The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool,
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You’ll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you’ll come sometimes and see me, where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive me now;
You’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.
If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Though you’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say,
And be often, often with you, when you think I’m far away.
Good-night, good-night! when I have said good-night for evermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:
She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:
Let her take ’em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:
But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rose-bush that I set
About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.

The poor girl’s prayer to ‘live to see the snow-drop,’ in the spring-time, is answered. The violets have come forth, and in the fields around she hears the bleating of the young lambs. She is now ready to die, and knows that the time of her departure is at hand, for she has had a ‘warning from heaven.’ The reader should have sat by the bed-side of one slowly fading away by consumption, and have heard the wild March wind wail amidst the boughs of leafless trees without, rightly to appreciate the faithfulness of these lines:

‘I did not hear the dog howl, mother, nor hear the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet:
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I pray’d for both, and so I felt resign’d,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen’d in my bed,
And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, ‘It’s not for them: it’s mine.’
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seem’d to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.’

‘This blessed music,’ she says, ‘went that way my soul will have to go.’ She is reconciled to her inevitable fate; yet still she casts a ‘longing, lingering look behind,’ to the beautiful world she is leaving forever. Her reflections are imbued with a deep pathos; the second line of the first stanza, especially, ‘teems with sensation:’

‘O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know:
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine,
Wild flowers are in the valley for other hands than mine!
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun;
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true:
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home,
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come;
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

We are indebted to a friend and correspondent at the Phillippine Islands, for two very instructive and amusing volumes, of which we intend the reader shall know more hereafter. The first is entitled ‘Portfolio Chinensis,’ or a collection of authentic Chinese State Papers, in the native language, illustrative of the history of the late important events in China, with a translation by J. Lewis Shuck; the second, a ‘Narrative of the late Proceedings and Events in China,’ by John Slade, editor of the ‘Canton Register.’ In looking over these publications, we are struck with the vigor and pertinacity with which, when once their minds were made up, the Chinese authorities pursued their object of abolishing opium forever from the celestial empire. Edicts against the ‘red-bristled foreigners’ from England, and the people of the American or ‘flower-flag nation,’ who should hoard up the smoking earth or vaporous drug, were enforced by others addressed to the natives, intended to lessen or annihilate the demand. The remonstrances with the opium-smokers themselves are exceedingly pungent. The ‘Great Emperor, quaking with wrath,’ having examined the whole matter, and ‘united the circumstances,’ saturates the High Commissioner Lin with his own bright ‘effulgence of reason,’ who thereupon promulges: ‘Although the opium exists among the outside barbarians, there is not a man of them who is willing to smoke it himself; but the natives of the flowery land are on the contrary with willing hearts led astray by them; and they exhaust their property and brave the prohibitions, by purchasing a commodity which inflicts injury upon their own vitals. Is not this supremely ridiculous! And that you part with your money to poison your own selves, is it not deeply lamentable! How is it that you allow men to befool you? Thus the fish covets the bait and forgets the hook; the miller-fly covets the candle-light, but forgets the fire. Ye bring misfortunes upon yourselves! Habits which are thus disastrous are unchangeable, being like the successive rolling of the waves of the sea. Is not your conduct egregiously strange? We the governor and Fooyuen have three times and five times again and again remonstrated with and exhorted you, giving you lucid warning. Surely, you are indeed dreaming, and snoring in your dreams!’ These multiplied edicts, and the offers of rewards, to ‘encourage repentant and fear-stricken hearts,’ seem to have led to a little trickery on the part of certain cunning mandarins, if we interpret aright this clause in an ensuing ‘lucid warning:’ ‘The opium-pipes which are delivered up must be distinguished clearly as to whether they are real or false. Those having on the outside of them the marks of use, and within the oily residue of the smoke, are the genuine ones; and those which are made of new bamboo, and merely moistened with the smoky oil, are the false ones.’ A ‘spec.’ had evidently been made by means of false ‘smoking-implements.’ But the most amusing portions of these volumes are the vermillion edicts against the ‘outside barbarians,’ who had irritated the sacred wrath to the cutting off of their trade. The estimates of the Fooyuen, it will be seen, are of that vague kind usually designated among us as ‘upward of considerable.’ Alluding to the ‘blithesome profits’ which had accrued from an intercourse with China, he says: ‘I find that during the last several tens of years the money out of which you have duped our people, by means of your destructive drug, amounts I know not to how many tens of thousands of myriads. Your ships, which in former years amounted annually to no more than several tens, now exceed a hundred and several tens, which arrive here every year. I would like to ask you if in the wide earth under heaven you can find such another profit-yielding market as this is? Our great Chinese Emperor views all mankind with equal benevolence, and therefore it is that he has thus graciously permitted you to trade, and become as it were steeped to the lips in gain. If this port of Canton, however, were to be shut against you, how could you scheme to reap profit more? Moreover, our tea and rhubarb are articles which ye foreigners from afar cannot preserve your lives without; yet year by year we allow you to export both beyond seas, without the slightest feeling of grudge on our part. Never was imperial goodness greater than this! Formerly, the prohibitions of our empire might still be considered indulgent, and therefore it was that from all our ports the sycee leaked out as the opium rushed in: now, however, the Great Emperor, on hearing of it, actually quivers with indignation, and before he will stay his hand the evil must be completely and entirely done away with.’ But these denunciations are not unmingled with incitements to fear in another direction: ‘You are separated from your homes by several tens of thousands of miles, and a ship which comes and goes is exposed to the perils of the great and boundless ocean, arising from curling waves, contrary tides, thunders and lightnings, and the howling tempest, as well as the jeopardy of crocodiles and whales! Heaven’s chastisements should be regarded with awe. The majesty and virtue of our Great Emperor is the same with that of heaven itself! Our celestial dynasty soothes and tranquillizes the central and foreign lands, and our favor flows most wide. Our central empire is exuberant in all kinds of productions, and needs not in the slightest degree whatever the goods of the outer seas.’ As matters are about proceeding to an open rupture with the ‘red-bristled foreigners,’ and preparations are making to ‘fire upon them with immense guns,’ there ensues a bit of Chinese diplomacy, which is especially rich. After a long interview by a committee with the Chefoo, during which all sorts of arguments are urged upon Snow, the American Consul, and Van Basel, the Netherlands Consul, to induce them to sign a ‘duly-prepared bond,’ that none of their countrymen shall thenceforth bring opium to China, the audience is suddenly closed with: ‘To-morrow the Chefoo will be at the Consoo-house, and wait from nine till night to receive the bonds. Now go home and go to bed!’ But enough for the nonce of John Chinaman. ••• In alluding to Mr. Cole’s graphic account of the Ascent of Mount Ætna, in our last issue, we spoke of its late eruption. While reading the proof of that portion of our ‘Gossip,’ a friend handed us a letter lately received from an American missionary lady at the Sandwich Islands, from which we extract the subjoined vivid description of the great volcano at Hawaii: ‘You know,’ says the writer, ‘something, I suppose, of the geological character of this island. It seems as though a vast crater had boiled over and poured its fiery liquid in every direction. This lava, having cooled and hardened, forms the basis of the island. The district of Kau is a rich, luxuriant spot, surrounded by desolate fields of scoriæ, which renders it difficult of access. We are situated six miles from the sea, sufficiently elevated to give us a commanding view of its vast expanse of waters. We can occasionally spy a sail floating like a speck on its surface. From the shore, the country gradually rises into a range of verdant mountains, whose summits appear to touch the clouds. Proceeding northward toward Hilo, there is a gradual rise, until you reach the Great Volcano, about six miles distant. In making the tour to Hilo, we camped here the second night, on the brink of the burning gulf. Suppose a vast area of earth, as large as the bay of New-York, to have fallen in to the depth of several thousand feet. At the bottom of this great cauldron, you behold the liquid fire boiling and bubbling up, partly covered with a thick black scum. There are two or three inner craters, which have been formed by the lava cooling on its sides while the liquid sunk below. The gentlemen mostly descended into this crater, but I was fully satisfied with a look from above. The earth is cracked all around at the top, and portions of it are continually falling in. Steam issues from open places in all the region. This volcano has been in action from time immemorial, as the natives all assert, and has been with them an object of idolatrous worship. The range of mountains continues for some thirty miles beyond this, and terminates in the snow-capped summit of Mounadoa. This mountain is in full sight at Hilo, and about thirty miles distant. Since we have been here it has been the scene of the most wonderful volcanic eruptions ever yet seen on this island. Mr. P–, in company with Mr. C–, visited it a week or two since, and ascended the mountain to the old crater, from whence the flood of lava proceeded. Fire has not been seen in it within the remembrance of the oldest natives. An immense river of burning lava is at this time running down the side of the mountain, in a subterraneous channel, from three to four miles wide. They had a good view of it through air-holes in the lava, over which they were walking, which was like a sea of glass; frequently sinking in different places in consequence of the intense heat below. It will probably yet find its way to the surface somewhere, and, laying prostrate every thing that opposes it, pursue its devastating course to the sea. Truly we live in a world of wonders!’ ••• By the by, speaking of volcanos: it will be remembered that in 1831 an island was thrown up by volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean sea, off the south coast of Sicily. It presented the form of a round hill, about one hundred and twenty feet above the sea’s level, with thick clouds of white smoke issuing from it. As may well be imagined, it excited great wonder and curiosity, and was visited by vast numbers of people. An Austrian, a French and a British vessel met there at the same time. A dispute arose as to what power the island should belong, what it should be named, etc.; when a British sailor leaped on shore, and planted on the topmost peak the union-jack. Nine cheers proclaimed Britannia victorious. On returning shortly after, to take another look at their newly-acquired possession, they found to their dismay that, like Aladdin’s palace, the island had disappeared, leaving the Mediterranean as smooth as if the magic wonder had never reared its head! This circumstance suggested the following lines by a correspondent:

Father Neptune, one day, as he traversed the seas,
Much wanted a spot to recline at his ease:
For long tossed and tired by the billow’s commotion,
‘’Tis a shame,’ cried the god, ‘I’m confined to the ocean.
I’ll have an island!’ To Vulcan he flew,
Saying, ‘Help me this time, and in turn I’ll help you.
To make a new island’s an excellent scheme;
And I think, my dear Vulcan, we’ll raise it by steam.’
‘Agreed!’ cried the god.
Straight to work they repair,
And throw an abundance of smoke in the air.
This mariners saw, and it did them affright;
They straightway concluded all could not be right.
‘We’ll to Sicily repair, and appeal to powers civil,
For certainly this is the work of the devil!’
The Austrians and French came the wonder to view:
Said Britain, in anger, ‘That isle’s not for you!
For us, us alone, did Britannia design it,
And, d’ ye see, we’ll be d–d if we ever resign it!
On that island we’ll land! there our standard we’ll raise!
We will there plant our jack, if the island should blaze!’
The gods, in great wrath, heard all this contention:
‘Dear Neptune,’ said Vul., ‘this has spoiled our invention.’
‘It has,’ said the god, ‘but, I swear by my trident,
The proud sons of Britain shall never abide on ’t!
It was raised for a god, and no vile worthless mortal
On that island shall dwell, to eat oysters and turtle.
Down! down with it, Vul., that will best end the quarrel,
And I’ll be content with my old bed of coral.’

‘Milk for Babes,’ an elaborately-concocted satire upon a certain class of ‘learned and pious hand-books for urchins of both sexes,’ is not without humor, and ridicules what indeed in some respects deserves animadversion. We affect as little as our correspondent what has been rightly termed ‘a clumsy fumbling for the half-formed intellect, a merciless hunting down of the tender and unfledged thought,’ through the means of ‘instructive’ little books, wherein an insipid tale goes feebly wriggling through an unmerciful load of moral, religious and scientific preaching; or an apparently simple dialogue involves subjects of the highest difficulty, which are chattered over between two juvenile prodigies, or delivered to them in mouthfuls, curiously adapted to their powers of swallowing. ‘The minor manners and duties,’ says our correspondent, ‘are quite overlooked by misguided parents now-a-days;’ and this he illustrates by an anecdote: ‘Thomas, my son,’ said a father to a lad in my hearing, the other day, ‘won’t you show the gentleman your last composition?’ ‘I don’t want to,’ said he. ‘I wish you would,’ responded the father. ‘I wont!’ was the reply; ‘I’ll be goy-blamed if I do!’ A sickly, half-approving smile passed over the face of the father, as he said, in extenuation of his son’s brusquerie: ‘Tom don’t lack manners generally; but the fact is, he’s got such a cold, he is almost a fool!’ Kind parent! happy boy! ••• We would counsel such of our readers as can command it, to secure the perusal of ‘Hugh Adamson’s Reply to John Campbell,’ in the matter of international copy-right. Mr. Campbell, being a paper dealer, and greatly benefitted in his business by the increased sale of stock consequent upon the influx of cheap republications, is naturally very anxious to prevent the passage of an international copy-right law. As might be anticipated of such an advocate, his real reasons are all based upon the argumentum ad crumenam, the argument to the purse. Mr. Adamson, in a few satirical, well-reasoned, sententious paragraphs, has fairly demolished the superstructure which Selfishness had reared, and exposed the misrepresentations upon which alone the unsubstantial fabric could have rested. It is quiet and good-natured, but cutting; and will act as an antidote to the elaborate sophistry of Mr. Campbell’s ambitious brochure. ••• We think we shall publish ‘L. D. Q.’s ‘Parody;’ but should like him to change the third stanza, which is ‘like a mildewed ear, blasting its wholesome brothers.’ The other verses are capital. One of the cleverest modern parodies which we remember, was written in a Philadelphia journal, and touched upon some exciting city event, before the Court of Sessions. It was in the measure of ‘The Cork Leg,’ and ran somewhat as follows:

‘The defendant said that it was too bad
To be taken up before Judge Con-rad.
·····
Now Mr. H–, the lawyer, was there,
With a pretty good head, but not very much hair,