102 SCHUBART, THE GERMAN PATRIOT-POET. of treachery to the wickedness of his malice. For ten long, weary years, Schubart expiated in chains in the fortress of Arnberg, the guilt of exercising freedom of speech. His sustenance was bread and water; his imprisonment one longprotracted agony. Whatever Schubart's errors may have beenand they shall have no palliation shown them beyond their desert from our pen-we almost forget them when the poet stands before us as the martyr of liberty. If we may judge from the spirit and language of some of his poems, their severity on the priesthood was but the expression of a man sorely indignant at their subserviency to tyrannic schemes; and some of his productions betray any thing but a disposition to fraternize with the sceptic or the blasphemer. His lines to his wife "On her Birthday," written from his prison, manifest a noble spirit as well as genuine poetic power. Ah, gentle one! already the last drop Of life. Ere now 'twas filled by drops whose power For freedom, and for thee and our dear ones! Be drunk. Then shall be thine the crown, the palm ; Meanwhile towards thee, Its shuddering way. For every glowing prayer, My grief, has knelt and begged of God deliverance; And for my rescue all in vain hast trod; For every pang which thy true heart hath felt The man whose soul breathed itself forth in the pathos of these lines, was certainly no stranger to generous affection and noble sentiment, however greatly it may have erred. Schubart's poems appeared during his imprisonment, and soon became widely popular. The story of sad imprisonment interested all, alike in the poems and their author. Many a voice was heard lamenting his fate and interceding for his freedom. His liberation, however, which took place in 1787, was mainly due to the influence exerted in his behalf at the Würtemberg court by Madam Karschen, herself a poetess of no mean merit, and whose romantic history finds her born in an alehouse, employed in childhood to watch the cows; married to a weaver first, then to a drunken tailor; at length supporting herself by the sale of occasional poems of her own composition; thus attracting the attention of influential and literary men, till she acquired the appellation of the German Sappho, and was able to intercede successfully in behalf of a suffering and oppressed author, with whom her own experience had taught her to sympathize. Schubart on his liberation resumed the publication of his chronicle. Together with this, he devoted himself to musical studies and his own autobiography, which his death in 1791 found unfinished. A large part of Schubart's poems are objection able for inflated and unpolished matter, yet interspersed among them are some that flash with genius. They all betray an earnest, fearless spirit Honor be to the brave soul that dared to pour forth in words of fire its indignant rebuke of the spoliation of Poland, whose fate, "pale with woe," Schubart laments in one of the noblest of his poems. In his "Prince's Tomb," nothing can exceed in power the bitter mockery with which he exults over the defeat of malignant tyranny; all its lingering pride crumbling to dust, and fed upon by worms that hunt it out in its sepulchral prison, and turn its lofty pretensions to a jest. None bows before those tyrants now, none greets them, none THE FOP. wakes them from their iron sleep. And with the very venom of satire the poet speaks of others still beside their old attendants, who do not wait upon them now. The soldier with his crutch, whom they left unrewarded, though he bled for them; the boy whose father they took from him and executed-these are not there. And then, to close his poem, he presents the scene of the final judgment, to which the tyrant would be glad never to wake. Such a poem eighty years ago in Germany was a noticeable phenomenon. It was no ordinary mind, no ordinary heart that could produce it. We cannot be surprised that such a man had to travel the road to jail. "Schubart," says Menzel, in the few lines which he devotes to the poet, powder and bag wig. the French Revolution, all its fire was burning in his German soul. From his prison he sang with the voice of a lion, was a Timoleon, despite Twenty years even before 'Thou, sacred Freedom, lift for me Schubart was not a jurist or a statesman; but he was a patriotic poet. He felt more deeply and wrote more earnestly than any man of his time. The strength of his genius is lavished in the cause of freedom, and his poems that plead the cause of his country have hardly been surpassed since in the lofty and generous ardor of devotion which they express. His own experience, doubtless, gave their peculiar character to many of his poems, as, for instance, his SONG TO BACCHUS. Thou who, with chariot tiger-drawn, From shades beneath to heaven hast mounted, I sing thee, not as slave, inspired What spirit-murderer more dread Than thou-Fiend Bacchus thou? Thy fettered slaves, in the dark hour, Are hurled by thy resistless power To cheerless realms below. O ye--bloom of my Fatherland-Ye youth within whose breast The sacred fires of genius glow, When Bacchus blindly leads you to The bowl and maniac jest ; Then deem ye hear from the clear heaven This voice in thunder-tone, "Trust not the fiend: he lures to chains, And hidden snares, and bitter pains, And guilt for judgment sown. "Hath God on thee bestowed thy power Those arts to hold at bay? Oh, strict the account, then, to be given Ah! Bacchus, have I ever reeled THE FOP. - RY PARSON QUILL. 108 HE is a patent clothes-block, made of flesh; a thing to hang a suit on. The great end and object of his existence is to be dressed up. How many dollars' worth of materials can be hung upon him! For so small a piece of clay, his capacities are wonderful. He has conveniences for every form of covering and ornament that a man can wear. He has a place for mustaches and white handkerchiefs, and pegs to hang a great variety of gloves on. You can fasten rings and breast pins, and ruffles and gold chains, on him, so that there is not the least danger of their falling off. His head, little capacious of brain, can wear one of Genin's hate. His arms, little fitted for labor, are admirably fitted for sleeves and wristbands. His eyes mark the spot at which an opera-glass may be applied. His hair bears the marks of the barber's skill, by way of curious experiment. His lily fingers are usually found attached to a switch-cane. He is the tailor's walking advertisement; a model frame on which to hang the masterpiece of a fit, and send it through the streets for display. All deficiencies of shape are supplied by stuffed cotton. He is a live show case; a breathing mummy wrapped in broadcloth and set upon its feet. Speculations have been rife as to his value, considered in the light of an incarnate textbook of Anatomy. Political economy, at a loss how to provide for him among the productive forces of society, has discovered that, stripped of his flesh and what else serves to round the angles of joints and make his clothes fit, he can usually be made to answer as an admirable skeleton, discoursing wisdom to embryo practitioners. Physiology would exult to get possession of him, if she could discover the whereabouts of his exit from life, and for once turn him to a useful account. She considers that he can be made to demonstrate what never entered his own thoughts, the skill and wisdom of the great Maker. He little imagines, as he walks the streets, what a valuable addition he might make to an anatomical museum. Some of the phenomena of his existence are wonderful; and, for curiosity's sake, worthy a place in the records of Natural History. It is rarely that you see him abroad in the morning, unless he is going home from a party. You are strangely impressed by his modesty, that shuns so carefully the glare of early day. As the shadows lengthen, he makes his appearance. He is best seen by candle light. He is one of those flowers that open when the sun sets. When that is at its na lir, his glory is at its zenith. His appearance is peculiar. There is nothing else like it on earth-in the city or the forest. According to the second commandinent, it would scarcely be a sin to worship him. After you have seen him once, you never forget the sam. ple. One end of him is covered with patentleather, the other terminates with a hat or a roll of tobacco on fire, one hardly knows which There is something peculiar in his manner and look. His bows are exquisitely artificial. touches his hat as though your presence had disturbed it. One wonders at the process by which any thing so ludicrous as his manner could be acquired. Ile is never at loss whom of his acquaintances to recognize. He seems to discern kindred spirits by a sort of secret affinity. If your hat is a trifle seedy, he does not know you. If you are walking with a county acquaintance, you are both equally strangers. He has a wonderful faculty of suppressing all signs of thought or emotion. His features are as expressive as a smooth pebble-stone. One searches his countenance in vain to detect any thing like the traces of reflection. He would as soon pardon there the lines and deformity of wrinkles. He he will strike for Broadway. His gloves are bought at Stewart's. He would scorn the idea of being seen abroad in a Nassau street hat. He has a keen scent for young heiresses at boarding -chools. He willingly exposes himself to a ridicule of which he is unconscious, in order that he may draw a prize. He lavishes every thing but his thoughts in the lottery. These, from sheer necessity, he uses with great economy. He can make a little knowledge go farther than any man living. He has the art of blowing a drop of sense into a huge air-bubble, sometimes expanding it into a miniature fog that obscures itself. He will dress up some old thought in tricksy finery, as he does himself, till you fail to recognize an old acquaintance, and think homespun brilliant. Thus, in some kinds of company, he is a sort of oracle. His lack of sense and knowledge on some subjects, make him a Pythian shrine on others. On matters of taste and fashion he is presumptuously decisive, and obstinate assertion passes for knowledge. It is strange to see what an evident difference he considers there is between himself and the rest of mankind. They are made of very common clay; he of roast beef, oyster stews, cham. pagne and cigar-smoke. They are born to work; he to play the gentleman. Their ideas are gross; his so refined and sublimated that no ordinary perception can discover them. It is for him that manufactories are reared, tailors made, and jewellers called into being. He is the importers' patron; the connoisseur of art; the pink of courtesy. His conceptions of his own glory are surpassingly magnificent. He is the centre of his own system; the Joseph of his own thoughts, to which they must all bow down. Any inquiry as to how he gets his living would be perfectly presumptuous. The lilies of the field do not toil and spin; and shall he, the lily of the city, or of fashion? Where his cash comes from is an insoluble mystery. It is certain he never earned it; and he has already spent more than his father-who, like an honest man, He seems to be able to live on air: some of his creditors wish he had done so long ago, and mean to give him a chance to try the experiment. Every thing about him shows extreme uicety. He would consider a rusty garment the unpar-kept a grocery-store in Cherry street-saved. donable sin. It excites your curiosity to know what part of the twenty four hours it takes to dress him. The most charitable solution is to imagine, as you meet him, that he has just sprung, full-dressed, out of a bandbox, like Minerva, from the head of Jove. He has a strange passion for places that are considered fashionable and genteel. He seeks introductions to Fifth Avenue palaces. If he has a distance to go, and Bowery is the shortest route, And yet, notwithstanding the uneasiness of small traders, and although he never earned a cent in his life, see what an ineffable disdain he has for money. "Ha! for the vile trash," he seems to say, by the air with which he spends it. Meet him at Wild's or Thompson's: he has bought some scented gum-drops; the change lies SKETCH-SUNSET. on the counter; see how disdainfully his gloved fingers select the silver from the coppers; and out he goes, leaving three cents. Poor fool! you will want that change yet. Your father was not ashamed to pick a coin out of the dust. He was willing to take his pay in pennies, when he sold a pound of cheese or soap. But his effemi nate successor affects to despise money! If his life should ever depend on a three-cent piece that he earned himself, his time would have come, and he would die! And yet, although the hard earnings of his inheritance are gone some time ago, he seems to be flush yet. Some of the police at last begin to whisper to one another, with a knowing wink, as he passes, "What money is not got 'on tick' must evidently come out from between two days." Daylight evidently has nothing to say about how he gets it. For a while yet, his face is very familiar. It is still visible every day before the sun sets, in Broadway. Suddenly he is gone. That splendid suit of clothes, with superb mustaches, that used to take its walk down town at a certain time of day, has vanished. You take your tailor's bill to his boarding-house, and are somewhat surprised to learn that he has left for California without paying up. What becomes of him at last, is a great mystery. Some say he dies; others, that he transmigrates; others still talk learnedly of metempsychosis. The presumption, however, is, that the chrysalis becomes a worm. Something so similar in many respects (externals excepted) as almost to establish the proof of his identity, may often be found at the almshouse or at Sing Sing. It is certain that he disappears. Scarcely ever does he last in his glory longer than the morus multicaulus fever. He either expires, or emigrates to "parts unknown," just as his credit fails. A hungry creditor has sometimes been known to attempt to trace him; but even the elave hunter's dogs fail on the scent of the under-ground railroad, and we have no Hays now to beat them. Some have attempted to explain the difficulty, by supposing that he could creep into a smaller hole than any other living specimen of humanity, and so hide himself. This might unquestionably hold true of his soul, but it is not so clear that his body could be shrunk to a kindred littleness. comes of the fop, must be a standing problem. What be SKETCH-SUNSET. BY HORACE DRESSER, ESQ. - 106 THE day's bright orb but just in sight remains And run in zigzag courses o'er the snow, On life, thick-set with trouble, cares, and pains. And owns that chance could ne'er direct their course At this calm hour his impotence he learns, WHERE SHALL I SPEND ETERNITY? A LADY had written on a card, and placed on the top of an hourglass in her garden-house, the following simple verse from one of the poems of John Clare. "To think of summers yet to come, To think a weed is yet to bloom The next morning she found the following One would as soou think now of engaging in the lines, in pencil, on the back of the same card: search for Sir John Franklin as look him up, after he has once disappeared. Still, he is worth noticing while yet he is visible. The phenomena of his existence are instructive.-A WAYFARER. "To think, when heaven and earth are filed, 106 WE PART TO-NIGHT. JOHN ON THE ISLAND OF PATMOS. BY REV. P. C. HEADLEY. JOHN was called the beloved disciple. There seems to have been a spirituality in his views, an appreciation of the Saviour's mission and kingdom, and an amiable, affectionate nature which endeared him to Christ. Of him are recorded no expressions of bold adherence to his Master's cause, but he was found leaning on the bosom of Infinite Love at the table, and upon Calvary looking sadly on the writhing form of Jesus, regardless of the scoffing multitude. The last words spoken by the Sufferer to man, amid the horrors of that tragedy, were addressed to him. But neither his virtues and piety, nor even the dignity of old age, saved John from the relentless storm of persecution. Banished to the lonely island of Patmos, upon the day which brought to mind his risen Lord, "he was in the Spirit." There was nothing to disturb his high and holy contemplations. There was no sound of revolving wheels or thundering cars; no hum of busy voices, or noise of passing footsteps, broke the stillness around him. The only sound that fell on his ear, as he trod the shore of the solitary isle, was the murmur of the ocean rolling gently in upon the strand. The servant of God was wrapped in his devout and silent musings, when suddenly he heard behind him a great voice like a trumpet, saying: "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." He turned to behold him that spake; and immediately, under an overwhelming vision of the Deity, he fell on his face, "as one dead." The right hand of the Almighty touched him, and from the excellent glory came the words of encouragement and hope: "Fear not; I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead: and behold, I am alive for evermore. Write the things which thou hast seen, which are, and shall be hereafter." Then followed a succession of wonderful revelations, until he saw the throne of God, and Him who sat upon it, surrounded by the white-robed elders, with golden harps attuned to the high praises of the Lamb. These views of glory swept before the spirit of the awe-struck and trembling disciple, until he stood and wept amid the awful pageantry of heaven; when down the refulgent skies was poured the melody of a "new song." The singers were on the celestial plains, and their number was "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;" and their song was: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" And with one voice the innumerable choir chanted the heavenly doxology, while the celestial hills echoed the loud "Amen!" Oh, with what rapture John must have discerned the Saviour, whom he had tenderly loved, and whose fearful death he witnessed, to be thus the theme of the heavenly host! And great was the honor conferred upon the scorned and banished disciple, first to hear the outbursts of that song, upon the transporting notes of which every redeemed soul is borne to heaven. The martyred Stephen, when dying, looked into the opening gates of the New Jerusalem till his countenance grew bright with the splendors. Paul heard unspeakable words, which it was not lawful for man to utter. But John, distinguished above them both, was permitted to listen to the new song. This exiled Christian, spurned from the shadow of a despotic throne, and cast upon a solitude, desolate and sea-girdled, for his defence of truth, was encircled with the scenes of Paradise, bathing with radiance the surrounding cliffs and waters; and he became the auditor of a song whose strains never before had fallen upon the ear of man. His weary heart was ravished with the anthem of adoration to Him his soul loved, and for whose cause he rejoiced to suffer. And faith can now light up the scene of conflict and trial with all that John beheld and heard, and make Christ the burden of song, through the narrow valley and shadow H. of Death. WE PART TO-NIGHT. BY E. L. 3. SISTER, we part to-night, While this soft vesper light Throws over vale and wave a shadowy gleam, Thou, whom my heart has loved, I, who thy truth have proved, Brightly our days have passed; This, which the chain has riven My spirit turns to thee Fondly, and still would be Allied to thine in holy trust and prayer; Would guard thy youthful years From sorrow's blights and tears, And watch around thee with affection's care. |