The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861. Various

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861 - Various


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eternal summers flow

      And refluent drown in song all moan,

      Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and haste

      Through heaven. And I shall be no more alone!"

      "What a voice she sings with to-night!" said Marguerite. "It is stripped of all its ornamental disguises,—so slender, yet piercing!"

      "A needle can pain like a sword-blade. There goes the moon in clouds.

      Hark! What was that? A cry?" And he started to his feet.

      "No," she said,—"it is only the wild music of the lake, the voices of shadows calling to shadows."

      "There it is again, but fainter; the wind carries it the other way."

      "It is a desolating wind."

      "And the light on the land is like that of eclipse!"

      He stooped and raised her and folded her in his arms.

      "I have a strange, terrible sense of calamity, Mignonné!" he said.

      "Let it strike, so it spare you!"

      "Nothing can harm us," she replied, clinging to him. "Even death cannot come between us!"

      "Marguerite!" said Mr. Laudersdale, entering, "where is your mother?"

      "She went down to the lake, Sir."

      "She cannot possibly have gone out upon it!"

      "Oh, she frequently does; and so do we all."

      "But this high wind has risen since. The flaws"–And he went out hastily.

      There flashed on Mr. Raleigh's mental sight a vision of the moonlit lake, one instant. A boat, upon its side, bending its white sail down the depths; a lifted arm wound in the fatal rope; a woman's form, hanging by that arm, sustained in the dark transparent tide of death; the wild wind blowing over, the moonlight glazing all. For that instant he remained still as stone; the next, he strode away, and dashed down to the lake-shore. It seemed as if his vision yet continued. They had already put out in boats; he was too late. He waited in ghastly suspense till they rowed home with their slow freight. And then his arm supported the head with its long, uncoiling, heavy hair, and lifted the limbs, round which the drapery flowed like a pall on sculpture, till another man took the burden from him and went up to the house with his dead.

      * * * * *

      When Mr. Raleigh entered the house again, it was at break of dawn. Some one opened the library-door and beckoned him in. Marguerite sprang into his arms.

      "What if she had died?" said Mrs. Purcell, with her swift satiric breath, and folding a web of muslin over her arm. "See! I had got out the shroud. As it is, we drink skål and say grace at breakfast. The funeral baked-meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-feast. You men are all alike. Le Roi est mort? Vive la Reine!"

      * * * * *

      PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

      Listen, my children, and you shall hear

      Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

      On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:

      Hardly a man is now alive

      Who remembers that famous day and year.

      He said to his friend,—"If the British march

      By land or sea from the town to-night,

      Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch

      Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—

      One if by land, and two if by sea;

      And I on the opposite shore will be,

      Ready to ride and spread the alarm

      Through every Middlesex village and farm,

      For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

      Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar

      Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

      Just as the moon rose over the bay,

      Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

      The Somersett, British man-of-war:

      A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

      Across the moon, like a prison-bar,

      And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified

      By its own reflection in the tide.

      Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street

      Wanders and watches with eager ears,

      Till in the silence around him he hears

      The muster of men at the barrack-door,

      The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

      And the measured tread of the grenadiers

      Marching down to their boats on the shore.

      Then he climbed to the tower of the church,

      Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

      To the belfry-chamber overhead,

      And startled the pigeons from their perch

      On the sombre rafters, that round him made

      Masses and moving shapes of shade,—

      Up the light ladder, slender and tall,

      To the highest window in the wall,

      Where he paused to listen and look down

      A moment on the roofs of the town,

      And the moonlight flowing over all.

      Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead

      In their night-encampment on the hill,

      Wrapped in silence so deep and still,

      That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,

      The watchful night-wind, as it went

      Creeping along from tent to tent,

      And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"

      A moment only he feels the spell

      Of the place and the hour, the secret dread

      Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

      For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

      On a shadowy something far away,

      Where the river widens to meet the bay,—

      A line of black, that bends and floats

      On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

      Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

      Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,

      On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere

      Now he patted his horse's side,

      Now gazed on the landscape far and near,

      Then impetuous stamped the earth,

      And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;

      But mostly he watched with eager search

      The belfry-tower of the old North Church,

      As it rose above the graves on the hill,

      Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.

      And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height,

      A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

      He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

      But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

      A second lamp in the belfry burns!

      A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,

      A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

      And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

      Struck


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