AN GAOḊAL.
459
with slender vowels; k'ak'a (male), keke (female):
amk'a (father-in-law), emke (mother-in-law), etc.
In these and similar instances, it will be seen at
once, that those words which embody the broad
(strong, deep, heavy) vowels, express the strong
the large, the masculine; while those including the
stender (weak, light) vowel-sounds, denote the
weaker, the diminutive, the feminine. Sometimes
however, the reverse takes place, so that, e, i, have
the power of significance of a, o, u, and vice-versa.
So we see in the Mantchoo exhibits still other traces
of this law of polarity, at least in the roots of words;
e.g., bime (to be), bume (to die), k'ank'an (a strong
spirit), kenken (a weak spirit); vasime (to descend)
vesime (to ascend); fusikhon (vile, abject, low,
contemptible), vesikhon (high, elevated, precious)
etc. This principle is so deeply felt that the Mant¬
choo interpretation of Chinese philosophy, ex¬
pressly says; "Tumen jaka-i sekiyen, damu e a¬
i lashshan ekisaka debi ;" i. e., the origin of all
things is founded merely on alternate movement
and rest of the two principles; e and a.
THE COULIN,
The scene is beside where the Blackwater flows,
'Tis the spring of the year and the day's near its
close:
An old woman sits with a boy on her knee,
She smiles like the evening but he like the bee,
Her hair is as white as flax ere its spun,
He's brown as yon tree that is shading the sun,
Beside the sweet river, the calm glassy river
That's smiling and gliding so peacefully on.
"Dear granny" the boy says "you'll sing me I know
The beautiful Coulin so sweet and so low;
For I love its sweet notes more than blackbird or
thrush,
And often the tears in a shower will gush
To my eyes when I hear it, dear granny, say why,
While my heart's full of pleasure I sob and I cry
To hear the sweet Coulin, the beatiful Coulin
An angel first sang it above in the sky.”
She Sings and he listens, and many years pass,
And the old woman sleeps neath the Chapel-yard
grass,
And the couple are seated upon the same stone
Where the boy sat and listened so oft to the crane,
'Tis the boy, tis the man, and he says while he
sighs,
To the girl at his side with the love streaming eyes
Oh sing me dear Una, my beautiful Una,
On sing me the Coulin he says and he sighs.
"That air brings me back the bright days of my
youth
Which flowed like a river there sunny and smooth,
And it brings back the old woman friendly and
[dear
If her spirit, dear Una, is hovering near,
'Twill glad her to hear the old melody rise,
Warm, warm on the wings of our love and our sighs
Oh sing me the Coulin, the beautiful Coulin,"
Is't the dew or a tear-drop thats moistning his eye.
A change in the scene, far far more grand, far
less fair :
By the broad rolling Hudson are seated the pair,
The dark hemlock fir waves its branches above,
As they sigh for their land, as they murmur their
love,
Hush, the heart hath been touched, and its mus¬
ical strings
Vibrates into song, tis the Coulin she sings,
The deep flowing Coulin, the sorrowful Coulin,
The well of all memory’s deep flowing spring.
They think of the bright stream they sat down
beside,
When he was the bride groom and she was the
bride,
The pulses of youth seem to throb in that strain,
Old faces long vanished look kindly again
Kind voices float round them and grand hills are
near,
Their feet have not touched, at this many a long
year,
And as ceases the Coulin, the beautiful Coulin,
Not the air but their native land melts on the ear.
Long in silence they meet and with hand clasped
in hand,
To God send up prayers for the far off old land,
And while thankful to Him for the blessings He
sent,
They know 'tis His hand that with-holdeth con¬
tent,
For the exile and christain must evermore sigh,
For his home on the earth and his home in the sky
So they sing the sweet Coulin, the beautiful Cou¬
lin
That murmurs of both homes they sing and they
sigh:
Heaven bless the old bard, in whose bosom were
nursed,
Emotions that into such melody burst,
Be thy grave ever green, may the softest of showers
And the coolest of leaves nurse its grass and its
flowers,
Be it evermore moist with the tear-drops of love,
And may angels watch round thee and guard thee
above;
Old Bard of the Coulin, the beautiful Coulin,
That's throbbing like Eire with sorrow and love.
M. C. Gallagher.
Beecher has come out in his true co¬
lors at last: He says there was no Fall
of man, no Incarnation, Crucifixion, or
Reserrection, and, therefore, no Chris¬
tian Dispensation — a nice instructor
for a "Christian Congregation"!
