Unto itself of happiness; and in truth Of pleasure which the social never know. Bryan W. Procter. The Minstrel's Song in Ella. Oh! sing unto my roundelay; Oh! drop the briny tear with me; Like a running river be; My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Black his hair as the winter night, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Sweet his tongue as throstle's note, Quick in dance as thought was hie; Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; Oh! he lies by the willow-tree. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Hark! the raven flaps his wing, In the briered dell below: Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing, To the nightmares as they go. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. See! the white moon shines on high, Whiter than the evening cloud. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Here, upon my true-love's grave, Nor one holy saint to save Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. With my hands I'll bind the briers, Here my body still shall be. My love is dead, All under the willow-tree. Come with acorn cup and thorn, Drain my heart's blood all away; Life and all its good I scorn, Dance by night, or feast by day. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Water-witches, crowned with reytes, I die I come-my true-love waits. Chatterton. Death of Long Tom Coffin. Lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest. 'God's will be done with me,' he cried: 'I saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it turn out of her bottom; after which I wish to live no longer.' But his shipmates were far beyond the sounds of his voice before these were half uttered. All command of the boat was rendered impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the surf; and as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time. It fell into a trough of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the adjoining rocks. The cockswain [Tom] still remained where he had cast off the rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals, on the waves, some making powerful and well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell, and others wildly tossed, in the frantic movements of helpless despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy as he saw Barnstable [the commander whom Tom had forced into the boat] issue from the surf, where one by one several seamen soon appeared also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried in a similar manner to places of safety; though, as Tom returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal from his reluctant eyes the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, driven against the rocks with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward vestiges of humanity. Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their dreadful station. The former stood in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the scene; but as his curdled blood began again to flow more warmly to his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in participation with another. 'When the tide falls,' he said in a voice that betrayed the agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, 'we shall be able to walk to land.' 'There was One and only One to whose feet the waters were the same as a dry deck,' returned the cockswain; 'and none but such as have His power will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the sands.' The old seaman paused, and turning his eyes, which exhib ited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, on his companion, he added with reverence: 'Had you thought more of Him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied in this tempest.' 'Do you still think there is much danger?' asked Dillon. 'To them that have reason to fear death. Listen! Do you hear that hollow noise beneath ye?' "'Tis the wind driving by the vessel!' "Tis the poor thing herself,' said the affected cockswain, 'giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave, will be like the chips that fell from her in framing!' 'Why then did you remain here?' cried Dillon wildly. To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God,' returned Tom. These waves are to me what the land is to you: I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave.' 'But I-I,' shrieked Dillon, 'I am not ready to die!—I cannot die! I will not die!' 'Poor wretch!' muttered his companion, 'you must go like the rest of us; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster.' 'I can swim,' Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the side of the wreck. 'Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?' 'None; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God.' 'God!' echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy, 'I know no God! there is no God that knows me!' 'Peace!' said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; blasphemer, peace!' The heavy groaning, produced by the water in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea. The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of these countercurrents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the 'under-tow,' Dillon had un knowingly thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance, and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmates on the sands. 'Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow! Sheer to the southward!' Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction until his face was once more turned toward the vessel. Tom looked around him for a rope, but all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the desperate Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow to exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterward, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking form of the victim as it gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and feet to gain the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of allotted probation. 'He will soon meet his God, and learn that his God knows him!' murmured the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, the wreck of the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and after a universal shudder, her timbers and planks gave way, and were swept toward the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted cockswain among the ruins. The Character of Falstaff. James F. Cooper. Falstaff's wit is an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberation of good-humor and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter and good-fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease |