It chills the heart to think that
such unspeakable ruin of a human soul was ever wrought by any system
that even professed to be Christian. Moloch was truly divine, compared
with the God of the Spanish Inquisition. But the gloom of the tragedy is
not allowed to linger. The poet scatters it by the story of the merry
"Birds of Killingworth," which appears elsewhere in the pages of this
number of the "Atlantic." The blithe beauty of the verses is
captivating, and the argument of the shy preceptor is the most poetic
plea that ever wooed a world to justice. What an airy felicity in the
lines,--
"'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents from shore to shore
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore."
And so, amid sunshine and the carolling of birds, the legendary rural
romance of the Yankee shore, we turn the page, and find, with real
sorrow, that the last tale is told in the Wayside Inn. The finale is
brief. The guests arose and said good night. The drowsy squire remains
to rake the embers of the fire. The scattered lamps gleam a moment at
the windows. The Red Horse inn seems, in the misty night, the sinking
constellation of the Bear,--and then,
"Far off the village-clock struck one.
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