I am content. In trumpet-tones,
My song, let people know.
And many a mighty man, with throne
And sceptre, is not so.
And if he is, I joyful cry,
Why then, he’s just the same as
I.”
“Is that one of your own, Mr. Armstrong?”
asked the colonel.
“It is, like most of those you have heard from
me and my brother, only a translation.”
“I am no judge of poetry, but it seems to me
that if he was content, he need not say so much about
it.”
“There is something in what you say. But
there was no show-off in Claudius, I think. He
was a most simple-hearted, amiable man, to all appearance.
A man of business, too—manager of a bank
at Altona, in the beginning of the present century.
But as I have not given a favourable impression of
him, allow me to repeat a little bit of innocent humour
of his—a cradle song—which I
like fully better than the other.”
“Most certainly; it is only fair,” answered
the colonel.
“Sleep, baby boy, sleep sweet, secure;
Thou art thy father’s miniature;
That art thou, though thy father goes
And swears that thou hast not his nose.
A moment gone, he looked at thee,
My little budding rose,
And said—No doubt there’s
much of me,
But he has not my nose.
I think myself, it is too small,
But it is his nose after all;
For if thy nose his nose be not,
Whence came the nose that thou hast got?
Sleep, baby, sleep; don’t half-way
doze:
To tease me—that’s
his part.
No matter if you’ve not his nose,
So be you’ve got his
heart!”
THE BROKEN SWORDS.
Every one liked this, except Mrs. Cathcart, who opined,
with her usual smile, that it was rather silly.
“Well, I hope a father may be silly sometimes,”
said the curate, with a glance at his wife, which
she did not acknowledge. “At least I fear
I should be silly enough, if I were a father.”
No more remarks were made, and as it was now quite
time to begin the story, Mr. Armstrong took his place,
and the rest took their places. He began at once.
“THE BROKEN SWORDS.
“The eyes of three, two sisters and a brother,
gazed for the last time on a great pale-golden star,
that followed the sun down the steep west. It
went down to arise again; and the brother about to
depart might return, but more than the usual doubt
hung upon his future. For between the white dresses
of the sisters, shone his scarlet coat and golden
sword-knot, which he had put on for the first time,
more to gratify their pride than his own vanity.
The brightening moon, as if prophetic of a future
memory, had already begun to dim the scarlet and the
gold, and to give them a pale, ghostly hue. In
her thoughtful light the whole group seemed more like
a meeting in the land of shadows, than a parting in
the substantial earth.—But which should
be called the land of realities?—the region
where appearance, and space, and time drive between,
and stop the flowing currents of the soul’s speech?
or that region where heart meets heart, and appearance
has become the slave to utterance, and space and time
are forgotten?
