work, "Atalantis, a Story of the Sea," which was published at New York in the following winter. This is an imaginative story, in the dramatic form; its plot is exceedingly simple, but effectively managed, and it contains much beautiful imagery, and fine description. While a vessel glides over a summer sea, LEON, one of the principal characters, and his sister ISABEL, hear a benevolent spirit of the air warning them of the designs of a sea-god to lure them into peril.

Leo. Didst hear the strain it utter'd, ISABEL?
Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,
From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not?
Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;
For, by the chart which now before me lies,

The Charleston City Gazette, conducted by Mr. SIMMS, was, I believe, the first journal in South Carolina that took ground against the principle of nullification.

Thy own unpractised eye may well discern
The wide extent of the ocean-shoreless all.
The land, for many a league, to the eastward hangs,
And not a point beside it.

Isa. Wherefore, then,

Should come this voice of warning?

Leon. From the deep:

It hath its demons as the earth and air,
All tributaries to the master-fiend
That sets their springs in motion. This is one,
That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,
So to divert our course, that we may strike
The very rocks he fain would warn us from.
Isa. A subtle sprite: and, now I think of it,
Dost thou remember the old story told
By DIAZ ORTIS, the lame mariner,
Of an adventure in the Indian Seas,
Where he made one with JOHN of Portugal,
Touching a woman of the ocean wave,
That swam beside the barque, and sang strange songs
Of riches in the waters; with a speech
So winning on the senses, that the crew
Grew all infected with the melody;
And, but for a good father of the church,
Who made the sign of the cross, and offer'd up
Befitting prayers, which drove the fiend away,
They had been tempted by her cunning voice
To leap into the ocean.

Leon. I do, I do!

And, at the time, I do remember me,

I made much mirth of the extravagant tale,
As a deceit of the reason: the old man
Being in his second childhood, and at fits
Wild, as you know, on other themes than this.

Isa. I never more shall mock at marvellous things, Such strange conceits hath after-time found true, That once were themes for jest. I shall not smile At the most monstrous legend.

Leon. Nor will I:

To any tale of mighty wonderment

I shall bestow my ear, nor wonder more;
And every fancy that my childhood bred,
In vagrant dreams of frolic, I shall look
To have, without rebuke, my sense approve.
Thus, like a little island in the sea,
Girt in by perilous waters, and unknown
To all adventure, may be yon same cloud,
Specking, with fleecy bosom, the blue sky,
Lit by the rising moon. There we may dream,
And find no censure in an after day-
Throng the assembled fairies, perched on beams,
And riding on their way triumphantly.
There gather the coy spirits. Many a fay,
Roving the silver sands of that same isle,
Floating in azure ether, plumes her wing
Of ever-frolicsome fancy, and pursues-
While myriads, like herself, do watch the chase-
Some truant sylph, through the infinitude
Of their uncircumscribed and rich domain.
There sport they through the night, with mimicry
Of strife and battle; striking their tiny shields
And gathering into combat; meeting fierce,
With lip compress'd and spear aloft, and eye
Glaring with fight and desperate circumstance;
Then sudden-in a moment all their wrath
Mellow'd to friendly terms of courtesy-
Throwing aside the dread array, and link'd
Each in his foe's embrace. Then comes the dance,
The grateful route, the wild and musical pomp,

The long procession o'er fantastic realms

Of cloud and moonbeam, through the enamour'd night,
Making it all one revel. Thus the eye,
Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged scope,
Through the protracted and deep hush of night

May note the fairies, coursing the lazy hours

In various changes, and without fatigue.

A fickle race, who tell their time by flowers,
And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps,
And night-dews for ambrosia; perch'd on beams,
Speeding through space, even with the scattering light
On which they feed and frolic.

[blocks in formation]

Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls, In gambols of the deep, and yet is not

Its wonted burden; for beneath the waves

I mark a gracious form, though nothing clear
Of visage I discern. Again it speaks.

The ship is wrecked, and ATALANTIS, a fairy, wandering along the beach with an attendant, NEA, discovers the inanimate form of LEON clinging to a spar.

But what is here,
Grasping a shaft, and lifelessly stretch'd out?

Nea. One of the creatures of that goodly barque-
Perchance the only one of many men,

That, from their distant homes, went forth in her,
And here have perish'd.

Atal. There is life in him

And his heart swells beneath my hand, with pulse
Fitful and faint, returning now, now gone,
That much I fear it may not come again.
How very young he is-how beautiful!
Made, with a matchless sense of what is true,
In manly grace and chisell'd elegance;
And features, rounded in as nice a mould
As our own, NEA. There, his eye unfolds-
Stand away, girl, and let me look on him!

It cannot be, that such a form as this,

So lovely and compelling, ranks below

The creatures of our kingdom. He is one,

That, 'mongst them all, might well defy compare-
Outshining all that shine!

Nea. He looks as well,

In outward seeming, as our own, methinks--
And yet, he may be but a shaped thing,
Wanting in every show of that high sense
Which makes the standard of true excellence.
Atal. O, I am sure there is no want in him-
The spirit must be true, the sense be high,
The soul as far ascending, strong and bright,
As is the form he wears, and they should be
Pleased to inhabit-'t were a fitting home!
Breathe on him, NEA. Fan him with thy wing,
And so arouse him. I would have him speak,
And satisfy my doubt. Stay, yet a while-
Now, while his senses sleep, I'll place my lip
Upon his own-it is so beautiful!

Such lips should give forth music-such a sweet
Should have been got in heaven-the produce there
Of never-blighted gardens.

[Kisses him.

[blocks in formation]

Soon after the appearance of "Atalantis," Mr. SIMMS published, in the “American Quarterly,” a review of Mrs. TROLLOPE'S "Domestic Manners of the Americans," which was reprinted, in several editions, in this country and in England; and in 1833 appeared his first romance, "Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal," parts of which had been printed several years before in a magazine conducted by him in Charleston. In the same year he published "The Book of My Lady," and, in the summer of 1834, "Guy Rivers, a Tale of Georgia," which was followed by "The Yemassee," "The Partisan," "Mellichampe," "Pelayo," "Carl Werner," "The Damsel of Darien," "The Kinsman," "The History of South Carolina," "The Blind Heart," and numerous sketches, reviews, and miscellanies, in the periodicals. Several other works have been generally attributed to him; though the amount of his acknowledged writings seems to be as great as one man could have produced since he commenced his career as an author. His novels have been very popular, particularly in the southern states, the scenery and history of which, several of them are designed to illustrate. They exhibit considerable dramatic power, and some of the characters are drawn with great skill.

His "Southern Passages and Pictures" appeared in New York, in 1839, and he has since published "Florida," in five cantos, and many shorter poems. They are on a great variety of subjects, and in almost every measure. Among them are several very spirited ballads, founded on Indian traditions and on incidents in the war for independence. His style is free and melodious, his fancy fertile and inventive, and his imagery generally well chosen, though its range is limited; but sometimes his rhymes are imperfect, and his meaning not easily understood. He is strongly attached to his country, but his sympathies seem to me to be too local. The rivers, forests, savannas, and institutions of the south, he regards with feelings similar to those with which WHITTIER looks upon the mountains, lakes, and social systems of New England.

Mr. SIMMS is again married, and now resides in the vicinity of Charleston. He is in the meridian of life and energy, and is constantly writing and adding to his reputation. He is retiring in his habits, goes little into society, and keeps aloof from all controversies; finding happiness in the bosom of his family, among his books, and in correspondence and personal intercourse with his literary friends. He is a fine specimen of the true southern gentleman, and combines in himself the high qualities attributed to that character.

THE SLAIN EAGLE.

THE eye that mark'd thy flight with deadly aim, Had less of warmth and splendour than thine own; The form that did thee wrong could never claim The matchless vigour which thy wing hath shown; Yet art thou in thy pride of flight o'erthrown; And the far hills that echoed back thy scream, As from storm-gathering clouds thou sent'st it down,

Shall see no more thy red-eyed glances stream For their far summits round, with strong and terrible gleam.

Lone and majestic monarch of the cloud! No more I see thee on the tall cliff's brow, When tempests meet, and from their watery shroud Pour their wild torrents on the plains below, Lifting thy fearless wing, still free to go, True in thy aim, undaunted in thy flight, As seeking still, yet scorning, every foeShrieking the while in consciousness of might, To thy own realm of high and undisputed light.

Thy thought was not of danger then-thy pride Left thee no fear. Thou hadst gone forth in storms, And thy strong pinions had been bravely tried Against their rush. Vainly their gathering forms Had striven against thy wing. Such conflict warms The nobler spirit; and thy joyful shriek Gave token that the strife itself had charms For the born warrior of the mountain peak, He of the giant brood, sharp fang, and bloody beak.

How didst thou then, in very mirth, spread far Thy pinions' strength!—with freedom that became Audacious license, with the winds at war, Striding the yielding clouds that girt thy frame, And, with a fearless rush that naught could tame, Defying earth-defying all that mars

The flight of other wings of humbler name;
For thee, the storm had impulse, but no bars
To stop thy upward flight, thou pilgrim of the stars!

Morning above the hills, and from the ocean,
Ne'er leap'd abroad into the fetterless blue
With such a free and unrestrained motion,
Nor shook from her ethereal wing the dew
That else had clogg'd her flight and dimm'd her
view,

With such calm effort as 't was thine to wearBending with sunward course erect and true, When winds were piping high and lightnings near, Thy day-guide all withdrawn, through fathomless fields of air.

The moral of a chosen race wert thou,

In such proud fight. From out the ranks of men— The million moilers, with earth-cumber'd brow, That slink, like coward tigers to their den, Each to his hiding-place and corner thenOne mighty spirit watch'd thee in that hour, Nor turn'd his lifted heart to earth again; Within his soul there sprang a holy power, And he grew strong to sway, whom tempests made not cower.

Watching, he saw thy rising wing. In vain, From his superior dwelling, the fierce sun Shot forth his brazen arrows, to restrain The audacious pilgrim, who would gaze upon The secret splendours of his central throne; Proudly, he saw thee to that presence fly, And, Eblis-like, unaided and alone, His dazzling glories seek, his power defy, Raised to thy god's own face, meanwhile, thy rebel eye.

And thence he drew a hope, a hope to soar, Even with a wing like thine. His daring glance Sought, with as bold a vision, to explore The secret of his own deliveranceThe secret of his wing-and to advance To sovereign sway like thine-to rule, to rise Above his race, and nobly to enhance Their empire as his own-to make the skies, The extended earth, far seas, and solemn stars, his prize.

He triumphs-and he perishes like thee!
Scales the sun's heights, and mounts above the
winds,

Breaks down the gloomy barrier, and is free!
The worm receives his winglet: he unbinds
The captive thought, and in its centre finds
New barriers, and a glory in his gaze;

He mocks, as thou, the sun!-but scaly blinds Grow o'er his vision, till, beneath the daze, From his proud height he falls, amid the world's

amaze.

And thou, brave bird! thy wing hath pierced the cloud,

The storm had not a battlement for thee; But, with a spirit fetterless and proud, Thou hast soar'd on, majestically free, To worlds, perchance, which men shall never see! Where is thy spirit now? the wing that bore? Thou hast lost wing and all, save liberty! Death only could subdue-and that is o'er: Alas! the very form that slew thee should deplore!

A proud exemplar hath been lost the proud, And he who struck thee from thy fearless flightThy noble loneliness, that left the crowd, To seek, uncurb'd, that singleness of height Which glory aims at with unswerving sightHad learn'd a nobler toil. No longer base With lowliest comrades, he had given his might, His life-that had been cast in vilest placeTo raise his hopes and homes-to teach and lift his race.

"Tis he should mourn thy fate, for he hath lost The model of dominion. Not for him The mighty eminence, the gathering host That worships, the high glittering pomps that dim, The bursting homage and the hailing hymn: He dies he hath no life, that, to a star, Rises from dust and sheds a holy gleam To light the struggling nations from afar, And show, to kindred souls, where fruits of glory

are.

Exulting now, he clamours o'er his prey;
His secret shaft hath not been idly sped;
He lurk'd within the rocky cleft all day,

Till the proud bird rose sweeping o'er his head,
And thus he slew him! He should weep him dead,
Whom, living, he could love not-weep that he,
The noble lesson taught him, never read-
Exulting o'er the victim much more free
Than, in his lowly soul, he e'er can hope to be.

"Tis triumph for the base to overthrow That which they reach not-the ignoble mind Loves ever to assail with secret blow The loftier, purer beings of their kind: In this their petty villany is blind; They hate their benefactors-men who keep Their names from degradation-men design'd Their guides and guardians: well, if late they weep The cruel shaft that struck such noble hearts so deep.

Around thy mountain dwelling the winds lieThy wing is gone, thy eyry desolate;

O, who shall teach thy young ones when to fly,Who fill the absence of thy watchful mate? Thou type of genius! bitter is thy fate, A boor has sent the shaft that leaves them lone, Thy clustering fellows, guardians of thy stateShaft from the reedy fen whence thou hast flown, And feather from the bird thy own wing hath struck down!

THE BROOKLET.

A LITTLE farther on, there is a brook
Where the breeze lingers idly. The high trees
Have roof'd it with their crowding limbs and leaves,
So that the sun drinks not from its sweet fount,
And the shade cools it. You may hear it now,
A low, faint beating, as, upon the leaves
That lie beneath its rapids, it descends
In a fine, showery rain, that keeps one tune,
And 'tis a sweet one, still of constancy.

Beside its banks, through the whole livelong day,
Ere
yet I noted much the speed of time,
And knew him but in songs and ballad-books,
Nor cared to know him better, I have lain ;

With thought unchid by harsher din than came From the thick thrush, that, gliding through the

copse,

Hurried above me; or the timid fawn

That came down to the brooklet's edge to drink, And saunter'd through its shade, cropping the grass,

Even where I lay,-having a quiet mood,
And not disturbing, while surveying mine.

Thou smilest-and on thy lip a straying thought
Says I have trifled-calls my hours misspent,
And looks a solemn warning! A true thought,-
And so my errant mood were well rebuked!-
Yet there was pleasant sadness that became
Meetly the gentle heart and pliant sense,
In that same idlesse-gazing on that brook
So pebbly and so clear,-prattling away,
Like a young child, all thoughtless, till it goes
From shadow into sunlight, and is lost.

39

THE SHADED WATER.

WHEN that my mood is sad, and in the noise
And bustle of the crowd, I feel rebuke,
I turn my footsteps from its hollow joys,

The waters have a music to mine ear
It glads me much to hear.

And sit me down beside this little brook:

It is a quiet glen as you may see,

Shut in from all intrusion by the trees,
That spread their giant branches, broad and free,
The silent growth of many centuries;
And make a hallow'd time for hapless moods,
A Sabbath of the woods.

Few know its quiet shelter,-none, like me,
Do seek it out with such a fond desire,
Poring, in idlesse mood, on flower and tree,

And listening, as the voiceless leaves respire,When the far-travelling breeze, done wandering, Rests here his weary wing.

And all the day, with fancies ever new,

And sweet companions from their boundless
Of merry elves, bespangled all with dew, [store
Fantastic creatures of the old time lore,-
Watching their wild but unobtrusive play,
I fling the hours away.

A gracious couch,-the root of an old oak,
Whose branches yield it moss and canopy,-
Is mine-and so it be from woodman's stroke
Secure, shall never be resigned by me;
It hangs above the stream that idly plies,
Heedless of any eyes.

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent,
Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour,
While every sense, on earnest mission sent, [er;
Returns,thought-laden,back with bloom and flow-
Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil,
A profitable toil.

And still the waters, trickling at my feet,

Wind on their way with gentlest melody,
Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat,

Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by,—
Yet not so rudely as to send one sound
Through the thick copse around.
Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest

Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees, Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, press'd

On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries,—
And, with awaken'd vision upward bent,
I watch the firmament.

How like-its sure and undisturb'd retreat,
Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm-
To the pure waters trickling at my feet,

The bending trees that overshade my form;
So far as sweetest things of earth may seem
Like those of which we dream.

Thus, to my mind, is the philosophy

The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight, Sails far into the blue that spreads on high,

Until I lose him from my straining sight,-
With a most lofty discontent, to fly
Upward, from earth to sky.

2 c2

TO THE BREEZE:

AFTER A PROTRACTED CALM AT SEA.

THOU hast been slow to bless us, gentle breeze; Where hast thou been a lingerer, welcome friend? Where, when the midnight gather'd to her brow Her pale and crescent minister, wert thou?

On what far, sullen, solitary seas,

Piping the mariner's requiem, didst thou tend The home-returning bark,

Curling the white foam o'er her lifted prow, [dark? White, when the rolling waves around her all were

Gently, and with a breath

Of spicy odour from Sabæan vales, Where subtle life defies and conquers death, Fill'dst thou her yellow sails!

On, like some pleasant bird,

With glittering plumage and light-loving eye,
While the long pennant lay aloft unstirr'd,
And sails hung droopingly,

Camest thou with tidings of the land to cheer
The weary mariner.

How, when the ocean slept,
Making no sign;

And his dumb waters, of all life bereft,
Lay 'neath the sun-girt line;

His drapery of storm-clouds lifted high
In some far, foreign sky,

While a faint moaning o'er his bosom crept,
As the deep breathings of eternity,
Above the grave of the unburied time,
Claiming its clime-

How did the weary tar,

His form reclined along the burning deck,
Stretch his dim eye afar,

To hail the finger, and delusive speck,
Thy bending shadow, from some rocky steep,
Down-darting o'er the deep!

Born in the solemn night,

When the deep skies were bright,

With all their thousand watchers on the sightThine was the music through the firmament

By the fond nature sent,

To hail the blessed birth,

To guide to lowly earth

The glorious glance, the holy wing of light!

Music to us no less,

Thou comest in our distress,

To cheer our pathway. It is clear, through thee,
O'er the broad wastes of sea.
How soothing to the heart that glides alone,
Unwatch'd and unremember'd, on the wave,
Perchance his grave!—

Should he there perish, to thy deeper moan
What lip shall add one tone?

I bless thee, gentle breeze!

Sweet minister to many a fond desire,
Thou bear'st me to my sire,
Thou, and these rolling seas!

What-O, thou GoD of this strong element !—
Are we, that it is sent,

Obedient to our fond and fervent hope?

But that its pinion on our path is bent, We had been doom'd beyond desire to grope,

[blocks in formation]

Doth raise his certain lamp when tempests lower-
He sees no more that perish'd light again!
And gloomier grows the hour

[dark,

Which may not, through the thick and crowding
Restore that lost and loved one to her tower.

He looks,--the shepherd on Chaldea's hills,
Tending his flocks,--

And wonders the rich beacon doth not blaze,
Gladdening his gaze;

And, from his dreary watch along the rocks,
Guiding him safely home through perilous ways!
How stands he in amaze,

Still wondering, as the drowsy silence fills
The sorrowful scene, and every hour distils
Its leaden dews--how chafes he at the night,
Still slow to bring the expected and sweet light,
So natural to his sight!

And lone,

Where its first splendours shone,

Shall be that pleasant company of stars:
How should they know that death

Such perfect beauty mars;

And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath,
Fallen from on high,

Their lights grow blasted by its touch, and die-
All their concerted springs of harmony,
Snapp'd rudely, and the generous music gone.

A strain-a mellow strain-

Of wailing sweetness, fill'd the earth and sky;
The stars lamenting in unborrow'd pain
That one of the selectest ones must die;
Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!
Alas! 'tis ever more the destiny,

The hope, heart-cherish'd, is the soonest lost;
The flower first budded soonest feels the frost:
Are not the shortest-lived still loveliest?
And, like the pale star shooting down the sky,
Look they not ever brightest when they fly
The desolate home they bless'd?

« AnteriorContinuar »