Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-26
FROM CONNECTICUT.
Fam HAVEN, Cow, April %. 1859

How dare you break in upon the delicious OBJ
iviousness the beatific quietude of GONZALES
cence with a request like that Ito remind one
of promises made in the insanity of health-to
raise visions of ink and pens and paper, type
and proof and printers devils which L thought
so happily laid by the doctors emphatic, crest
and Quiet" Do you not believe with Charles
Lamb that positively the best thing person
can have to do is nothing! And next to that,
| perhaps, good works"
For some weeks past, l have been doing
nothing, and had well nigh ignored the clause
about good works, with its delightful hesitat-
ing perhaps tcan't you hear Lambs quaint
stammer in it = when your letter reached me
with its call for news
| If you have looked over the New Haven
papers of late, you will be prepared for any
lack of interest in my epistles, for drouth
is Egyptian, save where the muddy current
| of the Sickes farce, leaves its Shiny trail
The election was triumph, true one, and it
seems to have eliminated in a kind of quiet
| joy rather than any noisy demonstrations, a
grave earnestness of feeling which think will
tell in the returns of the coming years.
But why talk of such things when Spring
with her miracles is here and the whole earth
is stirring with a new impulse of life and
motion. She has long been lettering about
our hills, and now and then giving us
glimpse of her robe or a trace other step along
the streams for some time butt is only within
few days that she formally announced her
presence by a cluster of trailing Arbutus, sent
by the hand of one whose grace and loneliness
made her most fitting messenger.
To her fresh heart they were simply things
of grace and beauty, but to one like myself,
who had almost
Lost the dream of doing,
And the other dream of DONE"
they had special message, opening at once
the two-fold gate of memory and hope, and
taking me back to the time when
"Face to face with the true mountains,
/ stood silently and still
Drawing strength from fancy's dreamings,
From the air about the HILL
And from Natures open mercies. and most debon-
aire good will"
There are moods and moments in which a
simple flower is more potent with me than the
eloquence of Moses and the prophets and
such were these
Yesterday, Good Friday, was our annual
Fast, when, in obedience to the appointment of
the Governor, we are supposed to "affiict our
souls" for the aggregate sins of the past year
by abstaining from meat at dinner, being sus-
tanned under the trial by visions of the good
time coming" at the supper table. / attended
service in the First Congregational Church of
thlS pldCcJ WlcIc L Icdru d SGTIlOH DIS ulllQuG
in its tone as it was profound in thought and
eloquent in expression-a most noble and ear
nest protest against any attempt to confine
Christianity within the Strengthened, effete
forms of the pasta most manly and brave as
sertion of the right of the soul to that freedom
of thought and expression which is the only
true liberty.
l cannot stay now to speak of an excursion I
made, with party of friends, to the summit of
east Rock" the other day, but in lieu there
of send you the following stanzas, which will
interpret my mind, at least to you:
On this wintry Sabbath day.
W hen the people met to pray,
In the village church, enCirced with tomb stones
old and gray,
While the holy hymn was read, and the vaulted arch
Echoed back the organs note, and the solemn pray
er was said
My heart cried out for thee-for thee-the early
dead!
Early loved Elinor!
! could see the little stream
And the waters frosty CLEAN,
Gliding onward-eyer onward-while in happy
dream
climbed the mountain path with fair child by my
side,
To that sunny Southern slope where the earliest vi
diets hide,
Where the summer dews fall deepest and the sun
beams longest hide
1t was thou Elinor
A child with floating hair
And such eyes as angels wear
When around His throne they gather with their
songs of praise and prayer,
And voice as sweet and low the spicy gales that
blow
Over gardens, where the orange and the Jasmine
blossoms glow,
Or the silvsry sweet murmur of a fountains over
flow.
1t was thine, Elinor!
And again our hands have met,
As we pluck the violet
From out the rich damp mould, still with April
showers wet,
And thou art murmuring DER again that old and
antique strain
How "violets plucked the sweetest showers can
ne'er make grow again;'-
o, this aching heart-these binding tears, indeed,
''all in vain.n
Thou vert one, Elinor!
Then see thee in thy bloom
Like a royal day in June
Or lofty rhyme of poet old set to perfect tune
Crowned with thy regal womanhood like that state
ly antique queen,
Who, in deep meadowed Avalon" by poet eyes is
To walk meath purple sunsets clad in white and
gittering sheen,
With Arthur Elinor!
In vain-all in vain
Fall the tears like summer rain,-
The blessed life has vanished-such love comes
again.
God that thou shouldst die!-Did the angels up
on high
The happy, deathless angels look thee with long
ing eye!-
They could not lore thee better did they need thee
more than l,
Needed thee Elinor!
Then the sacred words hear
For the preacher readeth clear
How in the worlds young prime, the angels wan
dered here;-
And my grief is turned to praise thinking on the
happy days,
When thou didst walk beside me Frightening all the
darksome ways;-
Then, the Benedicton falls, and the organ softly