There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet
corner of the churchyard.
And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine
day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the
fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to
himself as he wove them into garlands.
And a little girl at play among the tombstones crept near to listen;
but the boy was so intent upon his garland, that he did not hear the
gentle footsteps, as they trod softly over the fresh green grass. When
his work was finished, and all the flowers that were in his lap were
woven together in one long wreath, he started up to measure its length
upon the ground, and then he saw the little girl, as she stood with
her eyes fixed upon him. He did not move or speak, but thought to
himself that she looked very beautiful as she stood there with her
flaxen ringlets hanging down upon her neck. The little girl was so
startled by his sudden movement, that she let fall all the flowers she
had collected in her apron, and ran away as fast as she could. But the
boy was older and taller than she, and soon caught her, and coaxed her
to come back and play with him, and help him to make more garlands;
and from that time they saw each other nearly every day, and became
great friends.
Twenty years passed away. Again, he was seated beneath the old yew
tree in the churchyard.
It was summer now; bright, beautiful summer, with the birds singing,
and the flowers covering the ground, and scenting the air with their
perfume.
But he was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on
tiptoe, fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his
arm was round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she
whispered: "The first evening of our lives we were ever together was
passed here; we will spend the first evening of our wedded life in the
same quiet, happy place." And he drew her closer to him as she spoke.
The summer is gone; and the autumn; and twenty more summers and
autumns have passed away since that evening, in the old churchyard.
A young man, on a bright moonlight night, comes reeling through the
little white gate, and stumbling over the graves. He shouts and he
sings, and is presently followed by others like unto himself, or
worse. So, they all laugh at the dark solemn head of the yew tree, and
throw stones up at the place where the moon had silvered the boughs.
Those same boughs are again silvered by the moon, and they droop
over his mother's grave. There is a little stone which bears this
inscription:--
"HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE."
But the silence of the churchyard is now broken by a voice--not of the
youth--nor a voice of laughter and ribaldry.
"My son!--dost thou see this grave? and dost thou read the record in
anguish, whereof may come repentance?"
"Of what should I repent?" answers the son; "and why should my young
ambition for fame relax in its strength because my mother was old and
weak?"
"Is this indeed our son?" says the father, bending in agony over the
grave of his beloved.
"I can well believe I am not;" exclaimeth the youth. "It is well
that you have brought me here to say so. Our natures are unlike; our
courses must be opposite. Your way lieth here--mine yonder!"
So the son left the father kneeling by the grave.
Again a few years are passed. It is winter, with a roaring wind and a
thick gray fog. The graves in the Church-yard are covered with snow,
and there are great icicles in the Church-yard. The wind now carries
a swathe of snow along the tops of the graves as though the "sheeted
dead" were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall with
a crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly
mirth of one who is now coming to his final rest.
There are two graves near the old yew tree; and the grass has
overgrown them. A third is close by; and the dark earth at each side
has just been thrown up. The bearers come; with a heavy pace they
move along; the coffin heaveth up and down, as they step over the
intervening graves.
Grief and old age had seized upon the father, and worn out his life;
and premature decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed away his vain
ambition, and his useless strength, till he prayed to be borne, not
the way yonder that was most opposite to his father and his mother,
but even the same way they had gone--the way which leads to the Old
Churchyard Tree.
* * * * *
In dreamy hours the dormant imagination looks out and sees vague
significances in things which it feels can at an after time be vividly
conceived and expressed; the most familiar objects have a strange
double meaning in their aspects; the very chair seems to be
patiently awaiting there the expounder of its silent, symbolical
language.--_Boston Morning Post_.
* * * * *
[FROM BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.]