 | A TALE OF POLAND. Myrtis |  |
A TALE OF POLAND.
I have sate with the brow of the dead on my knee;
In the purple of eve, at the flashing of morn,
I have bent o'er the cherish'd, that left me forlorn,
And I gazed on the dimness that froze in the eye,
So bright in its burning, its glances so high,
And I watch'd the Consumer, as ever he crept,
And feasted where beauty and glory had slept.”
Ransom.
Among the pleasant abodes which, during the happier
days of Poland, diversified the suburbs of Warsaw,
was one which always attracted the attention of
the traveler. It was less distinguished by splendor
than by that combination of elegance with simplicity
not common in a country where the palace and the
hut, standing side by side, contrasted the extremes
of opulence and poverty. Situated on a gentle eminence,
overshadowed by trees, and imbosomed in
shrubbery, it seemed modestly seeking to hide its
own elevation. A dark forest in the background
strongly defined the outline of its white turrets, while
the sighing sound of the wind through the branches
mingled with the murmurs of the neighboring Vistula
like melancholy music.
This sweetly rural retreat was the residence of
John Radzivil, a descendant from the ancient nobility
of Poland. Nurtured in the loftiness of liberty,
there was ever upon his brow a painful consciousness
of the subjugation of his country. Burying himself
in retirement, he turned his attention to such
pursuits as might not rouse the jealousy of despotism,
though the temper of his mind was rather to court
of his native realm, her loss of a seat among
the nations, and the oppressive dynasty of Russia,
darkened his meditations and imbittered his solitude.
But in his own home was a spirit of peace, suggesting
endurance, or striving to awaken hope. Ulrica,
the gentle and beautiful one, with whom a union
of ten years had left his love unimpaired, employed
the whole force of her influence to win him from
melancholy themes. Deep acquaintance with historic
lore, and warm native sympathies, led her feelingly
to deplore the immolation of her country; but
the spirit of piety which had taken possession of her
soul taught her to deprecate every vengeful and hostile
purpose, and to view the voluntary shedding of
blood, not only as an evil to be dreaded, but a
sin to be shunned. Capable of appreciating the
higher and bolder energies, her happiness was imbosomed
in domestic duties and affections, and she
sought to inspire all her household with that love
of peace which preserves the fountains of bliss untroubled.
It was her delight to lull her infant with
such low, quiet music, that sleep would hang long
suspended upon the half-closed lids, itself a listener.
Even the little trusting sparrow, that in pursuit of
crumbs had ventured to pass the threshold, would
seem to linger at the sound of those exquisite melodies,
standing long upon one foot, and turning its
head rapidly from side to side, as if longing to bear
to the children of its own nest those soothing and
in those accomplishments that render home delightful,
and by the influence of a sweet, subduing smile
to recall her if her young spirit wandered or was
weary. But most of all, she loved to cheer his despondence
whose heart reposed its confidence on hers;
and when it encountered those thorns and brambles
with which the curse of Adam hath sown the earth,
to restore in its own sanctuary some image of cloudless
Eden. Yet their bower of bliss was not free
from the intrusion of care. Ulrica felt deep anxiety
for her little son, in whom she could not but perceive
the incipient tastes of a warrior. The piercing eye
and raven locks, which he inherited from his father,
gave to the exceeding beauty of his childhood a lofty
expression, which no beholder could witness without
repeating the gaze of admiration. His mother, discerning
the structure of his mind in infancy, labored
continually to stamp upon its waxen tablet the impress
of peace. Even then the ground seemed preoccupied.
Every leaf of olive that she cherished
was plucked as if by an invisible hand. Often, when
she flattered herself that the warbled melody of some
sacred lay had reached and won his soul, he would
suddenly raise his head from her bosom, and say,
“Sing me the battle song of Sobieski, when he
rushed upon the Turk; it is far finer music.”
Sometimes, when she narrated from the Blessed
Volume the lives of the men of peace, of the apostles,
who went forth bearing the precious Gospel, and
shepherds when the Redeemer of sinners was born,
he would exclaim,
“Tell me now of him who slew the Egyptian when
he saw him mocking his people, and of the stripling
who beheaded the giant, and of that glorious warrior
who bade the sun and the moon to stand still in
their courses, that he might have light, and a long
day to destroy his enemies.”
The oppressive government of the Grand-duke
Constantine became every day more intolerable. It
assumed the worst forms of wanton cruelty. Surrounded
by his Russian minions, he took delight in
humbling the nobility of Poland, subjecting them to
causeless penalties and offensive vassalage. In addition
to these brutal abuses of power, a system of
espionage was established in Warsaw, so strict that
home was no sanctuary. It extended even to the
schools. He was not ashamed to employ emissaries
and reporters among infants. He desired to crush
in the bud every indication of the love of liberty.
Even the enthusiasm that lingered around the fallen
glory of Poland was visited as a crime; and trembling
History hid her annal from the eye of Despotism.
A boy had inscribed on his seat in school the date
of some event distinguished in the record of his country.
This circumstance was deemed of sufficient importance
to be transmitted to Constantine, who sentenced
him to be torn from his parents and placed
of advancement. The unhappy mother sought
long and vainly for an audience. Once, when leaving
his palace for an excursion of pleasure, she threw
herself at his feet, imploring, in the most piercing
accents, mitigation of the doom of her miserable child.
Provoked at her perseverance, he spurned her with
his foot, and deigning no reply, ascended his carriage.
It is not surprising that such arbitrary deeds
should affect with peculiar sympathy the mother of
young Radzivil. She knew the unconquerable boldness
of the boy, and her nights were sleepless with
dread lest he, too, should be marked as a victim for
the tyrant. She communicated her fears to her husband.
“Ulrica,” he replied, gravely, “the current of the
boy's soul is deep beyond his years. The soaring
eaglet may not be restrained by the plaintive murmur
of the dove.”
But Ulrica daily counseled her son. She strove to
press into his soul the precepts of that religion which
forbids retaliation. She selected from history the examples
of those princes and statesmen whose pacific
policy promoted the prosperity of their realm, and
the happiness of their people. She simplified for
him the most exquisite passages of those ancient
philosophers, who extol the excellence of patient virtue
and serene contemplation. She exerted all of
woman's eloquence, and of a mother's love, to make
his young soul a listener and a convert.
“Mother, when I was at Cracow with my father, I
visited in the Cathedral the tombs of our ancient heroes.
I found where Sobieski lies. I stood long
at the tomb of Kosciusko. The light faded, and
darkness began to settle upon the lofty and solemn
arches while I stood there. Methought a voice came
forth from these ashes and talked with me of his glory,
of his sufferings, and of the Russian prisons where
he so long pined. And then it seemed as if he himself
stood before me, that brave old man, covered
with scars, and with the tears of Poland; and ere I
was aware, I said, I will love Kosciusko, and hate
Russia forever.”
Ulrica gazed silently upon the boy. She had never
seen any thing so beautiful as that lofty and pure
brow, inspired with emotions defying utterance. His
full eye cast forth a flood of living lustre, and his
graceful form rose higher as he ceased to speak. Not
Hannibal, when, in the presence of Hamilcar, he
uttered the vow of eternal hatred to Rome, could
have evinced more strongly how the soul may lift up
the features of childhood into a commanding and terrible
beauty. The mother wondered at the strange
awe that stole over her. She almost trembled to enter
the sanctuary of that mind, lest she might displace
imagery that Heaven had consecrated, or lay
her hand unwittingly upon the very ark of God.
For a moment she thought, what if this being, so
mighty even in his simple elements, should be the
decreed deliverer of his oppressed country!
It was but a moment that this enthusiasm prevailed.
The boy saw the tears glittering in her eye,
and hastened to throw himself upon her neck.
“Mother, I will no longer sing the songs of Sobieski,
nor speak to my companions of Pulaski or
Kosciusko, since it gives you pain. But when I see
the proud Russian soldiers parading in the squares
at Warsaw, and Constantine lording it over our people,
can I help my heart from rising up, and the
blood from feeling hot in my forehead?”
The features of the Russian dynasty continued to
gather harshness and asperity. The grand-duke became
daily more odious to the people he ruled. Conscious
of unpopularity, and partaking of that distrust
which ever haunts tyranny, he retired from the royal
palace to one in the vicinity of Warsaw, where he
might be under the immediate protection of his own
troops. It was no satisfaction to the Radzivil family
that the new abode of Constantine was in their own
immediate neighborhood. Still trusting to find safety
in seclusion, they devoted themselves to the nurture
of their children, and to the varieties of rural existence.
Autumn was now deepening to its close. The
voice of the Vistula, swollen by rains, became more
audible, hoarsely chafing against its banks. Nature,
at the approach of her dreariest season, disrobes of
their gayety even her inanimate offspring, and pours
heaviness into the hearts of the animal creation. The
elk, roaming with his branching horns through the
melancholy. The titmouse, whose pendulous nest
studded the branches, forgetting its irascible temper,
and disappointed in its supply of aquatic insects,
gathered with drooping wing around the peasant's
cottages in quest of other food. The bobac prepared
a soft lining for its subterranean cell, and gathered
its gregarious community for the long sequestration
of winter. But where shall the human race find refuge
from strife and oppression? Earth hath no recess
where “man's inhumanity to man” may not penetrate.
It was near the close of one of the shortening and
gloomy days that Ulrica became alarmed at the absence
of her son. He had prolonged his usual walk
with his little sister about his father's grounds, and
she had returned without him. As this was of frequent
occurrence, it would scarcely have excited observation,
but for the heightened state of maternal
solicitude. The bold bearing of the boy, and his
denunciations of tyranny, had signalized him among
his companions, and induced his parents to withdraw
him from the public school. They had also deemed
it prudent, since the royal residence had been placed
in their vicinity, to interdict his leaving their own
domain without an attendant.
Now twilight darkened, and he returned not. The
earnest search of the whole household was in vain.
Little Ulrica watched and listened for his footsteps
till the curtains were drawn and the lamps lighted,
that agonized affection could command was
put in requisition. But the most persevering efforts
could obtain no tidings, save that a child had been
seen hurried toward the palace by two Russian soldiers,
and apparently resisting their purpose. The
whole influence of an ancient and noble family was
made to bear upon the recovery of this beloved representative,
only to reveal its utter inefficacy. Inquiry,
reward, and menace were alike powerless.
The system of the despot was a sealed book. “I
will myself go to the duke,” said Ulrica to her husband.
“God has given him a human heart. Who
can say but it may in some point be vulnerable to
compassion?”
John Radzivil felt that such an appeal was hopeless.
Yet, as a drowning man rejects not the straw
floating on the element that destroys him, he forbore
to dissuade her from the enterprise.
The next morning the suffering mother sought the
palace of Constantine. She went under the protection
of Count Turno, a Polish nobleman, who had
for years maintained a degree of ascendency over
the mind of the duke, and was sometimes able to
soften the violence of his measures. By a singular
combination of talent, and an accurate knowledge of
the hidden springs of action, he had succeeded in
gaining the confidence of the tyrant, without the sacrifice
of either integrity or honor. But consummate
prudence was requisite to maintain a post so hazardous.
to introduce the suppliant, and to repeat the injunction
that her words should be few. Open interference
on his part would, he knew, be fatal to the
cause in which both his patriotism and his early
friendship for the Radzivil family deeply participated.
When Ulrica entered the chamber of audience,
the grand-duke turned away, as if determined to
avoid her. Then his blue eye settled for a moment
on her, cold as Russian snows. Arrested by her
beauty and dignified deportment, aided in their effect
by the rich and becoming costume of the Polish
nobility, he reluctantly, though not ungracefully, gave
attention.
“Great prince, you see before you the wife of
John Radzivil. She seeks your presence a wretched
suppliant for her lost son. These three days and
nights our search for him has been unremitting, but
in vain. He was last seen in charge of two of the
soldiers of your guard. Let me supplicate your
clemency to give orders for his restoration.”
“Madam, the commission under which I act, takes
no cognizance of wandering babes. I supposed that
the mothers of Poland better understood both my
duties and their own.”
“Sire, our lost one was but a child. He had not
numbered ten winters. If he was guilty of folly or
rashness, I beseech you to restore him to his parents,
that they may carefully instruct him not again to offend.”
The haughty lip of Constantine curled as he spoke.
“You were in truth nourishing a viper. If his
venom has chanced to fall upon yourselves, look to
it. Fill not my ears with your complaints. He was
a rebel, and a ripe one, though so young in years.”
Ulrica fell on her knees, and, raising her clasped
hands, exclaimed.
“Spare the life of the child! A broken-hearted
mother implores your pity for her only son. So
shall the Judge and Father of us all, be merciful to
you in your time of adversity.”
“Take away this mad woman,” said Constantine
to his attendants. “Turno, is there never to be an
end of these Polish maniacs?”
Ulrica rose and returned to her home. She uttered
no complaint. There was a strength in her
sorrow that refused the channel of words. Radzivil
saw in the fixed glance of her eye that hope had departed.
“Ulrica, seek to bind me no longer at the footstool
of peace. As the Lord liveth, it shall no more be
peace, but a sword. There is a point beyond which
endurance is sin. Poland stands upon that verge.
The tyrant shall fall. Faithful and proud hearts
have sworn it. I will no longer withhold myself
from their covenant. My soul has lain still, and
smothered its hatred for your sake. Your sighs of
peace have stolen over it like the breath of flowers,
weakening its purpose. My counsel of submission
has been my reproach among patriots. They have
when I uttered it. It was your spirit breathing
through my lips. I deemed it the spirit of Heaven,
and bade the wrath of the warrior that boiled in my
breast bow down before it. Henceforth I cast away
its chains. I wear no longer the yoke of a craven
policy. I will resist unto blood—unto death. And
may God so deal with me as I do valiantly for Poland.”
The discontent, which had been but ill-suppressed
in the bosoms of a free people, burst forth. Plans
long fostered in their nightly conclaves came suddenly
to maturity. On the evening of November
29th, 1830, the beacon light sprang up on the banks
of the Vistula. The concerted signal had been the
burning of a house, on the borders of that river, at
the hour of seven. The clocks of Warsaw struck
seven. How many hearts struggled with unutterable
emotion at that sound!
The expected flame threw out its red banner.
The shout of “To arms!” came with that flash, as
thunder follows the lightning. Throngs of patriots
were at their appointed posts. Officers rode through
the streets inspiring the people. Students, and boys
from the schools in warlike array, marched to the
headquarters of the enemy. The rush was tremendous.
Two thousand Russian cavalry, panic-struck,
dispersed. The grand-duke threw himself from the
window of his palace, and, aided by darkness and
disguise, escaped. The gates of the city were in
Multitudes of pale, emaciated victims came forth, astonished,
from their dungeons, as the dead once mingled
with the living, when strange darkness hung
over Calvary.
At midnight, Poland paused amid the miracle of
her Revolution, and, kneeling, gave thanks to Jehovah.
It was a moment of sublimity, when that immense
multitude, rendered visible by the red torchlight,
humbled themselves to earth, and, amid the
most impassioned joy, swelled the response of
“Praise to God—to God the deliverer!”
The next morning brought Ulrica a note from her
husband.
“Warsaw is ours! no Russian foot pollutes it.
Poland breathes once more in freedom the air of her
own capital. Every spot overflows with rejoicing
people. Old hoary-headed men give us their blessing,
and children brandish their weapons with the
shrill cry of liberty. As for me, I am searching every
dungeon, every fastness, every den, where it is
possible for despotism to have incarcerated our brave,
our beautiful one. I will return no more to my house
until I restore him to your arms, or whisper in your
ear those words, less appalling than our suspense, he
is no more.”
All day long, while acclamations rent the air, and
the peasantry by thousands were flocking into the
city to hail the men who had delivered their country,
Ulrica sat still in the house. One deep, measureless,
At every footstep, at the echo of every voice, her
heart, like the mimosa, shrank, trembled, folded itself.
The hours seemed interminable.
At length twilight approached, evening darkened.
Even her chastened spirit revolted at the prospect of
passing another night of unmitigated suspense. Her
children slumbered. There was no sound save of
their quiet breathing. She looked out upon the solemn
stars, and strove to rise above them in communion
with their Maker. Suddenly there was a trampling
of horses in the court-yard. The power of motion
deserted her. The next moment, Radzivil was
in her apartment. He laid on the bed something
wrapped in a cloak, and for a moment restrained her
in his arms as she was rushing toward it.
“My son! my son! speak, Radzivil. Tell me that
he lives!”
“He lives, Ulrica; but the life of life is fled. It
were a lighter thing to have seen him in the sleep of
death.”
Perceiving that she would no longer be withheld,
he uncovered the face. All the fortitude that she had
invoked from above was needful for that moment.
Emaciated, haggard, his beautiful hair shorn close to
his head, his eye devoid of lustre or intelligence, and
every feature apparently transmuted to portray the
dull, dreaming, hideous contortions of idiocy.
Yet he still breathed; and with that consciousness
hope, the comforter, came into the heart of the mother.
love falters not “under the cloud or through the sea,”
till death smites down its idol. Even then it resigns
hope only to call forth a memory which, tender as
love itself, gathers, like the winged chemist of the
air, honeyed essence from thorn-clad and unsightly
plants.
Ulrica perceived that to her embraces there was
no response, to her words no answer. Food the
famished boy received voraciously, and with a wolf-like
appetite, yet regarded not the hand that gave it.
All the accustomed avenues to the soul seemed irrevocably
closed.
“By what excesses of diabolical cruelty,” said the
father, “could they thus have completed the wreck
of one of the most noble and beautiful beings ever
born of woman? None could tell me aught of his
history. The keepers of his dungeon were what they
ought to be—corpses. While crowds of liberated
and ghastly wretches were thronging forth to the
light of heaven, I descended to the vaults they had
left. I explored them until I became almost hopeless.
At last in a cold, solitary cell, I discovered
this ruin of humanity. Nothing but parental instinct
could have guided me to that hidden recess, or convinced
me that this was indeed my own son. To
my caresses, to the maddened anguish with which I
repeated his name, he spoke nothing. He moved
not. But when I raised him in my arms he struggled
and contended. Then I perceived that his exhaustion
disease which had changed him might be healed.
But when we brought him forth to the sunbeam,
gazing into his eyes, I saw that the mind had fled
forever.”
A deep vow of implacable vengeance closed the
agonized recital.
“Radzivil, beloved, look not so wildly. I pray
you, speak not thus rashly. Our son may yet recover
to bless us.”
On these holy promptings of love and hope the
mother acted. Night and day she nursed the miserable
boy. With consummate prudence she administered
that nourishment which his exhausted state rendered
both necessary and hazardous. She rocked
him in her arms, as in his infancy, holding his head
for hours on her bosom, sometimes murmuring softly
and tunefully in his ear, as if she would breathe
into him her own soul. Occasionally she fancied that
there was a quickening of the mind, and then poured
forth that inspiring music which harmonized with its
native structure, and was wont to heighten the gladness
of his childhood to ecstasy. The songs of Sobieski
rang as exultingly through his chamber, as if
they rose not from a breaking heart. It was in vain.
The chords of melody might be touched no more.
Still the tender eye that had scanned acutely the elements
of his nature, would not believe that its deep
and strong affections had become extinct. Her fair
infant had formerly been his last thought at night,
and to elicit its gay shout of mirth at waking, were
among the objects of his childish ambition. The
mother laid it upon his lap, and it smiled on him;
but he extended no arm to receive it: he writhed,
as if to free himself from a burden. He evinced
neither desire nor dislike, but that fearful inanity,
that deadness to all emotion, that groveling and growing
likeness to material things which are among the
most appalling indications of lapsed intellect.
His little sister, whom from her birth he had loved
as himself, was ever by his side. She twined her
arms about his neck, but he was uneasy at their pressure.
She laid her hand gently upon his head, and
wept at the absence of those clustering curls that
were once her admiration and pride. She gazed
long and earnestly in his eyes with tears standing in
her own, like big rain-drops in the violet's heart.
She spoke long, in her sweetly modulated tones, of
their sports, of their walks together, of the wild flowers
they had found in their own secret places, and of
the stories he had told her of the daring of Pulaski
and Kosciusko.
“Shall we not pursue each other again, dear brother,
through the garden walks? and will you launch
your boat on the little stream that runs so swiftly toward
the Vistula? And shall the baby clap its little
hands when you brandish your mimic sword? And
will we say our nightly prayers again with one voice,
kneeling down by our mother?”
Every effort of the ardent child ended in disappointment:
not a single glance of attention rewarded
her. It was evident that the links between thought
and speech were broken. Even those faint and casual
glimmerings of emotion which, though causeless,
had served feebly to unite him to humanity and to
hope, gradually disappeared. There had been sometimes
an inarticulate murmuring, like sullen discontent,
or a distortion of the brow, as if from transient
terror. Even these were precious to the parents who
hung over his couch, as the dawn, though heavy and
ominous with clouds, is hailed by those who “watch
for the morning.” But these sad signals faded, and
nothing remained but the action of the lungs, the
sluggish current in the veins, the aimless movement
of the muscles, as if without volition, and the animal
appetites of idiocy. The beauty, which he had once
possessed in so remarkable a degree as to have been
pronounced perfect, vanished with the emanations of
mind; even the proportions and chiseling of the clay
lost their symmetry.
At length death came, the messenger of mercy.
There was a pitiful and unearthly cry from that collapsed
heart when the ice entered into it; but no accent,
no pressure of the hand, for affection to linger
over and embalm. One ray of exceeding brightness
kindled in the eye: it was the spirit passing forth in
gladness from its deep eclipse. Only for a moment
was that lustre seen. Then there were bitter gaspings
and strugglings, as of the swimmer when he buffets
the release of what it had worshiped. And that
release came.
John Radzivil returned from the obsequies of his
first-born, in that state of feeling which shuns alike
society and consolation. Solitude and moody silence
were his choice. Grief seemed, in his case, to lay
aside her features of tenderness, and to nerve and
harden the soul for some gloomy, unspoken purpose.
Ulrica perceived that his mind was brooding over
plans of vengeance, and exerted all her influence to
soothe and disinthrall it. She suffered not her own
sorrow to sadden her deportment, that her devotion
to his comfort might be the more exclusive. She
gradually incorporated the softened tones of her voice,
like the sigh of the “sweet south,” with his meditations,
hoping to infuse a healing principle into the
current of his diseased, tumultuous thought. She
pointed out the sources of happiness that still remained
to them, and endeavored to excite the healthful
emotions of gratitude to an Almighty Friend. She
spoke fervently of the peace and independence of
their country, and pressed him, by the love he bore
to her and their surviving children, to withhold himself
from any future scene of dissension, and yield
his sorrows to the solace of domestic retirement and
felicity. She dwelt eloquently on the tendencies of
war to extinguish the finer sensibilities, to destroy the
capacities of rational happiness, to stimulate evil passions,
to uproot the precepts and spirit of the Gospel;
sternness, his determined vow of revenge.
“You say that Poland is relieved from despotism;
that patriotism no longer requires of me a warrior's
service. You say, `our son is dead: can we bring
him back again?' Your reasoning is from the weakness
of woman's nature; as if there were no stronger
impulse in the breast of man than love of country
or hope of selfish gain. Is it possible that you can
stand upon the tomb of that beautiful, martyred being,
and hear no deeper language than the perpetual
whisper of peace, peace! Till his murder is fully
avenged in the best blood of Russia, speak no more
to me of repose. I have sworn that my sword shall
never be sheathed while Constantine cumbers the
earth.”
Ulrica could no longer conceal from herself that
the desire of revenge was consuming the energies of
his existence with the eagerness of its smothered
flame; and there was soon room to spend itself in
the way of blood that it chose. The Emperor of Russia,
indignant at the revolt of Poland and the expulsion
of his brother, sent thither an army of two hundred
thousand soldiers to enforce subjection. Scarcely
had two months transpired since the lightning
gleam of revolution ere this reverse came. Every
resource was opened, every nerve in tension, to resist
domination. Peasants left the labors of husbandry,
and, if too poor to purchase weapons, armed themselves
with the implements of agriculture. Inverting
ploughshares into swords, and their pruning-hooks
into spears. Boys fled from the schools, and, forming
themselves into platoons and phalanxes, demanded
enrollment among the soldiery. Women, forgetting
their household occupations, and the privileges of
their sex, pressed to share personally in the perils of
war. It was on the 25th of January, 1831, that the
Polish troops began to leave Warsaw, to encounter
the immense force with which Russia was inundating
their land. Delicate and beautiful females attended
them on their route to Praga, inspiriting them by their
eloquence and enthusiasm. Then there were tender
partings, and high, patriotic hopes, and agonizing aspirations
of piety, that submit not to the revealment
of words. Ulrica saw that it was her destiny to follow
the fortunes of a warrior; and, as a soul in alliance
with heaven may compass things accounted
impossible on earth, she determined to do it in the
spirit of peace. She left her delightful abode, and,
with her children and a single servant, went forth to
adapt her movements to the marches of the army,
that she might be a comforter to her husband in his
toilsome and terrible carrer. But with what discord
did the din of battle grate upon her ear, who considered
even the accent of unkindness a dereliction of
the Christian's creed. During the time of contest,
she retired with her little daughter to the most remote
recess, and, clasping her infant in her arms, besought
Divine protection for the endangered husband and
she was convinced that no injury had befallen him,
her care awoke for the wounded and dying. Forgetful
of the rank and affluence in which she had been
educated, and grateful if she might but mitigate one
pang, she moved like a ministering spirit among every
form and modification of misery.
Spring advanced in her path of beauty; but she
could not win man from war, or soften him to love
his brother. The pure breath of Spring is not in unison
with the heart that cherishes evil passions. The
innocent gladness of renovated nature is a reproof to
it, and her hymn of sunbeams a mockery.
Radzivil found it impracticable to insure the comfortable
accommodation of his family during the
changes and chances of warfare. Sometimes their
lodging was in a frail tent, at others in some dilapidated
building, always liable to be broken up and
transferred in a moment. After the commencement
of summer, they were for a considerable period tenants
of a ruined fortress, open to the winds of heaven.
One evening he was seated with them there, after
a day of exposure and hardship. Leaning his head
on his hand, he contemplated with intense and melancholy
interest a group so dear to him. Ulrica, in
a costume as humble as her station required, tenderly
conversed with her daughter, clinging closely to
her side, while the infant lay in a slumber so profound
that every golden curl and relaxed muscle
seemed spell-bound.
The lofty chieftain gazed long upon his wife. He
recalled her toils, her privations, her perils, the strong
contrast between the present and the past; he wondered
at her gentleness, her moral courage, the fullness
of her compassion for others. He saw even the
beauty of her countenance scarcely changed, and fancied
that her love-beaming smile, and her clear, blue,
transparent eye imaged forth the repose of heaven.
He remembered the inward tempests that had furrowed
his own brow, the fires that had seared his
soul and dried up its fountains, making him old before
his time.
We dwell together, thought he, like the angel of
peace, and the demon of war. The comparison is
against me.
Then there passed over his mind such a saddening
consciousness of the evils of strife, the unsatisfying
nature of military glory, the fearful cost of victory,
and the tendency of a vindictive spirit to recoil upon
itself, that, for the first time, the wish that he had
never been a man of blood rushed to his lips.
Suddenly, as at an earthquake, the disjointed stones
of their habitation trembled and fell in masses. Poland's
cry “To arms!” rose above the tumult.
“The Russian artillery!” exclaimed the warrior,
as he rushed to rally his soldiers. These were to be
his last words in the sanctuary where his heart had
found refuge.
The conflict was protracted and dreadful. I wish
not to describe it. The “thunder of the captains,
sufficiently terrible when sanctioned by nature, and
softened by religion? but when urged on by misguided
man, and bade to do his work in violence and
wrath, the sickening heart may be permitted to turn
away.
At length the trampling and uproar of battle ceased.
But over the field of carnage was the unceasing groan
of mangled men—that horrible cadence of war. The
uprooted grass, and the surface of the earth trodden
into dust, were indented with curdling pools of blood.
The combatants slowly drew off in broken battalions,
and eager and mournful forms were searching
amid heaps of slain, each for his own dead.
Ulrica was already there, grasping a lifeless hand
between her own. Bathing with floods of tears the
immovable countenance of that friend whom she had
loved more than life, she felt the force of that grief
to which the shepherd-king gave voice in the exclamation,
“Would to God I had died for thee!”
Bearing to their desolated mansion the remains of
her husband, he was laid in the tomb of his ancestors
with such brief honors as his country, in her hour
of trial, was able to pay a chief who had periled all
for her. Scarcely had Ulrica bowed herself to the
first sorrows of widowhood, ere she was summoned
to lay her beautiful babe by its father's side. One of
those unannounced diseases incidental to infancy,
which, like swift-winged and noxious birds, are ever
hovering about the unopened buds of being, swept
and came forth as a flower; in the evening it was
cut down and withered.
Let none account the mourning for a lost infant
light, or soon forgotten. Sorrow for the departed is
not always graduated by the value that the community
may have affixed to their lives. The heart has
other gold than that which men weigh in a balance.
He who marks in the cemetery a mound of a span's
length, and, carelessly passing on, says, “It was but a
babe!” hath never been a parent.
The fortunes of Poland grew darker every day.
Contest after contest was lost. The battle of Praga
struck her down from her throne among the nations.
Despotism returned with a twofold purpose, to do
the deeds which her own nature prompted, and to
punish rebellion. She was not slack in either task.
Confiscation, imprisonment, banishment, death, were
the instruments by which she wrought.
Among the list of exiles to the wilds of Siberia
were the Radzivil family. Sole representatives of
one of its branches, Ulrica and her young daughter
joined that melancholy train. Yet the bereaved and
afflicted woman went not forth despairing. She girded
herself to bear her appointed lot. Life seemed
to her as a short journey to the land of peace. Ever
keeping this in view, she had a cheering word for
those whose hearts sank as a stone beneath the dark
waters.
There is sometimes found in woman an uncomplaining
of man, her stronger companion, gives way; a power
of endurance bestowed by her Creator, to supply the
deficiency of mightier energies. But here there was
something more—the panoply with which Heaven
condescends to invest the heart, which, sacrificing
its selfishness and resigning its own will, henceforth
becomes a partner in the strength of omnipotence.
It obtains no exemption from trial or misfortune, no
passport to command away a single thorn that obstructs
its pilgrimage. Its power is in the talisman,
engraven on its inmost tablet, “Thy will be done.”
The fatigues and sufferings of banishment fell
most heavily on the young and tender. Ere they
entered the gloomy pine-forests of Russia, the sorrowing
exiles found their number fearfully diminished:
And many a turf beneath their feet
Was made an infant's sepulchre.”
Little Ulrica faltered, and indicated in every feature
that her path led to a returnless bourne. Her mother
saw the destination, and strove to prepare her for
it. She spoke to her of that clime where blossoms
never fade, where there is no war, no severing of
hearts that love, of the compassion of “Jesus the
Mediator,” and of God the judge of all, who hath
mercy on the penitent and the trustful. She told her
of the unresting harps of angels, who wait, and stretch
forth their wings, and call the parting soul to join
pious labor was requited. The young summoned
spirit, went forth meekly and willingly from its house
of clay.
For the lonely mourner there was henceforth no
joy on earth, save the echo of the seraphic hymn,
which from the pure realm of peace visited her
nightly.
To the children of her people who had no mothers,
she drew near, and wiped their tears, and gathered
them into her bosom, and taught them of Jesus.
To the hoary-headed she bowed herself down as a
daughter, and comforted them till they gazed upon
her as an angel of light. To the broken-hearted she
spoke sisterly words, urging them to walk steadfastly
toward that country where is no bereavement;
and, in listening to her sweet tones, they lost for a
season the bitter memories of exile.
Thus she moved in that ministry of benevolence
and resignation which he who perfectly attains hath
accomplished the discipline of probation, and is ready
for a higher grade of being, and for the “recompense
of reward.”
The humble and pure spirit which she hid within
would have inspired contentment even amid that
realm of frost, where vegetation, except in its hardier
forms, is extinct, and the solid earth cleaves asunder.
It would have devised deeds of kindness for the miserable
boor, whose superiority to the wild beasts that
surrounded him was chiefly evinced in the skill with
skins, for the better clothing of himself and his little
barbarians.
But the wrath of a Siberian winter swept not over
the widowed consort of John Radzivil. Ere it bound
the earth in its terrible fetters, she had fled to a clime
without tempest or cloud.
Such was the annihilation of a family, once noble,
honored, and happy. Yet is its record of suffering
scarcely a drop in the dark tide that saturated the soil
of Poland. The dauntless self-devotion of her sons
availed nothing against the despotism that overwhelmed
her. Those whom she nurtured in her high places
now languish in prisons and in mines: they
perish in the stern, frozen heart of Siberia, or are
homeless wanderers in far, foreign lands. And as
among the family of nations, there has long been admiration
of her high, chivalrous character, so there
should be sympathy for her fall, and in the sorrows
of her children.
| A TALE OF POLAND. Myrtis | |