T H E L A D I E S '   R E P O S I T O R Y .

J U L Y,   1 8 4 8 .

      YES, the heart hath its twilight--a time when the shadows fall, and the light is dim--a time when retrospection is mournfully pleasant, and tears, like evening dew-drops, gently distill.

      The sunlight may be flashing gloriously, or the quiet stars be twinkling in the midnight sky, but the heart can have its twilight alike in the morning's glow or the midnight gloom. Let the soul but be hushed to silence, and memory and imagination's busy trait fixed on the past, and in its shadowy vistas let forms once loved appear, and voices long silent wake again echoes in the heart--let the joys of life's sinless hours pass before us, refreshing the mind by the remembrance of their purity and innocence--let all the aspirations of hope and the bright dreams of youthful ambition be recalled, and softened and mellowed by distance, they will seem brighter than aught the future may promise; and at such moments you will feel that the shadows of the heart's twilight have fallen upon your spirit. At such moments commune with thine own heart and be still--let Meditation ply her holy task, and thy reveries, in the sombre light in which thou art shrouded, may waken purer feelings and nobler resolves than all pens, save that of inspiration, than the lyre of the poet, or the tongue of the eloquent orator.

      Art thou a lover of wisdom? Seek it, at such moments, in the page which the past has written on thy memory. There thou wilt find records which none but thine own heart may know--there are springs at which others may strive to drink in vain. Drink, then, copious draughts, and thou wilt confess, when thou attainest to self-knowledge, that thou hast not drunk in vain.

      Welcome, then, thrice welcome, thou hallowed twilight! dearer thou art than the closing shades of summer's eve to wanderers under whispering boughs near murmuring streams; for in thy dim, mysterious light we behold forms which meet but the eye of the spirit, and with our own hearts we become strangely familiar.

      Such seasons come to all; but not to all do they bring the same blessedness. From the mists of the solemn twilight angels may beckon or demons frown. To some they may be the harbingers of nights of peace and mornings of sunlit glory; to others of nights of darkness and mornings of storm.

      Art thou of those to whom such seasons bring no joy?--a joy in which smiles and tears are strangely blended. In the sparkles of the wine-cup, and the mazes of the dance, dost thou flee those hours of thought which are wont to force themselves upon thee? Do the phantoms of the past affright thee? Dost thou call oblivion thy friend, and eagerly seek for forgetfulness? Beware! thou art fleeing from that which would befriend thee, and wasting moments infinitely more precious than the pearls dissolved in the goblet of the Egyptian queen. True, they may tell of waywardness, and perchance of crime; but, like the whispers of angels, they would call thee back from thy wanderings, and point to a destiny in unison with thy noble nature, and the cravings of that spirit, whose very desires prove its immortality.

      But art thou of those whom Virtue blushes not to own? if so, thy heart's twilight is not a starless one. Thou shalt be reunited with the mist-robed forms which seem gliding before thee, and thy tongue shall join the same anthem with the voices which seem falling on thy spirit's ear. Lo! even now the stars come forth to the gaze of thy soul--stars brighter than those which look down on earth. They are the stars of hope and promise which gem the heavens of God's revelation--they tell of a land of light, where the trees of life ever bloom, and the flowers are unwithering--where the waters of life's river, flowing from beneath the throne, flash brightly in the beams of an unsetting sun, and twilight gives place to a ceaseless day.

[The Ladies' Repository 8 (July 1848): 196.]

      William Baxter's "Short Sermons from the Poets: Number II" was first published in The Ladies' Repository, and Gatherings of the West: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1848, p. 196. This volume, edited by B. F. Tefft, was published in Cincinnati by L. Swormstedt and J. H. Power and in New York by G. Lane and L. Scott for the Methodist Episcopal Church.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 12 April 2000.
Updated 28 June 2003.