The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 | Page 9

down at the broad wake left by the wheels of the steamboat, we
may see sparkles of sea-fire glittering through the gloom.

AN OLD MAN'S IDYL.
By the waters of Life we sat together, Hand in hand in the golden days
Of the beautiful early summer weather, When skies were purple and

breath was praise, When the heart kept tune to the carol of birds And
the birds kept tune to the songs which ran Through shimmer of flowers
on grassy swards, And trees with voices Æolian.
By the rivers of Life we walked together, I and my darling, unafraid;
And lighter than any linnet's feather The burdens of Being on us
weighed. And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw Mantles of joy
outlasting Time, And up from the rosy morrows grew A sound that
seemed like a marriage chime.
In the gardens of Life we strayed together; And the luscious apples
were ripe and red, And the languid lilac and honeyed heather Swooned
with the fragrance which they shed. And under the trees the angels
walked, And up in the air a sense of wings Awed us tenderly while we
talked Softly in sacred communings.
In the meadows of Life we strayed together, Watching the waving
harvests grow; And under the benison of the Father Our hearts, like the
lambs, skipped to and fro. And the cowslips, hearing our low replies,
Broidered fairer the emerald banks, And glad tears shone in the daisies'
eyes, And the timid violet glistened thanks.
Who was with us, and what was round us, Neither myself nor my
darling guessed; Only we knew that something crowned us Out from
the heavens with crowns of rest; Only we knew that something bright
Lingered lovingly where we stood, Clothed with the incandescent light
Of something higher than humanhood.
O the riches Love doth inherit! Ah, the alchemy which doth change
Dross of body and dregs of spirit Into sanctities rare and strange! My
flesh is feeble and dry and old, My darling's beautiful hair is gray; But
our elixir and precious gold Laugh at the footsteps of decay.
Harms of the world have come unto us, Cups of sorrow we yet shall
drain; But we have a secret which cloth show us Wonderful rainbows
in the rain. And we hear the tread of the years move by, And the sun is
setting behind the hills; But my darling does not fear to die, And I am
happy in what God wills.

So we sit by our household fires together, Dreaming the dreams of long
ago: Then it was balmy summer weather, And now the valleys are laid
in snow. Icicles hang from the slippery eaves; The wind blows
cold,--'tis growing late; Well, well! we have garnered all our sheaves, I
and my darling, and we wait.

A RAMBLE THROUGH THE MARKET.
As a man puts on the stoutness and thicksetness of middle life, he
begins to find himself contemplating well-filled meat and fish stalls,
and piles of lusty garden vegetables, with unfeigned interest and delight.
He walks through Quincy Market, for instance, with far more pleasure
than through the dewy and moonlit groves which were the scenes of his
youthful wooings. Then he was all sentiment and poetry. Now he finds
the gratification of the mouth and stomach a chief source of mundane
delight. It is said that all the ships on the sea are sailing in the direction
of the human mouth. The stomach, with its fierce assimilative power, is
a great stimulator of commercial activity. The table of the civilized man,
loaded with the products of so many climes, bears witness to this. The
demands of the stomach are imperious. Its ukases and decrees must be
obeyed, else the whole corporeal commonwealth of man, and the spirit
which makes the human organism its vehicle in time and space, are in a
state of trouble and insurrection.
A large part of the lower organic world, both animal and vegetable, is
ground between man's molars and incisors, and assimilated through the
stomach with his body. This may be called the final cause of that part
of the lower organic world which is edible. Man is a scientific eater,--a
cooking animal. Laughter and speech are not so distinctive traits of him
as cookery. Improve his food, and he is improved both physically and
mentally. His tissue becomes finer, his skin clearer and brighter, and
his hair more glossy and hyacinthine. Cattle-breeders and the improvers
of horticulture are indirectly improving their own race by furnishing
finer and more healthful materials to be built into man's body. Marble,
cedar, rosewood, gold, and gems make a finer edifice than thatch and
ordinary timber and stones. So South-Down mutton and Devonian beef

fattened on the blue-grass pastures of the West, and the