Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844

“Joyful surprise choked Albert’s words in his throat; but Maud drew him on, and displayed to him her glories from the fairy world.

“‘Let us leave nothing undone that may help our luck. Do you take the little wreath for the present. Such is the wish of the mysterious being, who required my attendance at the Fairies’ Sabbath.’

“Albert received the gift with a softened heart. He begged Maud’s forgiveness of his fault; she granted it willingly, and before four weeks had passed by, the lovers were man and wife.

“Of her adventure on Whitsun-eve, Maud never spoke. So much the more had her godmother Helen to say about it; for it was not difficult to guess that the fairies had had their prospering hand in the marriage of her godchild. The stone-mason now gave up his laborious calling. Albert became the master of a moderate property, which he diligently cultivated with his beloved Maud; and, as fair child after child was born to them, the happy mother laid upon the breast of each a shriveled leaf from the elfin chain, for so had her little guide counseled her, when she once, in a doubtful hour, had summoned him to her aid. Albert and Matilda reached a good old age; their children throve, and carefully preserved, like their parents, the gifts received from the subterranean folk, who continued their favour to them and to all their posterity.”

COLUMBUS

(A Print after a Picture by Parmeggiano.)

BY B. Simmons

I

Rise, Victor, from the festive board
Flush’d with triumphal wine,
And lifting high thy beaming sword,
Fired by the flattering Harper’s chord,
Who hymns thee half divine.
Vow at the glutted shrine of Fate
That dark-red brand to consecrate!
Long, dread, and doubtful was the fray
That gives the stars thy name to-day.
But all is over; round thee now
Fame shouts, spoil pours, and captives bow,
No stormier joy can Earth impart,
Than thrills in lightning through thy heart.

II

Gay Lover, with the soft guitar,
Hie to the olive-woods afar,
And to thy friend, the listening brook,
Alone reveal that raptured look;
The maid so long in secret loved—
A parent’s angry will removed—
This morning saw betrothèd thine,
That Sire the pledge, consenting, blest,
Life bright as motes in golden wine,
Is dancing in thy breast.

III

Statesman astute, the final hour
Arrives of long-contested Power;
Each crafty wile thine ends to aid,
Party and principle betray’d;
The subtle speech, the plan profound,
Pursued for years, success has crown’d;
To-night the Vote upon whose tongue,
The nicely-poised Division hung,
Was thine—beneath that placid brow
What feelings throb exulting now!
Thy rival falls;—on grandeur’s base
Go shake the nations in his place!

IV

Fame, Love, Ambition! what are Ye,
With all your wasting passions’ war,
To the great Strife that, like a sea,
O’erswept His soul tumultuously,
Whose face gleams on me like a star—
A star that gleams through murky clouds—
As here begirt by struggling crowds
A spell-bound Loiterer I stand,
Before a print-shop in the Strand?
What are your eager hopes and fears
Whose minutes wither men like years—
Your schemes defeated or fulfill’d,
To the emotions dread that thrill’d
His frame on that October night,
When, watching by the lonely mast,
He saw on shore the moving light,
And felt, though darkness veil’d the sight,
The long-sought World was his at last?[18 - October 11, 1492.—“As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin, on the high poop of his vessel. However he might carry a cheerful and confident countenance during the day, it was to him a time of the most painful anxiety; and now, when he was wrapped from observation by the shades of night, he maintained an intense and unremitting watch, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon in search of the most vague indications of land. Suddenly, about ten o’clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a distance. Fearing that his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and enquired whether he saw a light in that direction; the latter replied in the affirmative. Columbus, yet doubtful whether it might not be some delusion of the fancy, called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and made the same enquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the roundhouse, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.”—Irving’s Columbus, vol. i.]

V

How Fancy’s boldest glances fail,
Contemplating each hurrying mood
Of thought that to that aspect pale
Sent up the heart’s o’erboiling flood
Through that vast vigil, while his eyes
Watch’d till the slow reluctant skies
Should kindle, and the vision dread,
Of all his livelong years be read!
In youth, his faith-led spirit doom’d
Still to be baffled and betray’d,
His manhood’s vigorous noon consumed
Ere Power bestow’d its niggard aid;
That morn of summer, dawning grey,[19 - “It was on Friday, the 3d of August 1492, early in the morning, that Columbus set sail on his first voyage of discovery. He departed from the bar of Saltes, a small island in front of the town of Huelva, steering in a south-westerly direction,” &c.—Irving. He was about fifty-seven years old the year of the Discovery.]
When, from Huelva’s humble bay,
He full of hope, before the gale
Turn’d on the hopeless World his sail,
And steer’d for seas untrack’d, unknown,
And westward still sail’d on—sail’d on—