章节正文
There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if
the flash might pass through them, - but the fire must come down
from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy NIMBUS of youthful passion
has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged CIRRUS of
dissolving aspirations, or the silvered CUMULUS of sluggish
satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom
living ones no longer worship, - the immortal maid, who, name her
what you will, - Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty, - sits by the
pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead
until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his
dreams.
MUSA.
O MY lost Beauty! - hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?
Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,
Whose flowers are silvered hair! -
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?
Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shine
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
And lapped in Orient seas,
When all their feathery palm toss, plume-like, in the breeze.
Come to me! - thou shalt feed on honied words,
Sweeter than song of birds; -
No wailing bulbul's throat,
No melting dulcimer's melodious note,
When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float,
Thy ravished sense might soothe
With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.
Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen,
Sought in those bowers of green
Where loop the clustered vines
And the close-clinging dulcamara twines, -
Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines,
And Summer's fruited gems,
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.
Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, -
Or stretched by grass-grown graves,
Whose gray, high-shouldered stones,
Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns,
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones
Still slumbering where they lay
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.
Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!
Still let me dream and sing, -
Dream of that winding shore
Where scarlet cardinals bloom, - for me no more, -
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,
And clustering nenuphars
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!
Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed! -
Come while the rose is red, -
While blue-eyed Summer smiles
On the green ripples round you sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,
And on the sultry air
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!
Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain
With thrills of wild sweet pain! -
On life's autumnal blast,
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast, -
Once loving thee, we love thee to the last! -
Behold thy new-decked shrine,
And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"
CHAPTER XI.
[THE company looked a little flustered one morning when I came in,
- so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-
student,) what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow
whom they call John had taken advantage of my being a little late
(I having been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to
circulate several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,
- in short, containing that indignity to the human understanding,
condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the
last century and the illustrioushistorian of the present, which I
cited on a former occasion, and known as a PUN. After breakfast,
one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some
of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of
them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless
talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the
presence of more reflective natures. - It was asked, "Why tertian
and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some
interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested.
The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry
equivocation, that they SKIP a day or two. - "Why an Englishman
must go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer
proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as
no better reason is given than that island- (or, as it is absurdly
written, ILE AND) water won't mix. - But when I came to the next
question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a
virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of
sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated
community an individual could be found to answer it in these words,
- "Because it smell odious," QUASI, it's melodious, - is not
credible, but too true. I can show you the paper.
Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know
most conversations reported in books are altogether above such
trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as
purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This
young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly
well; but he didn't, - he made jokes.]
I am willing, - I said, - to exercise your ingenuity in a rational
and contemplative manner. - No, I do not proscribe certain forms of
philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd
or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio
of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations,
"De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours
to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend
the Professor.
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE:
OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."
A LOGICAL STORY.
HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it - ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
GEORGIUS SECUNDUS was then alive, -
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, - lurking still
Find it somewhere you must and will, -
Above or below, or within or without, -
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise BREASTS DOWN, but doesn't WEAR OUT.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell YEOU,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it COULDN' break daown -
- "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, -
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," -
Last of its timber, - they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through." -
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."
Do! I tell you, I father guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grand-children - where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; - it came and found
The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; -
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; -
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. - You're welcome. - No extra charge.)
the flash might pass through them, - but the fire must come down
from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy NIMBUS of youthful passion
has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged CIRRUS of
dissolving aspirations, or the silvered CUMULUS of sluggish
satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom
living ones no longer worship, - the immortal maid, who, name her
what you will, - Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty, - sits by the
pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead
until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his
dreams.
MUSA.
O MY lost Beauty! - hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?
Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,
Whose flowers are silvered hair! -
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?
Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shine
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
And lapped in Orient seas,
When all their feathery palm toss, plume-like, in the breeze.
Come to me! - thou shalt feed on honied words,
Sweeter than song of birds; -
No wailing bulbul's throat,
No melting dulcimer's melodious note,
When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float,
Thy ravished sense might soothe
With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.
Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen,
Sought in those bowers of green
Where loop the clustered vines
And the close-clinging dulcamara twines, -
Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines,
And Summer's fruited gems,
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.
Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, -
Or stretched by grass-grown graves,
Whose gray, high-shouldered stones,
Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns,
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones
Still slumbering where they lay
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.
Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!
Still let me dream and sing, -
Dream of that winding shore
Where scarlet cardinals bloom, - for me no more, -
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,
And clustering nenuphars
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!
Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed! -
Come while the rose is red, -
While blue-eyed Summer smiles
On the green ripples round you sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,
And on the sultry air
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!
Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain
With thrills of wild sweet pain! -
On life's autumnal blast,
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast, -
Once loving thee, we love thee to the last! -
Behold thy new-decked shrine,
And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"
CHAPTER XI.
[THE company looked a little flustered one morning when I came in,
- so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-
student,) what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow
whom they call John had taken advantage of my being a little late
(I having been rather longer than usual dressing that morning) to
circulate several questions involving a quibble or play upon words,
- in short, containing that indignity to the human understanding,
condemned in the passages from the distinguished moralist of the
last century and the illustrioushistorian of the present, which I
cited on a former occasion, and known as a PUN. After breakfast,
one of the boarders handed me a small roll of paper containing some
of the questions and their answers. I subjoin two or three of
them, to show what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless
talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not restrained by the
presence of more reflective natures. - It was asked, "Why tertian
and quartan fevers were like certain short-lived insects." Some
interesting physiological relation would be naturally suggested.
The inquirer blushes to find that the answer is in the paltry
equivocation, that they SKIP a day or two. - "Why an Englishman
must go to the Continent to weaken his grog or punch." The answer
proves to have no relation whatever to the temperance-movement, as
no better reason is given than that island- (or, as it is absurdly
written, ILE AND) water won't mix. - But when I came to the next
question and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a
virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano" is a query that a person of
sensibility would be slow to propose; but that in an educated
community an individual could be found to answer it in these words,
- "Because it smell odious," QUASI, it's melodious, - is not
credible, but too true. I can show you the paper.
Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such things. I know
most conversations reported in books are altogether above such
trivial details, but folly will come up at every table as surely as
purslain and chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This
young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I know perfectly
well; but he didn't, - he made jokes.]
I am willing, - I said, - to exercise your ingenuity in a rational
and contemplative manner. - No, I do not proscribe certain forms of
philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd
or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio
of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations,
"De Sancto Matrimonio." I will therefore turn this levity of yours
to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend
the Professor.
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE:
OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS-SHAY."
A LOGICAL STORY.
HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it - ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
GEORGIUS SECUNDUS was then alive, -
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always SOMEWHERE a weakest spot, -
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, - lurking still
Find it somewhere you must and will, -
Above or below, or within or without, -
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise BREASTS DOWN, but doesn't WEAR OUT.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell YEOU,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it COULDN' break daown -
- "Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, -
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," -
Last of its timber, - they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through." -
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."
Do! I tell you, I father guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grand-children - where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; - it came and found
The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; -
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; -
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. - You're welcome. - No extra charge.)
- youthful [´ju:θfəl]
a.年轻的；青年的 (初中英语单词) - lightning [´laitniŋ] n.闪电 a.突然的 (初中英语单词)
- worship [´wə:ʃip] n.&v.崇拜；敬仰 (初中英语单词)
- immortal [i´mɔ:təl] a.不死的n.不朽的人物 (初中英语单词)
- goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
- careless [´keəlis] a.粗心的；草率的 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
- midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
- moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
- scarlet [´skɑ:lit] n.猩红色 a.猩红的 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- liquid [´likwid] n.液体 a.流动的 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- advantage [əd´vɑ:ntidʒ] n.优势；利益 (初中英语单词)
- tendency [´tendənsi] n.趋势；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- continent [´kɔntinənt] n.大陆，陆地 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- altogether [,ɔ:ltə´geðə] ad.完全；总而言之 (初中英语单词)
- philosophy [fi´lɔsəfi] n.哲学；人生观 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- involve [in´vɔlv] vt.卷缠；包括；使专注 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- timber [´timbə] n.木材；木料；横梁 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
- orient [´ɔ:riənt] n.东方 a.东方的 (高中英语单词)
- strain [strein] vt.拉紧 vi.拖 n.张力 (高中英语单词)
- sleepy [´sli:pi] a.困的，想睡的 (高中英语单词)
- pilgrim [´pilgrim] n.旅行者；香客 (高中英语单词)
- sunken [´sʌŋkən] sink的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- illustrious [i´lʌstriəs] a.杰出的，显赫的 (高中英语单词)
- historian [his´tɔ:riən] n.历史学家 (高中英语单词)
- weaken [´wi:kən] v.(使)弱化；衰弱；稀薄 (高中英语单词)
- ingenuity [,indʒi´nju:iti] n.创造性；机灵 (高中英语单词)
- speculation [,spekju´leiʃən] n.思索，推测；投机 (高中英语单词)
- reverend [´revərənd] a.可尊敬的 (高中英语单词)
- parson [´pɑ:sən] n.教区牧师 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- haggard [´hægəd] a.憔悴的 (英语四级单词)
- logical [´lɔdʒikəl] a.逻辑(上)的 (英语四级单词)
- tanner [´tænə] n.制革工人 (英语四级单词)
- masterpiece [´mɑ:stəpi:s] n.杰作；杰出的事 (英语四级单词)
- sultry [´sʌltri] a.狂(闷)热的；风骚的 (英语六级单词)
- deacon [´di:kən] n.(教会的)执事 (英语六级单词)
- hundredth [´hʌndridθ] num.第一百(个) (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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