1. Come to the sunset tree,
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's ax lies free,
And the reaper's work is done;
The twilight star to heaven,
And the summer dew to flowers,
And rest to us is given,
By the soft evening hours.
2. Sweet is the hour of rest,
Pleasant the woods' low sigh,
And the gleaming of the west,
And the turf whereon we lie,
When the burden and the heat
Of the laborer's task is o'er,
And kindly voices greet
The tired one at the door.
3. Yes, tuneful is the sound
That dwells in whispering boughs:
Welcome the freshness round,
And the gale that fans our brows;
But rest more sweet and still
Than ever the nightfall gave,
Our yearning hearts shall fill,
In the world beyond the grave.
4. There, shall no tempests blow,
Nor scorching noontide heat;
There, shall be no more snow,
No weary, wandering feet;
So we lift our trusting eyes
From the hills our fathers trod,
To the quiet of the skies,
To the Sabbath of our God.
XXXV. HOW MARGERY WONDERED. (99)
By Lucy Larcom.
1. One bright morning late in March, little Margery put on her hood and
her Highland plaid shawl, and went trudging across the beach. It was the
first time she had been trusted out alone, for Margery was a little girl;
nothing about her was large, except her round gray eyes, which had yet
scarcely opened upon half a dozen springs and summers.
2. There was a pale mist on the far-off sea and sky, and up around the sun
were white clouds edged with the hues of pinks and violets. The sunshine
and the mild air made Margery's very heart feel warm, and she let the soft
wind blow aside her Highland shawl, as she looked across the waters at the
sun, and wondered! For, somehow, the sun had never looked before as it did
to-day;--it seemed like a great golden flower bursting out of its
pearl-lined calyx,--a flower without a stem. Or was there a strong stem
away behind it in the sky, that reached down below the sea, to a root,
nobody could guess where?
3. Margery did not stop to puzzle herself about the answer to her
question, for now the tide, was coming in, and the waves, little at first,
but growing larger every moment, were crowding up along the sand and
pebbles, laughing, winking, and whispering, as they tumbled over each
other, like thousands of children hurrying home from somewhere, each with
its own precious little secret to tell.
4. Where did the waves come from? Who was down there under the blue wall
of the horizon, with the hoarse, hollow voice, urging and pushing them
across the beach at her feet? And what secret was it they were lisping to
each other with their pleasant voices? Oh, what was there beneath the sea,
and beyond the sea, so deep, so broad, and so dim, too, away off where the
white ships, that looked smaller than sea birds, were gliding out and in?
5. But while Margery stood still for a moment on a dry rock, and wondered,
there came a low, rippling warble to her ear from a cedar tree on the
cliff above her. It had been a long winter, and Margery had forgotten that
there were birds, and that birds could sing. So she wondered again what
the music was.
6. And when she saw the bird perched on a yellow-brown bough, she wondered
yet more. It was only a bluebird, but then it was the first bluebird
Margery had ever seen. He fluttered among the prickly twigs, and looked as
if he had grown out of them, as the cedar berries had, which were dusty
blue, the color of his coat. But how did the music get in his throat? And
after it was in his throat, how could it untangle itself, and wind itself
off so evenly? And where had the bluebird flown from, across the snow
banks down to the shore of the blue sea?
7. The waves sang a welcome to him, and he sang a welcome to the waves;
they seemed to know each other well; and the ripple and the warble sounded
so much alike, the bird and the wave must have both learned their music of
the same teacher. And Margery kept on wondering as she stepped between the
song of the bluebird and the echo of the sea, and climbed a sloping bank,
just turning faintly green in the spring sunshine.
8. The grass was surely beginning to grow! There were fresh, juicy shoots
running up among the withered blades of last year, as if in hopes of
bringing them back to life; and closer down she saw the sharp points of
new spears peeping from their sheaths. And scattered here and there were
small, dark green leaves folded around buds shut up so tightly that only
those who had watched them many seasons could tell what flowers were to be
let out of their safe prisons by and by. So no one could blame Margery for
not knowing that they were only common things, nor for stooping over the
tiny buds, and wondering.
9. What made the grass come up so green out of the black earth? And how
did the buds know when it was time to take off their little green hoods,
and see what there was in the world around them? And how came they to be
buds at all? Did they bloom in another world before they sprung up
here?--and did they know, themselves, what kind of flowers they should
blossom into? Had flowers souls, like little girls, that would live in
another world when their forms had faded away in this?
10. Margery thought she would like to sit down on the bank, and wait
beside the buds until they opened; perhaps they would tell her their
secret if the very first thing they saw was her eyes watching them. One
bud was beginning to unfold; it was streaked with yellow in little stripes
that she could imagine became wider every minute. But she would not touch
it, for it seemed almost as much alive as herself. She only wondered, and
wondered!
11. Margery heard her mother calling her, and she trudged home across the
shells and pebbles with a pleasant smile dimpling her cheeks; for she felt
very much at home in this large, wonderful world, and was happy to be
alive, although she neither could have told, nor cared to know, the reason
why. But when her mother unpinned the little girl's Highland shawl, and
took off her hood, she said, "O mother, do let me live on the doorstep! I
don't like houses to stay in. What makes everything so pretty and so glad?
Don't you like to wonder?"
12. Margery's mother was a good woman. But then there was all the
housework to do, and, if she had thoughts, she did not often let them
wander outside of the kitchen door. And just now she was baking some
gingerbread, which was in danger of getting burned in the oven. So she
pinned the shawl around the child's neck again, and left her on the
doorstep, saying to herself, as she returned to her work, "Queer child! I
wonder what kind of a woman she will be!"
13. But Margery sat on the doorstep, and wondered, as the sea sounded
louder, and the sunshine grew warmer around her. It was all so strange,
and grand, and beautiful! Her heart danced with joy to the music that went
echoing through the wide world from the roots of the sprouting grass to
the great golden blossom of the sun.
14. And when the round, gray eyes closed that night, at the first peep of
the stars, the angels looked down and wondered over Margery. For the
wisdom of the wisest being God has made, ends in wonder; and there is
nothing on earth so wonderful as the budding soul of a little child.
DEFINITIONS.-l. Trudg'ing, walking sturdily. 2. Hues, colors. Ca'lyx, the
outer covering of a flower. 4. Ho-ri'zon, the line where the sky and earth
seem to meet. 5. War'ble, a trill of the voice. Spears, shoots of grass.
Sheaths, coverings.
EXERCISES.--Name the things about which Margery
wondered. What did she wonder about each? What is still
more wonderful than all that at which Margery wondered?