The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851

Now thy vigil ended;
With the coming of the sun,
Grief and joy are blended.

Grief that thus thy flower of love
From its stem is riven;
Joy that will bloom above,
Midst the bowers of Heaven.

Gone, as oft expires the light
Of thy nightly taper:
Gone, as 'fore the sunshine bright,
Early morning's vapor.

Kiss its lips so mute and cold,
Cold as chiselled marble,
They will now to harp of gold
Glad Hosannas warble.

At the last they sweetly smiled,
Told it not for gladness;
Would'st thou now recall thy child
To a world of sadness?

It is hard to gather up,
Ties so rudely riven;
But thou'lt find this bitter cup
For thy weal was given.

Kiss again its hands so white,
Kiss its marble forehead;
Soon the grave will hide from sight,
That thou only borrowed.

Thou will meet thy child again,
Where no death or sorrow
Bring their sad to-day of pain,
And their dread to-morrow.

THE AMBITIOUS BROOKLET

BY A. OAKEY HALL

CHAPTER I

How the Brooklet was born; and lodged; and wandered off one rainy day.

There was once a Brooklet born of a modest spring that circled through a smiling meadow. All the hours of the Spring, and the Summer, and the Autumn, kept she her musical round; greeting the sun at his rising, together with the meadow-larks which came to dip their beaks in the sparkling water-drops; and singing to the moon and stars all night, as she bore their features within her bosom, in grateful remembrance of their beauty. The laborer in the field hard by often came to visit her, and wet his honest, toil-browned brow with her cooling drops; and often, too, the laborer's daughter came at sunset time to sit by a mossy stone, with so lovely a face that the Brooklet, as she mirrored the features of the beautiful visitor, leaped about the pebbles with ripplings of admiration.

And so this Brooklet lived on, only ceasing her merry flow and circling journey when the bushes by her side became white with snow, and when the rabbits from the brushwood fence at her head came out to stand upon the slippery casing that the Brooklet often saw spreading over her, and shutting out the warm sunshine by day, and at nightfall blurring the radiance of moon and stars.

One stormy spring day the Brooklet seemed to rise higher among the twigs of the alder-bushes than ever before; the rain came down faster and heavier, and beat into her bosom, until her tiny waves were rough and sore with pain, and she was fain to nestle closer to the sedgy grass that now bent lowly to the pebbles at the roots. Growing higher every minute was the Brooklet; and frightened somewhat, and longing for the sunlight, or the laborer, and for the lovely daughter's face to cheer her up, she looked off over a track of country wider and greener than she had ever seen before. And so the Brooklet, all frightened as she was, said to herself, "I'll run along a bit into this country spot, so wide and green, and maybe I shall find the sunlight and the lovely face."

Faster came the rain; and so the Brooklet, leaping wildly over a rock whose top until then her eyes had never seen, went flowing on upon this country spot, so wide and green. The new sights coming in view at every bound quite made the Brooklet forget her terrors from the beating rain; she was pained no longer by the heavy drops, but soothed herself among the velvet grass; and turned between little flowers scarcely above the ground, and which, as she passed them, seemed to be as frightened by the wind and rain as herself had been before the meadow was left behind.

The Brooklet had thus run on until she saw the country spot so wide and green was well passed over, and trees and bushes, darker and thicker than she had ever known before, were close at hand. And while she thought of stopping in her way and going back, she heard not far before an echo of a sound most like unto her own; and so kept on to find it out. Clearer and louder increased the sound, as now through mouldy leaves and dark thickets, and under decayed logs and insect-burrowed moss, she kept a course, until presently, over a fallen tree, she saw a Brooklet, larger, wider, and evidently much older than herself, which, on her near approach, ran by the fallen tree's side, and said, "Good morning, sister: what is so delicate a being, as you seem to be, doing in this dark forest?"

The wanderer Brooklet became silent with wonder. She had never been addressed before, though often trying to talk with the laborer, and to the lovely face of her meadow acquaintance, without the slightest notice upon their part of the overtures.

"Good morning, sister, I say," was repeated over the fallen tree. "Where are you going at so slow a pace? Come over, and let us talk a bit."

"I cannot, for I am terribly frightened, and I've lost my way. I want to quit this dark place, and go where I can hear the lark again, and see the pretty face which used to look at mine when I was circling in yonder meadow, now, I fear, far, far behind."

"Larks and pretty faces, indeed! Why what a spooney sister, you are, to be sure. I'll show you more birds than ever you heard sing before, and prettier faces than ever you saw before."

"No, no, I must go back," replied the wanderer; "I have come too far already, and see, the rain has almost ceased."

"More's the pity for that," returned the other; "the faster it rains the faster I go, and that is what I want. I have left my family brooks a long time since, and I'm going on my travels to be somebody. I'm tired of my lonesome life among the meadows. I'm the ambitious Brooklet. Come over, then, and go along; we'll travel the faster in company."

"I'm not ambitious; and as you may see, I cannot come."

"You're almost to the log top now. I'll kiss you soon," triumphed the ambitious Brooklet, circling gayly round a tuft of green.

It must have been the terrible rain, or the fright of her dark journeying place, that had taken her strength away:—the wandering Brooklet felt that it must be: for now her strength of will was almost gone. Nearer the log top came in view, until with a bound she swept its polished surface, and with a dash came over upon the ambitious Brooklet.

"Good! that's the way to do it; now we shall journey gayly on," said the latter, "I have lost much time in stopping here, and there are such rare sights ahead!"

The wanderer felt the oddest sensations she had ever known, and said, "Sister—ambitious sister—how much warmer than I are you!"

"Oh, you are young, I suppose—fresh from the icy spring. But journey on more southward yet, away from these dark trees, and you'll be warmer yet; come, I say."

"I like your feel; but then I shall be lost, I know I shall; and so I'll stay behind."

"You cannot; for, ambitious as I am, I want your help. See how much faster we travel together when your strength is joined to mine; and I'm the strongest, and you can't go back."

The wandering Brooklet looked fearfully around, and saw indeed that the log she had leaped was now fast fading away, and felt that her strength became less and less as the ambitious Brooklet clung closer to her side.

Presently they came in sight of a ledge of rocks. "Oh, this is rare indeed!" said the stronger sister Brooklet, "Let us pause a bit for breath, and then for a merry leap adown the valley of pines you see before."

The Brooklets stopped, and became stronger, and leaped over the rocks; the one with an exulting bound—the other carried tremblingly along.

The leap was a long one, and a hard one; for there were craggy rocks beneath, which they had not seen. And the ambitious Brooklet cried sharply and loudly—foaming in her rage as she went between the stony points, and quite forgetting her weaker sister in her pain. The latter was sorely injured too, and cut into little foam-bits; but she kept her wits about her, looking around everywhere for a place to rest. Soon she espied one—a little bowl of marshy ground, hemmed in by rocks, into which a straggling dropping from the chasm above slowly came.

"Here will I go and rest," she said. So waiting for the ambitious Brooklet to get far out of sight, she collected all her strength for a jump into the bowl, where the drops came sparkling in. There was no need for fear of the sister on before; her she heard going over rock after rock, crying and wailing in her craggy journey. Then the tired wanderer, with a violent effort of her exhausted strength, jumped a rock and fell panting into the marshy bowl.

CHAPTER II

How the Brooklet lived on in her new quarters; and how misfortune made her discontented.

The dropping of the water from the rocks above her new abode, was cold and grateful to the Brooklet in her fevered state. It made her think of the spring she came from; and so of the meadow; and the alder-bushes; and the lovely face a weary way off now she knew, and fenced away from her return by cruel jagged rocks.