The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
poet's, commonly, is not a logger's path, but a woodman's. The logger
and pioneer have preceded him, like John the Baptist; eaten the wild
honey, it may be, but the locusts also; banished decaying wood and the
spongy mosses which feed on it, and built hearths and humanized Nature
for him.
But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no
simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile
flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for
cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of
peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty,
the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the
Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the
Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.
The kings of England formerly had their forests "to hold the king's
game," for sport or food, sometimes destroying villages to create or
extend them; and I think that they were impelled by a true
instinct. Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority,
have our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in
which the bear and panther, and some even of the hunter race, may
still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the earth,"--our
forests, not to hold the king's game merely, but to hold and preserve
the king himself also, the lord of creation,--not for idle sport or
food, but for inspiration and our own true re-creation? or shall we,
like villains, grub them all up, poaching on our own national domains?
MY CHILDREN.
Have you seen Annie and Kitty,
Two merry children of mine?
All that is winning and pretty
Their little persons combine.
Annie is kissing and clinging
Dozens of times in a day,--
Chattering, laughing, and singing,
Romping, and running away.
Annie knows all of her neighbors.
Dainty and dirty alike,--
Learns all their talk, and, "be jabers,"
Says she "adores little Mike!"
Annie goes mad for a flower,
Eager to pluck and destroy,--
Cuts paper dolls by the hour,
Always her model--a boy!
Annie is full of her fancies,
Tells most remarkable lies,
(Innocent little romances,)
Startling in one of her size.
Three little prayers we have taught her,
Graded from winter to spring;
Oh, you should listen my daughter
Saying them all in a string!
Kitty--ah, how my heart blesses
Kitty, my lily, my rose!
Wary of all my caresses,
Chary of all she bestows.
Kitty loves quietest places,
Whispers sweet sermons to chairs,
And, with the gravest of faces,
Teaches old Carlo his prayers.
Matronly, motherly creature!
Oh, what a doll she has built--
Guiltless of figure or feature--
Out of her own little quilt!
Nought must come near it to wake it;
Noise must not give it alarm;
And when she sleeps, she must take it
Into her bed, on her arm.
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