"A thousand various scenes and tones By which our duller years of life And prostrate souls fell horror-struck But now God's momentary gleam Is sent into the soul To guide uncertain wavering feet To Life's high solemn goal. Better moments! Better moments! Ye are sunny angels' wings, Of the numerous versified enigmas he wrote, I print four of the best. They may interest some of my younger readers. They are not difficult to guess, but I give the solutions at the end. ENIGMAS. I. "There was a Spanish gentleman "We saw him at the opera, The very point of chivalry And oft upon my Second seen Where Seville's beauties came, But still we knew him as my First, "Twas I who brought that gentleman With skins of smuggled wine; And ye were duller far than me, II. (Written in 1847.) "Know ye my Second, the green and the beautiful, Sitting alone by the sea, Weeping in sadness o'er children undutiful, "For skeleton famine is rapidly striding, Many a hovel his victims have died in, "Ah! my First from the heavens has darkly descended, Wrapping the earth in its gloom; The dying lie helpless by corpses extended, Sullenly waiting their doom. "And the living watch hopeless the dead and the dying, All gentler feelings have fled; They know not-an hour and they may be lying "To see their blank features so set and despairing, Might humble the great and the wise. "Ah! the great and the wise! can no way be suggested By the mighty in power and in soul, To banish the curse that too long has rested A shade and a fear on my Whole?" III. "There stood by the stake a sable form, His grimy arms were bare, A heavy sledge on his shoulder swung "Open the way! Fall back! Fall back! And let the victim through, To the mocking chant of the bigot priest They have tortured him long, but his spirit strong, "My First stepped forth and grasped his arm (He felt no muscle shake), And led him within the fatal ring; Nor then did his victim quake, When a chain was riveted to his waist, And round the fatal stake. "He had seen my Second red with blood He had looked on death in every form, The flames of my Whole were a terrible goal, IV. (August, 1849.) "She stood upon the scaffold With a firm, undaunted mien, But yesterday a Queen! "She fearless gazes on my First "Where are the eyes that fearless gazed? Where is the tongue where hung the jest? The snowy neck she used to deck, The axe has left it red. CHAPTER XX IN LONDON, AND VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE AMONG the letters preserved and kindly returned to me by Dr. Spruce is one partly written on board ship on my way home, giving an account of my somewhat adventurous voyage while it was fresh in my memory, and containing some details not given in the narrative in my "Travels on the Amazon." I will therefore print it here, as no part of it has yet been made public. "Brig Fordeson, N. Lat. 49° 30', W. Long. 20o. "MY DEAR FRIEND, "Having now some prospect of being home in a week or ten days, I will commence giving you an account of the peculiar circumstances which have already kept me at sea seventy days on a voyage which took us only twenty-nine days on our passage out. I hope you have received the letter sent you from Para, dated July 9 or 10, in which I informed you that I had taken my passage in a vessel bound for London, which was to sail in a few days. On Monday, July 12, I went on board with all my cargo, and some articles purchased or collected on my way down, with the remnant (about twenty) of my live stock. After being at sea about a week I had a slight attack of fever, and at first thought I had got the yellow fever after all. However, a little calomel 1 These consisted of numerous parrots and parrakeets, and several uncommon monkeys, a forest wild-dog, etc. |