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MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL 
[For the Rural New-Yorker.] 
ODE TO THE STARS 
[For the Rural New-Yorker.] 
A BROTHER’S VOICE-I HEAR IT YET. 
Ye stars that rule the night with glorious splendor 
Forever shining from your azure dome, 
Will ye to earthly mortals knowledge render 
Of that far home ? 
Tell us your mission, for in vain we ponder. 
And search each mystic page with zealous care, 
Lost in rapt thought, we meditate and wonder 
Why ye are there. 
Lights of the upper world which beam in glory, 
Say, are ye what the ancients deemed of yore, 
Rulers of men, and fraught with fabled story 
Of mystic lore ? 
Tell us mysterious orbs, have ye the power 
Astrologers declared and sought to scan— 
Can ye unveil the future’s hazy hour 
To eye of man ? 
Or are ye worlds in the faj distance beaming, 
With vales bestrewed with rivers, trees and flowers: 
With sinless life, and love, and pleasure leeming, 
Purer than ours. 
Aye, there ye shine and glisten now as brightly, 
As when ye first the azure heavens trode, 
Lighting the path that leads the way-worn, nightly 
To his abode. 
Then twinkle on, yc beacons ever flaming ; 
Years must elapse, and ages circle on, 
Ere thunders forth the mighty voice proclaiming. 
Your mission done. 
Irondequoit, Jan., 1851. R. M. A. 
I heak it yet! That silver tone steals on my waking ear, 
As when on earth in gladsome hours it rose so soft and 
clear ; 
'Tis like the reed-like murmuring sound beside the placid 
wave. 
Or like the breezy sigh that fans the flowers on thy grave. 
It comes with sweetly lulling power when gushing thoughts 
are stirred •, 
’Tis like the flute-like songs that swell the voice of 
summer bird; 
’Tis like a plaintive, soothing strain the soul can ne’er 
forget •, 
’Tis o’er me now, melodious still; I hear, I hear it yet. 
It whispcTs to that aching heart, when sorrow’s winds are 
here; 
It calms, as when with faith illumed, that eye each woe 
could cheer : 
And when in pleasure’s mazy whirl, my flowering path is 
found. 
There comes above the festal song, this sweetly warning 
sound. 
’Tis borne on every passing gale that sweeps along tire 
glade; 
It echoes o’er the sunny vale, and through the lowering 
shade ; 
’Tis with me in the twilight hush, when sunset fills the air, 
When midnight wraps the earth in gloom,—list, still that 
voice is there. 
A brother’s voice, how soft its tones, what music lingers 
there'. 
’Tis fraught with love’s own melody, ere life had dreamed 
of care:— 
’Tis like the breath of halcyon days, with mild and tranquil 
flow. 
It takes the thorn from every flower, the sting from every 
woe. 
Rut thou art gone, my brother, where the weary are at rest, 
Thou hast drank the cup of pain, with peace and joy art 
blest:— 
That voice is tuned in higher worlds tire choirs of praise 
to All, 
But o’er each sound of earth or sky, I hear, I hear it still. 
BRIDAL QUARRELS. 
A trifling disagreement about a trifling- 
matter may destroy a life of enjoyment.— 
And it usually happens that when the mar¬ 
ried pair do quarrel, the occasion is so des¬ 
picable they are ashamed to think of it.— 
Yet that silly circumstance, like a drop of 
ink discoloring the whole vessel of water, 
often spreads its influence over the whole 
life. Just as 
“ A pebble in the streamlet scant 
Has turned the course of many a river; 
A dew drop op the baby plant 
lias warped the giant oak forever.” 
I find an exceedingly painful illustration 
of these ideas in an English publication, for 
the truth of which its author pledges his 
word. 
A young couple had passed the first 
weeks of their marriage at the house of a 
friend. Having at length entered their 
new home, they were taking their first 
breakfast, when the following scene occur¬ 
red : — 
The young husband was innocently open¬ 
ing a boiled egg in an egg-cup. The bride 
observed that he was breaking the shell at 
what she thought was the wrong end. 
“ How strange it looks,” said she, “ to 
see you break your egg at the small end, 
my dear! No one else does so; and it looks 
of patient, persevering industry. He has i 
more than comfortable farm buildings, or¬ 
chards, and fruit yards; the forest has re¬ 
ceded in all directions; he is prosperous in 
the midst of prosperity. 
There is the distant view of a rural coun¬ 
try village that has sprung up in his neigh¬ 
borhood; a meeting house, a tavern, a few 
stores and mechanic shops, and a substan¬ 
tial school house. The stream that was 
forded, when the pioneer entered the forest 
j with his oxen and sled, has now a stone 
; arched bridge thrown over it. The artist 
has given us a rural landscape, in which is 
mingled all the evidences of substantial, well 
earned prosperity; there is an air of com¬ 
fort and quiet pervading the whole scene; 
the old pioneer, true to the instincts and 
habits of his youth and middle age, is not 
idle, as we can see. He has yet an eye up¬ 
on his affairs, and a hand in them; and could 
we look within doors, we should see the 
young wife that bravely penetrated the for¬ 
est with him; she who has lightened his 
burthens, and solaced him in such hours of 
despondency as will come upon the stoutest 
hearts; transformed into the staid, aged 
matron; yet locking to the affairs of the 
household; and blending precept with ex¬ 
ample, fitting her daughters for the vicissi¬ 
tudes, the trials, and the duties of life. 
Such has been pioneer life end progress 
upon the Holland Purchase. A fancy 
sketch it may be called; but yet it is a faith¬ 
ful illustration of such realities as will be 
recognised by all who are famiiiar with the 
events that have attended the conversion of 
Western New York, from a wilderness, to a 
theatre of wealth, enterprise, and prosperity, 
such as it is now.— Turner's History. 
It is Winter. Forty-five years are sup¬ 
posed to have passed since the artist intro¬ 
duced the pioneer and his wife to us, just 
commencing in their wilderness home.— 
The scene has progressed to a consumma¬ 
tion! The pioneer is an independent Far¬ 
mer of the Holland Purchase. His old 
“ article” has long ago been exchanged for 
a deed in fee. He has added to his primi¬ 
tive possessions; and ten to one that lie has 
secured lands for his sons in some of the 
Western States, to make pioneers and foun¬ 
ders of settlements of them. He has flocks 
and herds; large surplus of produce in his 
granaries which he may sell or keep as he 
chooses. He is the founder, and worker 
out, of his own fortunes; one who in his old 
age should be honored and venerated, for 
his are the peaceful triumphs of early, bold 
enterprise, as we have seen; and long years 
APRIL DAYS IN JANUARY. 
j have usurped old Winter’s rightful domin- 
> ion; giving us a poor specimen of April 
' days in January. A brief season of sun- 
; shine and south wind, coming to mock the 
l leafless trees and withered herbage, and 
} disrobing them of their snowy adornments, 
| has been followed by a drizzling rain—the 
S mosj disagreeable weather to an unoccu- 
) pied mind which can be imagined. Every 
) thing then seems to pall upon the feelings 
> —imusement and employment are thrown 
< aside alike, and one knows not what to do, 
s or where to turn for relief. 
v Sw h hr. bee the weather for the last 
| day or Wo, and with what gladness do we 
} hail every sign of fair skies once more.— 
\nd now—in the west there is a lifting of 
<' one/or more folds of the cloudy curtain, 
( • ' stripes of a lighter hue give indications 
\ of a breaking away again, in that propitious 
U barter. A tint of light red upon the 
! \ vtouth-western clouds tell of a sun shining 
beyond them—throwing its golden rays up- 
' Von their outer folds, and almost penetrating 
; / u;d dispersing them. 
— How 1 sulkily do those forlorn last- 
i j year’s flower stalks, which we see from our 
|window, wave in the wind—still bearing 
; ■ the withered remnants of leaves and 
1 blossoms, once their pride and adorning.’— 
THS MOTHER’S LAST LESSON. 
“ Will you please teach me my verse, 
mamma, and then kiss me, and bid me good 
night V” said little Roger L-•, as he open¬ 
ed the door and peeped cautiously into the 
chamber of his sick mother;. “I am very 
sleepy, but no one has heard me say my 
prayers.” 
Mrs. L-was very ill—indeed, her at¬ 
tendants believed her to be dying. She sat 
propped up with her pillows, and struggling 
for breath; her lips were white: her eyes 
were growing dull and glazed. She was a 
widow, and little Roger was her only—her 
darling child. Every night he had been in 
the habit of coming into her room, and sit¬ 
ting in her lap, or kneeling by her side, whilst 
she repeated passages from God’s holy word 
or related to him stories of the wise and good J 
men, spoken of in its pages. 
“Hush! hush!” said a lady who was 
watching beside her couch. “ Your dear 
mother is too ill to hear you to-night!” As 
she said this, she came forward, and laid her 
hand gently upon his arm, as if she would 
lead him from the room. Roger began to 
sob as if his little heart would break. 
“ I cannot go to bed without saying my 
prayers—indeed I cannot” 
The ear of the dying mother caught the 
sound. Although she had been nearly in¬ 
sensible to every thing transpiring around 
her, the sobs of her darling roused her stu¬ 
por, and turning to a friend, she desired her 
to bring her little son and lay him on her 
bosom. Her request was granted, and the 
child’s rosy cheek and golden head nestled 
beside the pale, cold face of his dying mother. 
“ Roger, my son, my darling child,” said 
the dying woman, “ repeat this verse after 
When my 
BREVITY, IN WOMAN. 
We find, in a Californian diary, the fol¬ 
lowing glorification of a quality we are not 
sure we should like. “ A man of few w r ords” 
is very well, but a woman of few words is a 
matlei open to argument: 
“ I encountered, to-day, 
ions of love and service, are all, all gone.— 
But those violet-like souls which bloom at 
all seasons, yet remain—and now they win 
upon us by their unpretending worthiness. 
The perf«mc of their true affection proves 
a balm to our wounded hearts, and we 
come to love our lowly lot, when we find 
what treasures it has given us. O, we should 
never have valued them as they deserve, 
had no storms arisen to purify our moral 
atmosphere—no frosts destroyed those flow¬ 
ers which bloom only in summer. 
Our mid-winter thaw, with all its disa¬ 
greeableness, is not to us, without its uses 
and its blessings,—for it has given us April 
thoughts, as well as April days in January. 
Maple Hill, N. Y. n. 
“ O, I think it’s quite as good, in fact bet¬ 
ter than breaking it at the large end love, 
for when you break the large end, the egg- 
runs over the top,” replied the husband. 
“ But it looks very odd, when no one else 
does so,” rejoined the wife. 
“ Well, now, I really do tliink it is not a 
nice way that you have got of eating an 
egg. That dipping strips of bread and but¬ 
ter into an egg certainly is not tidy. But I 
do not object to your doing as you please, 
if you will let me break my egg at the 
small end,” retorted the husband. 
“ I am quite sure my way is not so bad 
as eating fruit pie with a knife, as you do, 
instead of using the fork; always eat up 
your syrup as if you were not accustomed 
to have such things. You really do not see 
how very bad it looks, or I am sure you 
would not do so,” added the wife. 
“ The syrup is made to be eaten with the 
pie, and why should I send it away in the 
plate ?” asked the husband. 
“No well bred person clears up the plate 
as if they were starved, said the bride with 
a contemptuous toss of her little head. 
“Well, then, I am not a well bred per¬ 
son,” replied the husband angrily. 
•* But you must be, if we are to be com¬ 
fortable together,” was the sharp answer of 
the fastidious lady. 
“ Well, I must break my egg at the small 
end, so it does not signify; and I must eat 
my syrup.” 
m a ravine, some 
three miles distant, among the gold washers, 
a woman from San Jose. She was at work 
with a large wooden bowl, by the side of a 
stream. I asked her how long she had 
been there, and how much gold she ave¬ 
raged a day. She replied, ‘ Three weeks 
and an ounce.’ Her reply reminded me of 
an anecdote of the late Judge B-, who 
met a girl returning from market, and asked 
her, ‘How deep did you find the stream? 
what did you get for your butter ?’ * Up 
to the knee and nine-pence,’ was the reply. 
‘Ah!’ said the judge to himself; ‘she is the 
girl for me; no words lost thereturned 
back, proposed, was accepted, and married 
the next week; and a mere happy couple 
the conjugal bonds never united; the nup¬ 
tial lamp never waned; its ray was steady 
and clear to the last Ye who paddle off 
and on for seven years, and are at last, per¬ 
haps, capsized, take a lesson of the judge. 
That * up to the knee and nine-pence’ is 
worth all the rose letters and melancholy 
J rhymes ever penned.” 
WEARING THE BEARD. 
One great cause of the frequent occur¬ 
rence of chronic bronchitis, may be found 
in the reprehensible fashion of shaving the 
beard. That this ornament was given by i 
the Creator for some useful purpose there 
can be no doubt, for in fashioning the hu¬ 
man body, he gave nothing unbecoming 
a perfect man, nothing useless, nothing su¬ 
perfluous. Hair being an imperfect con¬ 
ductor of caloric, is admirably calculated to 
retain the animal warmth of that part of the 
body which is so constantly and necessarily 
exposed to the weather, and thus to protect 
this important portion of the respiratory 
passage from the injurious effects of sudden 
checks of perspiration. 
When one exercises for hours his vocal 
with the unremitted activity of a 
May we not learn from them a lesson of 
; he mutability of friends and fortune, and 
of the vanity of personal attractions? 
But, since the rain has ceased, and there 
re gleams of sunshine calling us from our 
oci .is once more—let us walk into the gar¬ 
den— let us stroll along its leaf-covered 
though the picture exhibited is sadly 
in keeping with the desolation elsewhere. 
Ah! not too fast—what have we here ?— 
What do we behold peeping out from 
amid the rubbish like a diamond from the 
mire? ’Tis a full-blown, perfect violet— 
“ Hid ’neatb the leaves and bending to the ground”— 
gleaming but the brighter for the surround¬ 
ing gloom. Is not this now a treasure, how¬ 
ever little noted before? 
When gorgeous Summer reigns, and a 
thousand flowers of a thousand varied hues, 
deck fields and gardens, then the “ timid, 
modest violet ” is passed by unnoticed and 
unhonored. Contented with its lowly lot, 
Compensations. —For everything you 
have missed, you have gained something 
else; and for everything you gain, you lose 
something. If riches increase, they are in¬ 
creased that use them. If the gatherer 
gathers too much/ nature takes out of the 
man what she puts into his chest; swells 
the estate, but kills the owner. Nature 
hates monopolies and exceptions. The 
waves of the sea do not more speedily seek 
a level from their loftiest tossing, than the 
varieties of condition tend to equalize them¬ 
selves. There is always some levelling cir¬ 
cumstances that puts down the overbearing, 
the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substan¬ 
tially on the same ground with all others.— 
Emerson. 
organs, 
public declamation, the pores of the skin in 
the vicinity of the throat and chest become 
relaxed, so that when he enters the open 
air, the whole force of the atmosphere bears 
upon these parts, and he sooner or later 
contracts a bronchitis; while, had he the 
flowing beard with which his Maker has 
endowed him, uncut, to protect these im¬ 
portant parts, he would escape any degree 
of exposure unharmed. 
The fact that Jews and other people who 
wear the beard long, are but rarely afflicted 
with bronchitis and analogous disorders, 
suggests a powerful argument in support of 
these views.— Dr. Marcy. 
“ Then I will not have either fruit pies or 
eggs at the table.” 
“ But I will have them,” petulantly ex¬ 
claimed the husband. 
“ Then I wish I had not been married to 
you,” cried the young wife bursting into 
tears. 
“ And so do I,” added the now incensed 
husband, as he arose and walked out of the 
room. 
This domestic quarrel was followed by 
others equally trifling in their origin and 
disgraceful in their character; until the sil¬ 
ly couple made themselves so disagreeable 
to each other that their home became un- 
l endurable and they separated. 
me, and never, never forget it 
father and mother forsake me, the Lord will 
take me up.” The child repeated it two or 
three times distinctly, and said his little pray¬ 
er. Then he kissed ihe cold, almost rigid 
features before him, and went quiet to his 
little couch. The next morning he sought 
as usual, his mother, but he found her stiff 
and cold. 
This was her last lesson. He has never 
forgotten it—he probably never will. He has 
grown to be a man—a good man, and now 
occupies a post of much honor and profit in 
Massachusetts. I never could look upon 
him without thinking about the faith so 
beautifully exhibited by his dying mother. 
Ladies take Notice. —A valuable idea 
is passing under your eye. Read this: 
“ In-door exercise is very different from 
out-door exercise. The air of a house has 
always less oxygen in it than the air without. 
It is more relaxing. Besides, mere walking 
up and down a room is dull employment: 
and exeicise, to be useful, ought to be cheer¬ 
ful and amusing. To walk merely for ex¬ 
ercise is, therefore, seldom useful. We 
should always endeavour to walk for enter¬ 
tainment. It is the entertainment that re¬ 
freshes and invigorates.” 
Now I doubt not, the reader is ready to 
pronounce this quarrel about the opening 
of the egg, a foolish affair. It was so, and 
yet I seriously question if the first quarrel 
between a newly married pair ever has a 
much more elevated beginning. Little 
The world globes itself in a drop of dew. 
The microscope cannot find the animalcule 
which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, 
ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appe¬ 
tite, and organs of reproduction that take 
hold on eternity—all find room to consist 
in this small creature. So do we put our 
life into every act .— Emerson, 
Pity and Scorn. —He that hath pity on 
another man’s sorrow shall be free from it 
himself; and he that delighteth in and scorn- 
eth the misery of another shall one time or 
other fall into it himself. — Sir W. Raleigh. 
Government. —The surest way of gov¬ 
erning, both in a private family and a king¬ 
dom, is for a husband and a prince to yield 
at certain times something of their prerog¬ 
ative. 
Some confine their view to the present, 
some extend it to futurity; the butterfly 
flutters round the meadows, the eagle crosses 
the seas. 
Those who speak without reflection, often 
remember their own words afterwards with 
Sorrow. 
