THE READING-CLUB.
THE LIGHT FROM OVER THE RANGE.
“D’ye see it, pard?”
“See what, Rough?”
“The light from over the Range.”
“Not a bit, Rough. It’s not daybreak yet. Yer sick, an’ yer head
bothers ye.”
“Pard, yer off. I’ve been sick, but I’m well again. It’s not dark like
it was. The light’s a-comin’—comin’ like the boyhood days that crep’
inter the winders of the old home.”
“Ye’ve been dreamin’, Rough. The fever hain’t all outen yer head yet.”
“Dreamin’? ’Twa’n’t all dreams. It’s the light comin’, pard. I see
’em all plain. Thar’s the ole man lookin’ white an’ awful, just as he
looked the mornin’ he drove me from home; and that woman behind him,
stretchin’ out her arms arter me, is the best mother in the world.
Don’t you see ’em, pard?”
“Yer flighty, Rough. It’s all dark, ’cepting a pine-knot flickerin’ in
the ashes.”
“No—the light’s a-comin’ brighter and brighter. Look! It’s beamin’
over the Range bright and gentle, like the smile that used to be over
me when my head lay in my mother’s lap, long ago.”
“Hyar’s a little brandy, Rough. Thar; I seen it though my eyes are
dim—somehow—hyar, Rough.”
“Never, pard. That stuff spiled the best years of my life—it sha’n’t
spile my dreams of ’em. Oh, sich dreams, pard! They take me to the old
home again. I see the white house ’mong the trees. I smell the breath
of the apple-blossoms, and hear the birds singin’ and the bees
hummin’, and the old plough-songs echoin’ over the leetle valley. I
see the river windin’ through the willers an’ sycamores, an’ the dear
ole hills all around, p’intin’ up to heaven like the spires of big
meetin’-houses. Thar’s the ole rock we called the tea-table. I climb up
on it, an’ play a happy boy agin. Oh, if I’d only staid thar, pard!”
“Don’t, Rough; ye thaw me all out, talkin’ that. It makes me womanish.”
“That’s it, pard: we’ve kep’ our hearts froze so long, we want it allus
winter. But the summer comes back with all the light from over the
Range. How bright it is, pard! Look! How it floods the cabin till the
knots an’ cobwebs are plainer than day.”
“Suthin’s wrong, Rough. It’s all dark, ’cept only that pine-knot in the
chimbly.”
“No, it’s all right, pard. The light’s come over the Range. I kin see
better’n I ever could. Kin see the moister in yer eyes, pard, an’ see
the crooked path I’ve come, runnin’ clean back to my mother’s knee. I
wasn’t allus called Rough. Somebody used to kiss me, an’ call me her
boy: nobody’ll ever know I’ve kep’ it till the end.”
“I hev wanted to ax ye, mate, why ye never had any name but jist Rough?”
“Pard—it’s gettin’ dark—my name? I’ve never heard it since I left
home. I buried it thar in the little churchyard, whar mother’s
waitin’ for the boy that never come back. I can’t tell it, pard. In
my kit you’ll find a package done up. Thar’s two picters in it of two
faces that’s been hoverin’ over me since I took down. You’ll find my
name thar, pard—thar with hers—an’ mother’s.”
“Hers? Will I ever see her, Rough?”
“Not till you see her by the light that comes over the Range to us all.
Pard, it’s gettin’ dark—dark and close—darker than it ever seemed to
me afore”—
“Rough, what’s the matter? Speak to me, mate. Can’t I do nuthin’ fer
ye?”
“Yes—pard. Can’t ye—say—suthin’?”
“What d’ye mean, Rough? I’ll say any thing to please ye.”
“Say—a—pra’r, pard.”
“A pra’r! Rough, d’ye mean it?”
“Yes, a pra’r, pard. It’s the—last thing Rough’ll ever—ax of ye.”
“It’s hard to do, Rough. I don’t know a pra’r.”
“Think back, pard. Didn’t yer mother—teach ye—suthin’? One that
begins—‘Our Father’—an’ then—somehow—says—‘forgive us’—”
“Don’t, Rough, ye break me all up.”
“The light’s a-fadin’—on the golden hills—an’ the night is
comin’—out of the canyuns—pard. Be quick—ye’ll try, pard. Say
suthin’—fer Rough”—
“I—Rough—Our Father, forgive us. Don’t be hard on Rough. We’re a
tough lot. We’ve forgot ye, but we hain’t all bad. ’Cause we hain’t
forgot the old home. Forgive us—be easy on Rough. Thy will be done”—
“It’s comin’ agin—pard. The light’s—comin’—over the Range”—
“Have mercy on—us, an’—an’—an’—settle with us ’cordin’ to—to the
surroundin’s of our lives. Thy—Thy kingdom come”—
“Go on, pard. It’s comin’.”
“Now—I lay me down to sleep.”
“That’s—good—mother said that.”
“Hallowed be Thy name—pray—the Lord his soul to keep.”
“That’s good—pard. It’s all glory—comin’ over—the Range—mother’s
face—her—face”—
“Thine is the glory, we ask—for Jesus’ sake—Amen.”
“Pard”—
“What, Rough? I’m all unstrung. I”—
“Fare”—
“Rough! Yer worse! What, dead?”
Yes, the wanderings were over. Ended with a prayer, rough and sincere,
like the heart that had ceased to throb; a prayer and a few real tears,
even in that lone cabin in the cañon; truer than many a death scene
knows, although a nation does honor to the dying; a prayer that pleased
Him better than many a prayer of the schools and creeds. A rough but
gentle hand closed the eyes. The first rays of the morning sun broke
through a crevice in the little cabin, and hung like his mother’s smile
over the couch of the sleeping boy. Only one mourner watched with Rough
as he waited for the new name which will be given to us all, when that
light comes to the world from over the Range.
THE DRIVER OF NINETY-THREE.
Street-car driver, “Ninety-three!”
Very weary and worn was he,
As he dragged himself to his little home;
Long, long hours from year to year,
Never a day for rest, no cheer,
In the woods or meadows in joy to roam.
All day through in tiresome round,
Wages scanty, and prospects bound
In a treadmill life from sun to sun,
Facing the winter’s cold and sleet,
Facing the summer’s burning heat,
With little to hope and little won.
The clothing was poor of “Ninety-three,”
And poor as well for the family;
But the wife was patient with gentle grace.
“I’ve watched all day by the baby’s bed;
I think he is going, John,” she said,
With an anxious look on her pallid face.
He gazed with pride on his baby boy.
“He is handsome, wife!” and a look of joy
Just for a moment dried the tears.
“How does he look in the glad daylight?
I have never seen him, except at night;”
And he sighed as he thought of the weary years.
Labor the blessing of life should be,
But it seemed like a curse to “Ninety-three,”
For twice too long were the toiling hours;
Never the time to improve the mind,
Or joy in his little ones to find:
Grasping and thoughtless are human powers.
All night long did the driver stay
By the beautiful child, then stole away,
Hoping, still hoping that God would save;
But when the sun in the heavens rose high,
The time had come for the baby to die,
And the mother had only an open grave.
“I must take a day,” said “Ninety-three”
To the wealthy railroad company;
“I shall see the face of my child,” he said.
Oh, bitter the thought to wait till death
Has whitened the cheek and stopped the breath,
Before we can see our precious dead!
With many a tear and half-moaned prayer,
With apple-blossoms among his hair,
They buried the child of their fondest love;
And the man went back to the treadmill life
With a kindlier thought for his stricken wife.
Ah, well, there’s a reckoning day above!
_Sarah K. Bolton._
METAMORA TO THE COUNCIL.
You sent for me, and I’ve come: if you have nothing to say, I go back
again. How is it, brothers? The doubt seems on all your faces, and your
young warriors grasp their fire-weapons, as if they waited the onset
of the foe. You were like a small thing upon the great waters; you had
no earth to rest upon; you left the smoke of your father’s wig-wam far
in the distance, when the lord of the soil took you as little children
to his home; our hearths were warm, and the Indian was the white man’s
friend. Your great Book tells you to give good gifts. The Indian needs
no book: the Great Spirit has written with his finger on his heart.
Wisconego here? let me see his eye! Art thou not he whom I snatched
from the war-club of the Mohegan, when the lips of the foe thirsted for
thy blood, and their warriors had sung thy death-song? Say unto these
people that they have bought thy tongue, and that thy coward heart has
uttered a lie. Slave of the whites, go! (_stabs him_) follow Sassawan!
White man, beware! the wrath of the wronged Indian shall fall on you
like a mighty cataract that dashes the uprooted oak down its mighty
chasm; the dread war-cry shall start you from dreams at night, and the
red hatchet gleam in the blaze of your burning dwellings. Tremble, from
the east to the west, from the north to the south, till the lands you
have stolen groan beneath your feet! (_Throws hatchet on stage._) Thus
do I smite your nation, and defy your power!
HOW THE RANSOM WAS PAID.
1598.
On the helpless Flemish village
Cruel Alva swooped and fell;
And the peace of trade and tillage
Turned to martial clank and yell.
In the town-house, tall and handsome,
Stood the great duke looking down
On the burghers proffering ransom
For the safety of the town.
O’er his brow gray locks were twining,
For his casque was laid aside,
And his good sword carved and shining
From the sword-belt was untied.
Prince he seemed of born commanders;
Pride and power each gesture told;
As he cried, “Ye men of Flanders,
Bring me twenty casks of gold!”
Then upon them fell a sadness,
And a shadow like a pall,
While they murmured, “’Tis rank madness
Such a sum from us to call!”
And the spokesman of the village
Murmured feebly, “Sure you jest.”
Answered Alva, “Gold or pillage,
Choose whichever may suit you best!”
Faint and stunned they turned despairing,
When arose a laugh of joy,
And before their startled staring
In there pranced a little boy;
On his curls the duke’s helm rested,
As with noisy glee he roared,
And his good steed mailed and crested
Was great Alva’s mighty sword!
Round about the room he gambolled,
Peeping through the helmet bars;
Now he leaped, and now he ambled,
Like a Cupid mocking Mars.
Then he stayed his merry prancing,
And of Alva’s knees caught hold,
Where a ray of sunlight glancing
Turned his sunny curls to gold.
Swift the mother, sorely frightened,
Strove to take the cherub wild;
But the duke’s stern features lightened
As he kept her from the child;
And he drank the pretty prattle—
For the baby knew no fear—
Till his eye, so fierce in battle,
Softened with a pearly tear.
For a babe arose before him
In fair Spain, ere war’s alarms,—
Thus his father’s sword upbore him.
Alva caught the boy in arms,
And, the pretty forehead baring,
Cried, “A kiss!” The child obeyed;
Then unto those men despairing
Alva said, “Your ransom’s paid.”
_W. H. Rose, in Texas Siftings._
RE-ENLISTED.
Oh did you see him in the street, dressed up in army blue,
When drums and trumpets into town their storm of music threw,—
A louder tune than all the winds could muster in the air,—
The Rebel winds, that tried so hard our flag in strips to tear?
You didn’t mind him? Oh, you looked beyond him, then, perhaps,
To see the mounted officers rigged out with trooper caps,
And shiny clothes, and sashes, and epaulets and all.
It wasn’t for such things as these he heard his country call.
She asked for men; and up he spoke, my handsome, hearty Sam,—
“I’ll die for the dear old Union, if she’ll take me as I am.”
And if a better man than he there’s mother that can show,
From Maine to Minnesota, then let the nation know.
You would not pick him from the rest by eagles or by stars,
By straps upon his coat-sleeve, or gold or silver bars,
Nor a corporal’s strip of worsted; but there’s something in his
face,
And something in his even step, a-marching in his place,—
That couldn’t be improved by all the badges in the land:
A patriot, and a good, strong man; are generals much more grand?
We rest our pride on that big heart, wrapt up in army blue,
The girl he loves, Mehitabel, and I, who love him too.
He’s never shirked a battle yet, though frightful risks he’s run,
Since treason flooded Baltimore, the spring of sixty-one;
Through blood and storm he’s held out firm, nor fretted once,
my Sam,
At swamps of Chickahominy, or fields of Antietam.
Though many a time he’s told us, when he saw them lying dead,
The boys that came from Newburyport, and Lynn, and Marblehead,
Stretched out upon the trampled turf, and wept on by the sky,
It seemed to him the Commonwealth had drained her life-blood dry.
“But then,” he said, “the more’s the need the country has of me:
To live and fight the war all through, what glory it will be!
The Rebel balls don’t hit me; and, mother, if they should,
You’ll know I’ve fallen in my place, where I have always stood.”
He’s taken out his furlough, and short enough it seemed:
I often tell Mehitabel he’ll think he only dreamed
Of walking with her nights so bright you couldn’t see a star,
And hearing the swift tide come in across the harbor bar.
The stars that shine above the stripes, they light him southward
now;
The tide of war has swept him back; he’s made a solemn vow
To build himself no home-nest till his country’s work is done:
God bless the vow, and speed the work, my patriot, my son!
And yet it is a pretty place where his new house might be,—
An orchard-road that leads your eye straight out upon the sea.
The boy not work his father’s farm? it seems almost a shame;
But any selfish plan for him he’d never let me name.
He’s re-enlisted for the war, for victory or for death;
A soldier’s grave, perhaps! the thought has half-way stopped my
breath,
And driven a cloud across the sun. My boy, it will not be!
The war will soon be over, home again you’ll come to me.
He’s re-enlisted; and I smiled to see him going too!
There’s nothing that becomes him half so well as army blue.
Only a private in the ranks! but sure I am, indeed,
If all the privates were like him, they’d scarcely captains need.
And I and Massachusetts share the honor of his birth,—
The grand old State! to me the best in all the peopled earth!
I cannot hold a musket, but I have a son who can;
And I’m proud, for Freedom’s sake, to be the mother of a man.
_Lucy Larcom._
SHE STOOD ON THE STAIR.
She stood at the turn of the stair,
With the rose-tinted light on her face,
And the gold of her hair gleaming out
From a mystical billow of lace.
And I waited and watched her apart,
And a mist seemed to compass my sight;
For last year we were nearer than friends,
And to me she was nothing to-night.
And the jasmine she wore at her throat
Was heavy with fragrance, and cast
The sorrowful present away,
And carried me back to the past.
Yes, her face is as proud and as sweet,
And the flowers are the same as of old.
Is her voice just as gentle and low?
Is her heart just as cruel and cold?
Does she dream of one summer ago,
As she stands on the rose-tinted stair?
Does she think of her Newport romance,
While she buttons her long mosquetaire?
And some one is singing a song,
And high o’er the music it rings,
And she listens and leans from the stair,
For these are the words that it sings:—
“Oh, love for a month or a week,
Oh, love for a year or a day;
But, oh for the love that will live—
That will linger forever and aye!”
There’s a stillness—the music has stopped,
And she turns with an indolent grace:
Am I waking, or still do I dream,
Or is there a tear on her face?
Then I step from the shadow apart,
Till I stand by her side on the stair:
One step to the flowers and light
From the darkness and gloom of despair.
And I take both her hands in my own,
And I look in her eyes once again,—
And I shiver and tremble and shake
When I think what a fool I have been.
And I stamp and I claw at the air,
And rave at myself for a spell;
For it isn’t the girl, after all,
That I met at the Newport hotel.
_Puck._
THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.
It stands in a sunny meadow,
The house so mossy and brown,
With its cumbrous old stone chimneys,
And the gray roof sloping down.
The trees fold their green arms round it,—
The trees a century old;
And the winds go chanting through them,
And the sunbeams drop their gold.
The cowslips spring in the marshes,
The roses bloom on the hill,
And beside the brook in the pasture
The herds go feeding at will.
Within, in the wide old kitchen
The old folks sit in the sun
That creeps through the sheltering woodbine
Till the day is almost done.
Their children have gone and left them;
They sit in the sun alone,
And the old wife’s ears are failing
As she harks to the well-known tone
That won her heart in her girlhood,
That has soothed her in many a care,
And praises her now for the brightness
Her old face used to wear.
She thinks again of her bridal,—
How, dressed in her robe of white,
She stood by her gay young lover
In the morning’s rosy light.
Oh, the morning is rosy as ever,
But the rose from her cheek is fled;
And the sunshine still is golden,
But it falls on a silvered head.
And the girlhood dreams, once vanished,
Come back in her winter-time,
Till her feeble pulses tremble
With the thrill of springtime’s prime.
And, looking forth from the window,
She thinks how the trees have grown
Since, clad in her bridal whiteness,
She crossed the old door-stone.
Though dimmed her eye’s bright azure,
And dimmed her hair’s young gold,
The love in her girlhood plighted
Has never grown dim or old.
They sat in peace in the sunshine
Till the day was almost done.
And then, at its close, an angel
Stole over the threshold stone.
He folded their hands together,
He touched their eyelids with balm,
And their last breath floated outward,
Like the close of a solemn psalm.
Like a bridal pair they traversed
The unseen, mystical road
That leads to the Beautiful City
Whose Builder and Maker is God.
Perhaps in that miracle country
They will give her lost youth back,
And the flowers of the vanished springtime
Will bloom in the spirit’s track.
One draught from the living waters
Shall call back his manhood’s prime;
And eternal years shall measure
The love that outlasted time.
But the shapes that they left behind them,
The wrinkles and silver hair,—
Made holy to us by the kisses
The angel had printed there,—
We will hide away ’neath the willows,
When the day is low in the west,
Where the sunbeams cannot find them,
Nor the winds disturb their rest.
And we’ll suffer no telltale tombstone,
With its age and date to rise
O’er the two who are old no longer,
In the Father’s house in the skies.
_Louise Chandler Moulton._
A LITTLE PEACH.
A little peach in an orchard grew,—
A little peach of emerald hue;
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
It grew.
One day, passing the orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his sister Sue.
Them two.
Up at the peach a club they threw:
Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell the little peach of emerald hue.
Brand New!
She took a bite, and John a chew;
And then the trouble began to brew,—
Trouble the doctor couldn’t subdue.
Too true!
Under the turf where the daisies grew,
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew.
Boo-hoo!
But what of the peach of emerald hue,
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew?
Ah, well, its mission on earth is through.
Adieu!
MR. PICKWICK’S ROMANTIC ADVENTURE WITH A
MIDDLE-AGED LADY IN YELLOW CURL-PAPERS.
“Dear me, it’s time to go to bed. It will never do, sitting here. I
shall be pale to-morrow, Mr. Pickwick!”
At the bare notion of such a calamity, Mr. Peter Magnus rang the bell
for the chambermaid; and the striped bag, the red bag, the leather
hat-box, and the brown-paper parcel, having been conveyed to his
bedroom, he retired in company with a japanned candlestick to one side
of the house, while Mr. Pickwick, and another japanned candlestick,
were conducted through a multitude of tortuous windings to another.
“This is your room, sir,” said the chambermaid.
“Very well,” replied Mr. Pickwick, looking round him. It was a
tolerably large double-bedded room, with a fire; upon the whole, a more
comfortable-looking apartment than Mr. Pickwick’s short experience of
the accommodations of the Great White Horse had led him to expect.
“Nobody sleeps in the other bed, of course,” said Mr. Pickwick.
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Very good. Tell my servant to bring me up some hot water at half-past
eight in the morning, and that I shall not want him any more to-night.”
“Yes, sir.” And bidding Mr. Pickwick good-night, the chambermaid
retired, and left him alone.
Mr. Pickwick sat himself down in a chair before the fire, and fell
into a train of rambling meditations. First he thought of his friends,
and wondered when they would join him; then his mind reverted to Mrs.
Martha Bardell; and from that lady it wandered, by a natural process,
to the dingy counting-house of Dodson and Fogg. From Dodson and
Fogg’s it flew off at a tangent, to the very centre of the history of
the queer client; and then it came back to the Great White Horse at
Ipswich, with sufficient clearness to convince Mr. Pickwick that he was
falling asleep; so he roused himself, and began to undress, when he
recollected he had left his watch on the table down-stairs.
Now, this watch was a special favorite with Mr. Pickwick, having been
carried about, beneath the shadow of his waistcoat, for a greater
number of years than we feel called upon to state at present. The
possibility of going to sleep unless it were ticking gently beneath his
pillow, or in his watch-pocket over his head, had never entered Mr.
Pickwick’s brain. So as it was pretty late now, and he was unwilling
to ring his bell at that hour of the night, he slipped on his coat,
of which he had just divested himself, and, taking the japanned
candlestick in his hand, walked quietly down-stairs.
The more stairs Mr. Pickwick went down, the more stairs there seemed
to be to descend; and again and again, when Mr. Pickwick got into some
narrow passage, and began to congratulate himself on having gained the
ground-floor, did another flight of stairs appear before his astonished
eyes. At last he reached a stone hall, which he remembered to have seen
when he entered the house. Passage after passage did he explore; room
after room did he peep into; at length, just as he was on the point of
giving up the search in despair, he opened the door of the identical
room in which he had spent the evening, and beheld his missing property
on the table.
Mr. Pickwick seized the watch in triumph, and proceeded to retrace his
steps to his bed-chamber. If his progress downwards had been attended
with difficulties and uncertainty, his journey back was infinitely more
perplexing. Rows of doors garnished with boots of every shape, make,
and size, branched off in every possible direction. A dozen times did
he softly turn the handle of some bedroom door which resembled his own,
when a gruff cry from within, of “Who the devil’s that?” or “What do
you want here?” caused him to steal away, on tiptoe, with a marvellous
celerity. He was reduced to the verge of despair, when an open door
attracted his attention. He peeped in—right at last! There were the
two beds, whose situation he perfectly remembered, and the fire still
burning. His candle, not a long one when he first received it, had
flickered away in the draughts of air through which he had passed, and
sunk into the socket just as he closed the door after him. “No matter,”
said Mr. Pickwick, “I can undress myself just as well, by the light of
the fire.”
The bedsteads stood, one on each side of the door; and on the inner
side of each was a little path, terminating in a rush-bottomed chair,
just wide enough to admit of a person’s getting into or out of bed
on that side, if he or she thought proper. Having carefully drawn
the curtains of his bed on the outside, Mr. Pickwick sat down on the
rush-bottomed chair, and leisurely divested himself of his shoes and
gaiters. He then took off and folded up his coat, waistcoat, and
neck-cloth, and, slowly tying on his tasselled nightcap, secured it
firmly on his head, by tying beneath his chin the strings which he had
always attached to that article of dress. It was at this moment that
the absurdity of his recent bewilderment struck upon his mind; and
throwing himself back in the rush-bottomed chair, Mr. Pickwick laughed
to himself so heartily, that it would have been quite delightful to any
man of well-constituted mind to have watched the smiles which expanded
his amiable features as they shone forth from beneath the nightcap.
“It is the best idea,” said Mr. Pickwick to himself, smiling till he
almost cracked the nightcap strings,—“it is the best idea, my losing
myself in this place, and wandering about those staircases, that I ever
heard of. Droll, droll, very droll.” Here Mr. Pickwick smiled again,
a broader smile than before, and was about to continue the process
of undressing, in the very best possible humor, when he was suddenly
stopped by a most unexpected interruption; to wit, the entrance into
the room of some person with a candle, who, after locking the door,
advanced to the dressing-table, and set down the light upon it.
The smile that played on Mr. Pickwick’s features was instantaneously
lost in a look of the most unbounded and wonder-stricken surprise. The
person, whoever it was, had come in so suddenly and with so little
noise, that Mr. Pickwick had no time to call out, or oppose their
entrance. Who could it be? A robber! Some evil-minded person who had
seen him come up-stairs with a handsome watch in his hand, perhaps.
What was he to do?
The only way in which Mr. Pickwick could catch a glimpse of his
mysterious visitor, with the least danger of being seen himself, was by
creeping on to the bed, and peeping out from between the curtains on
the opposite side. To this manœuvre he accordingly resorted. Keeping
the curtains carefully closed with his hand, so that nothing more
of him could be seen than his face and nightcap, and putting on his
spectacles, he mustered up courage, and looked out.
Mr. Pickwick almost fainted with horror and dismay. Standing before
the dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers,
busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their “back hair.” However
the unconscious middle-aged lady came into that room, it was quite
clear that she contemplated remaining there for the night; for she
had brought a rushlight and shade with her, which, with praiseworthy
precaution against fire, she had stationed in a basin on the floor,
where it was glimmering away like a gigantic light-house in a
particularly small piece of water.
“Bless my soul,” thought Mr. Pickwick, “what a dreadful thing!”
“Hem!” said the lady; and in went Mr. Pickwick’s head with
automaton-like rapidity.
“I never met any thing so awful as this,” thought poor Mr. Pickwick,
the cold perspiration starting in drops upon his nightcap. “Never. This
is fearful.”
It was quite impossible to resist the urgent desire to see what was
going forward. So out went Mr. Pickwick’s head again. The prospect was
worse than before. The middle-aged lady had finished arranging her
hair, and carefully enveloped it in a muslin nightcap with a small
plaited border, and was gazing pensively on the fire.
“This matter is growing alarming,” reasoned Mr. Pickwick with himself.
“I can’t allow things to go in this way. By the self-possession of that
lady, it’s clear to me that I must have come into the wrong room. If I
call out, she’ll alarm the house; but if I remain here, the consequence
will be still more frightful!”
Mr. Pickwick, it is quite necessary to say, was one of the most modest
and delicate-minded of mortals. The very idea of exhibiting his
nightcap to a lady overpowered him; but he had tied those confounded
strings in a knot, and, do what he would, he couldn’t get it off. The
disclosure must be made. There was only one other way of doing it. He
shrunk behind the curtains, and called out very loudly,—
“Ha—hum.”
That the lady started at this unexpected sound, was evident by her
falling up against the rushlight shade; that she persuaded herself it
must have been the effect of imagination, was equally clear, for when
Mr. Pickwick, under the impression that she had fainted away, stone
dead from fright, ventured to peep out again, she was gazing pensively
on the fire as before.
“Most extraordinary female this,” thought Mr. Pickwick, popping in
again. “Ha—hum.”
These last sounds, so like those in which, as legends inform us, the
ferocious giant Blunderbore was in the habit of expressing his opinion
that it was time to lay the cloth, were too distinctly audible to be
again mistaken for the workings of fancy.
“Gracious Heaven!” said the middle-aged lady, “what’s that?”
“It’s—it’s—only a gentleman, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick from behind
the curtains.
“A gentleman!” said the lady with a terrific scream.
“It’s all over,” thought Mr. Pickwick.
“A strange man!” shrieked the lady. Another instant, and the house
would be alarmed. Her garments rustled as she rushed towards the door.
“Ma’am”—said Mr. Pickwick, thrusting out his head, in the extremity of
his desperation, “ma’am.”
Now, although Mr. Pickwick was not actuated by any definite object
in putting out his head, it was instantaneously productive of a good
effect. The lady, as we have already stated, was near the door. She
must pass it to reach the staircase; and she would most undoubtedly
have done so, by this time, had not the sudden apparition of Mr.
Pickwick’s nightcap driven her back, into the remotest corner of the
apartment, where she stood staring wildly at Mr. Pickwick, while Mr.
Pickwick in his turn stared wildly at her.
“Wretch,” said the lady, covering her eyes with her hands, “what do you
want here?”
“Nothing, ma’am,—nothing whatever, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick earnestly.
“Nothing!” said the lady looking up.
“Nothing, ma’am, upon my honor,” said Mr. Pickwick, nodding his head
so energetically, that the tassel of his nightcap danced again. “I am
almost ready to sink, ma’am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady
in my nightcap (here the lady hastily snatched off hers), but I can’t
get it off, ma’am (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug in
proof of the statement). It is evident to me, ma’am, now, that I have
mistaken this bedroom for my own. I had not been here five minutes,
ma’am, when you suddenly entered it.”
“If this improbable story be really true, sir,” said the lady, sobbing
violently, “you will leave it instantly.”
“I will, ma’am, with the greatest pleasure,” replied Mr. Pickwick.
“Instantly, sir,” said the lady.
“Certainly, ma’am,” interposed Mr. Pickwick, very quickly. “Certainly,
ma’am. I—I—am very sorry, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, making his
appearance at the bottom of the bed, “to have been the innocent
occasion of this alarm and emotion; deeply sorry, ma’am.”
The lady pointed to the door. One excellent quality of Mr. Pickwick’s
character was beautifully displayed at this moment, under the most
trying circumstances. Although he had hastily put on his hat over his
nightcap, after the manner of the old patrol; although he carried his
shoes and gaiters in his hand, and his coat and waistcoat over his arm,
nothing could subdue his native politeness.
“I am exceedingly sorry, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, bowing very low.
“If you are, sir, you will at once leave the room,” said the lady.
“Immediately, ma’am; this instant, ma’am,” said Mr. Pickwick, opening
the door, and dropping both his shoes with a loud crash in so doing.
“I trust, ma’am,” resumed Mr. Pickwick, gathering up his shoes, and
turning round to bow again, “I trust, ma’am, that my unblemished
character, and the devoted respect I entertain for your sex, will plead
as some slight excuse for this”—But before Mr. Pickwick could conclude
the sentence, the lady had thrust him into the passage, and locked and
bolted the door behind him.
_Dickens._
THE DEATH OF D’ASSAS.
[In the autumn of 1760, Louis XV. sent an army
into Germany. They took up a strong position at
Klostercamp, intending to advance on Rheinberg. The
young Chevalier D’Assas was sent out by Auvergne to
reconnoitre. He met a party advancing to surprise the
French camp. Their bayonets pricked his breast, and
the leader whispered, “Make the least noise, and you
are a dead man.” D’Assas paused a moment, then cried
out as loud as he could, “Here, Auvergne! here are the
enemy!” He was immediately cut down, but his death had
saved the French army.—_History of France._]
There’s revelry at Louis’ court. With, joust and tournament,
With feasting and with laughter, the merry days are spent;
And midst them all, those gallant knights, of Louis’ court the
boast,
Who can compare with D’Assas among the brilliant host?
The flush of youth is on his cheek; the fire that lights his eye
Tells of the noble heart within, the spirit pure and high.
No braver knight holds charger’s reign, or wields the glittering
lance.
Than proud and lordly D’Assas, bold chevalier of France.
The sound of war strikes on the air from far beyond the Rhine,
Its clarions ring across the fields, rich with the purple vine.
France calls her best and bravest: “Up, men, and take the sword!
Of German vales and hillsides, Louis would fain be lord;
Go forth, and for your sovereign win honor and renown;
Plant the white flag of Ivry on valley and on town.
The green soil of the Fatherland shall see your arms advance,
The dull and stolid Teuton shall bend the knee to France.”
On Klostercamp the morning sun is glancing brightly down.
Auvergne has ranged his forces within the ancient town.
From thence on Rheinberg shall they move: that citadel so grim
Shall yield her towers to Auvergne, shall ope her gates to him.
His warriors stand about him, a bold and gallant band,
No general e’er had truer men to follow his command.
He seeks the best and bravest; on D’Assas falls his glance,—
On brave and lordly D’Assas, bold chevalier of France.
“Advance, my lord,” cried Auvergne; D’Assas is at his side.
“Of all the knights who form my train, who ’neath my banner ride,
None hold the place of trust the king our sovereign gives to thee,—
Wilt thou accept a fearful charge that death or fame shall be?
Wilt thou, O D’Assas! ride to-night close to the foemen’s line,
And see what strength he may oppose to these proud hosts of mine?”
Then D’Assas bows his stately head. “Thy will shall soon be done.
Back will I come with tidings full e’er dawns the morning sun.”
’Tis midnight. D’Assas rideth forth upon his well-tried steed.
Auvergne hath made a worthy choice for this adventurous deed.
But stop! what means this silent host? How stealthily they come!
No martial music cleaves the air, no sound of beaten drum.
Like spectre forms they seem to glide before his wondering eyes;
Well hath he done, the wary foe, to plan this wild surprise.
Back D’Assas turns; but ah! too late,—a lance is laid in rest:
The knight can feel its glittering point against his corselet prest.
“A Frenchman! Hist!” A heavy hand has seized his bridle-rein.
“Hold close thy lips, my gallant spy; one word, and thou art slain.
What brought thee here? Dost thou not know this is the Fatherland?
How dar’st thou stain our righteous earth with thy foul Popish band?
Wouldst guard thy life, then utter not one sound above thy breath;
A whisper, and thy dainty limbs shall make a meal for Death.
Within thy heart these blades shall find the black blood of thy
race,
And none shall ever know or dream of thy last resting-place.”
Calm as a statue D’Assas stands. His heart he lifts on high.
“The God of battles! help me now, and teach me how to die.
A weeping maid will mourn my fate, a sovereign holds me dear;
Be to them ever more than I who perish sadly here.”
No word has passed his pallid lips, no sound his voice has made.
’Twas but the utterance of his heart, this prayer the soldier
prayed.
But then? ah, then! No voice on earth e’er rang more loud and clear:
“Auvergne!” he cried, “Auvergne, Auvergne! Behold! the foe is here!”
The forest echoes with the shout. Appalled his captors stand.
The courage of that dauntless heart has stayed each murderous hand.
A moment’s pause,—then who can tell how quick their bayonets’
thrust
Reached D’Assas’ heart, and laid him there, a helpless heap of dust!
The bravest chevalier of France, the pride of Louis’ train,—
His blood bedews that alien earth, a flood of crimson rain.
But Auvergne—Auvergne hears the cry; his troops come dashing on:
Ere D’Assas’ spirit leaves its clay, the victory has been won.
_Mary E. Vandyne, in Good Cheer._
THE MAN WITH THE MUSKET.
Soldiers, pass on from this rage of renown,
This ant-hill commotion and strife,
Pass by where the marbles and bronzes look down
With their fast-frozen gestures of life,
On, out to the nameless who lie ’neath the gloom
Of the pitying cypress and pine;
Your man is the man of the sword and the plume,
But the man of the musket is mine.
I knew him! by all that is noble, I knew
This commonplace hero I name!
I’ve camped with him, marched with him, fought with him too,
In the swirl of the fierce battle-flame!
Laughed with him, cried with him, taken a part
Of his canteen and blanket, and known
That the throb of this chivalrous prairie boy’s heart,
Was an answering stroke of my own.
I knew him, I tell you! And, also, I knew
When he fell on the battle-swept ridge,
That the poor battered body that lay there in blue
Was only a plank in the bridge
Over which some should pass to fame
That shall shine while the high stars shall shine.
Your hero is known by an echoing name,
But the man of the musket is mine.
I knew him! All through him the good and the bad
Ran together and equally free;
But I judge as I trust Christ will judge the brave lad,
For death made him noble to me.
In the cyclone of war, in the battle’s eclipse,
Life shook out its lingering sands,
And he died with the names that he loved on his lips,
His musket still grasped in his hands.
Up close to the flag my soldier went down,
In the salient front of the line:
You may take for your hero the men of renown,
But the man of the musket is mine.
_H. S. Taylor, in The Century._
A TOUGH CUSTOMER.
Let me tell you a tale that was once told to me;
And although it was told me in prose at the time,
I will give it a metrical dressing, and see
If the story will lose any reason by rhyme.
There came to the store in a village, one day,
A long and lank stranger in homespun arrayed;
And “Good-mornin’,” said he in a diffident way,
“I’ve jes’ come up to town for a bit of a trade.”
The proprietor nodded, and cheerily spoke,—
“Well, what can I do for you, neighbor, and how?”
“Wal, one of wife’s knittin’-needles ez broke,
An’ she wants me to git one—how much be they, now?”
“They’re two cents apiece.”—“Wal, say, mister, look here:
I’ve got a fresh egg, an’ my wife sez to me,
‘Swap the egg for the needle;’ it seems a bit queer.
But the thing’s about even—it’s a big un, yer see.”
Said the storekeeper presently, “Well, I don’t mind.”
He laid down the needle, and put the egg by—
When the countryman blurted out, “Ain’t yer inclined
To treat a new customer? Fact is, I’m dry.”
Though staggered a little, it must be confessed,
By the “customer” coming it rather too free,
Yet, smilingly granting the modest request,
The dealer responded, “Well, what shall it be?”
“Wal, a drop of Madairy I reckon ’ul pass:
I’ve been used ter thet, see, ever since I was born.”
The storekeeper handed a bottle and glass,
And his customer poured out a generous horn.
For a moment he eyed the gratuitous dram
With the air of a man who must something resign;
Then blandly remarked, “Do you know that I am
Very partial to mixing an egg in my wine?”
“Oh, well, let us finish this matter, I beg:
You’re very particular, though, I must say,”
The storekeeper muttered, and handed an egg—
The identical one he had taken in pay.
On the rim of the tumbler the man broke the shell—
“It’s cert’inly handsome, the way yer treat folk:”
He opened it deftly, and plumply it fell
With a splash, and no wonder—it held double yolk!
The customer saw, and a long breath he drew:
“Look, mister, that egg has two yolks, I declare!
Instead of one needle, I’ve paid yer for two,
So hand me another, an’ then we’ll be square!”
_William L. Keese, in Our Continent._
THE LABOR QUESTION.
Let me tell you why I am interested in the labor question. Not simply
because of the long hours of labor; not simply because of a specific
oppression of a class. I sympathize with the sufferers there: I am
ready to fight on their side. But I look out upon Christendom, with its
three hundred millions of people; and I see, that, out of this number
of people, one hundred millions never had enough to eat. Physiologists
tell us that this body of ours, unless it is properly fed, properly
developed, fed with rich blood and carefully nourished, does no justice
to the brain. You cannot make a bright or a good man in a starved body;
and so this one-third of the inhabitants of Christendom, who have never
had food enough, can never be what they should be. Now, I say that the
social civilization which condemns every third man in it to be below
the average in the nourishment God prepared for him, did not come from
above: it came from below; and, the sooner it goes down, the better.
Come on this side of the ocean. You will find forty millions of people,
and I suppose they are in the highest state of civilization; and yet it
is not too much to say, that, out of that forty millions, ten millions
at least, who get up in the morning and go to bed at night, spend all
the day in the mere effort to get bread enough to live. They have not
elasticity enough, mind or body, left, to do any thing in the way of
intellectual or moral progress.
I believe in the temperance movement. I am a temperance man of nearly
forty years’ standing; and I think it one of the grandest things in the
world, because it holds the basis of self-control. Intemperance is the
cause of poverty, I know; but there is another side to that: poverty is
the cause of intemperance. Crowd a man with fourteen hours’ work a day,
and you crowd him down to a mere animal life. You have eclipsed his
aspirations, dulled his tastes, stunted his intellect, and made him a
mere tool, to work fourteen hours, and catch a thought in the interval;
and, while a man in a hundred will rise to be a genius, ninety-nine
will cower down under the circumstances.
That is why I say, lift a man, give him life, let him work eight hours
a day, give him the school, develop his taste for music, give him a
garden, give him beautiful things to see, and good books to read, and
you will starve out those lower appetites. Give a man a chance to earn
a good living, and you may save his life.
If you want power in this country; if you want to make yourselves felt;
if you do not want your children to wait long years before they have
the bread on the table they ought to have, the leisure in their lives
they ought to have, the opportunities in life they ought to have; if
you don’t want to wait yourselves,—write on your banner, so that every
political trimmer can read it, so that every politician, no matter how
short-sighted he may be, can read it, “We never forget! If you launch
the arrow of sarcasm at labor, we never forget; if there is a division
in Congress, and you throw your vote in the wrong scale, we never
forget. You may go down on your knees, and say, ‘I am sorry I did the
act;’ and we will say, ‘It will avail you in heaven, but on this side
of the grave never.’” So that a man, in taking up the labor question,
will know he is dealing with a hair-trigger pistol, and will say, “I am
to be true to justice and to man: otherwise I am a dead duck.”
_Wendell Phillips._
LOVE AND PHILOSOPHY.
’Twas a maiden full of knowledge,
Though she’d scarcely passed eighteen;
She was lovely as an angel,
Though of grave and sober mien;
A sweet encyclopædia
Of every kind of lore;
And love looked coyly from behind
The glasses that she wore.
She sat beside her lover,
With her elbow on his knee,
And dreamily she gazed upon
The slumbering summer sea.
Until he broke the silence,
Saying, “Pray inform me, dear,
What people mean when speaking
Of the Thingness of the Here.
“I know you’re just from Concord,
Where the lights of wisdom be;
Your head crammed full to bursting, love,
With their philosophy,—
“Those grave and reverend sages,
And maids of hosiery blue.
Then solve me the conundrum, dear,
That I have put to you.”
The maid replied with gravity,—
“The Thingness of the Here
Is that which lies between the past
And future time, my dear.”
“Indeed,” the maid continued, with
A calm, unruffled brow,
“The Thingness of the Here is just
The Thisness of the Now.”
The lover smiled a loving smile,
And then he fondly placed
A manly and protecting arm
Around the maiden’s waist;
And on her rosebud lips impressed
A warm and loving kiss,
And said, “That’s what I call, my dear,
The Nowness of the This.”
_Geo. Runde Jackson._
THE FLAG.
AN INCIDENT OF STRAIN’S EXPEDITION.
I never have got the bearings quite,
Though I’ve followed the course for many a year,
If he was crazy, clean outright,
Or only what you might say was “queer.”
He was just a simple sailor man.
I mind it as well as yisterday,
When we messed aboard of the old “Cyane.”
Lord! how the time does slip away!
That was five and thirty year ago,
When ships was ships, and men was men,
And sailors wasn’t afraid to go
To sea in a Yankee vessel then.
He was only a sort of bosun’s mate,
But every inch of him taut and trim;
Stars and anchors and togs of state
Tailors don’t build for the likes of him.
He flew a no-account sort of name,
A reg’lar fo’castle “Jim” or “Jack,”
With a plain “McGinnis” abaft the same,
Giner’ly reefed to simple “Mack.”
Mack, we allowed, was sorter queer—
Ballast or compass wasn’t right;
Till he licked four juicers, one day, a fear
Prevailed that he hadn’t larned to fight.
But I reckoned the captain knowed his man,
When he put the flag in his hand the day
That we went ashore from the old “Cyane,”
On a madman’s cruise for Darien Bay.
Forty days in the wilderness
We toiled and suffered and starved with Strain.
Losing the number of many a mess
In the Devil’s swamps of the Spanish Main.
All of us starved, and many died.
One lay down, in his dull despair;
His stronger messmate went to his side,—
We left them both in the jungle there.
It was hard to part with shipmates so;
But standing by would have done no good.
We heard them moaning all day, so slow
We dragged along through the weary wood.
McGinnis, he suffered the worst of all;
Not that he ever piped his eye,
Or wouldn’t have answered to the call
If they’d sounded it for “All hands to die.”
I guess ’twould have sounded for him before,
But the grit inside of him kept him strong,
Till we met relief on the river shore;
And we all broke down when it came along.
All but McGinnis. Gaunt and tall,
Touching his hat, and standing square:
“Captain, the flag” ... And that was all.
He just keeled over and foundered there.
The flag? We thought he had lost his head,—
It mightn’t be much to lose at best,—
Till we came, by and by, to dig his bed,
And we found it folded around his breast.
He lay so calm and smiling there,
With the flag wrapped tight around his heart—
Maybe he saw his course all fair,
Only we couldn’t read the chart.
_James Jeffrey Roche._
BECAUSE.
“Now, John,” the district teacher says,
With frown that scarce can hide
The dimpling smiles around her mouth
Where Cupid’s hosts abide;
“What have you done to Mary Ann,
That she is crying so?
Don’t say ’twas nothing,—don’t, I say,
For, John, that can’t be so.
“For Mary Ann would never cry
At nothing, I am sure;
And if you’ve wounded justice, John,
You know the only cure
Is punishment. So come, stand up;
Transgressions must abide
The pain attendant on the scheme
That makes it justified.”
So John steps forth, with sunburnt face
And hair all in a tumble,
His laughing eyes a contrast to
His drooping mouth so humble.
“Now, Mary, you must tell me all,—
I see that John will not,—
And if he’s been unkind or rude
I’ll whip him on the spot.”
“We—we were playin’ p-prisoners’ base,
An’ h-he is s-such a t-tease,
An’ w-when I w-wasn’t l-lookin’, ma’am,
H-he kissed me—if you please!”
Upon the teacher’s face the smiles
Have triumphed o’er the frown,
A pleasant thought runs through her mind,
The stick comes harmless down.
But outraged law must be avenged:
Begone, ye smiles, begone!
Away, ye little dreams of love!
Come on, ye frowns, come on!
“I think I’ll have to whip you, John:
Such conduct breaks the rule;
No boy, except a naughty one,
Would kiss a girl—at school.”
Again the teacher’s rod is raised,
A Nemesis she stands:
A premium were put on sin,
If punished by such hands!
As when the bee explores the rose
We see the petals tremble,
So trembled Mary’s rosebud lips;
Her heart would not dissemble.
“I wouldn’t whip him very hard,”—
The stick stops in its fall,
“It wasn’t right to do it, but
It didn’t hurt at all.”
“What made you cry, then, Mary Ann?”
The school noise makes a pause,
And out upon the listening air
From Mary comes, “Because.”
_Boston Transcript._
TOGETHER ON THE STAIRS.
They sat together on the stairs,
Far up where there was shade:
’Twas not because there were no chairs
To sit on, I’m afraid.
Some time they had been sitting there
Alone, while others danced,
And people, coming out for air
’Tween dances, often glanced
Up at them, while they seemed to be
Oblivious of remark,
And sat like two birds in a tree,
Within a shady park.
To eyes that saw them from below,
They looked a loving pair:
The many signs which lovers show
They seemed to show up there.
At least, that is the way, to chaps
Who sauntered in the hall,
Things looked; but then, of course, perhaps,
’Twas nothing after all.
For, though on spooning they seemed bent,
Regardless how time flew,
’Twas possible that “distance lent
Enchantment to the view.”
His face bent down until her brow
Seemed touched by his mustache,
While she smiled on him—well, just how
A girl smiles on her mash.
He whispered something low and sweet,
And pointed down to where
Two little blue-silk-slippered feet
Were making people stare.
She blushed, and thrust one farther out,
As if for him to see;
A look of pain o’er came her pout:
What ever could it be?
“Sure, never did a girl with man
So brazenly coquette
In public,” said, behind her fan,
Each other girl you met.
I’ll own appearances, indeed,
Were much against the maid;
But, as in many things we heed,
Of harm there was no shade.
How this I know, I’ll tell to you:
I chanced to stand quite near
Upon the stairs, behind the two,
And then to overhear.
A long time passed, while neither spoke,
And then at last said he,—
“I’m sick of this: I’m sure you joke;
Your foot’s quite well, I see.
“You could, if you but cared to try,
With me come down and dance.”
Now, notice how her quick reply
Destroys the scene’s romance.
“Perhaps you think my foot’s all right;
But, sure as you are born,
I wish you wore my slippers tight,
And had—just there—that corn.”
_Andrew G. Tubbs._
THE CHRISTENING.
No, I won’t forgive our parson—not down to my dyin’ day.
He’d orter waited a minnit; that’s what I’ll allers say;
But to christen my boy, my baby, with such an orful name!
Why, where’s the use o’ talkin’? I tell you he was to blame.
You see, it happened in this way: There was father, an’ Uncle Si,
An’ mother, an’ each one wantin’ a finger in the pie,—
Each with a name for baby, as ef I hadn’t no voice;
But the more they talked an’ argied, the more I stuck to my choice.
“Semanthy”—this was father—“you’d best take pattern by mother,
For she named thirteen children, ’thout any such fuss or bother:
As soon as she diskivered that family names was too few,
Why, she just fell back on the Bible, as perfessers air bound to
do.”
“Semanthy”—this was Reuben—“most any one else could see,
That, bein’ as I’m his father, he orter be named for me.
You say my name’s old-fashioned; well, I’m old-fashioned too:
Yet ’twarn’t so long ago, nuther, that both of us suited you.”
Then there was Uncle Silas: “Semanthy, I tell ye what:
Just name him Silas. I’ll give him that hundred-acre lot.
I’ll make out the deed to-morrer; an’ then, when I’ve gone to my
rest,
There’ll be a trifle o’ money to help him feather his nest.”
But the worst of all was mother. She says, so meek an’ mild,—
“I’d love to call him Jotham, after my oldest child;
He died on his second birthday. The others are grown-up men,
But Jotham is still my baby: he has never grown since then.
His hair was soft and curlin’, eyes blue as blue could be,
An’ this boy of yours, Semanthy, jest brings him back to me.”
Well, it warn’t no easy matter to keep on saying _No_,
An’ disapp’intin’ every one. Poor Rube he fretted so,
When I told him the name I’d chosen, that he fairly made me cry.
For I’d planned to name the darlin’ Augustus Percival Guy.
Ah! that was a name worth hearin’, so ’ristocratic an’ grand!
He might ’a’ held up his head then with the proudest in the land.
But _now_—Well, ’tisn’t no wonder, when I look at that blessed
child,
An’ think of the name he’s come to, that I can’t be reconciled.
At last I coaxed up Reuben, an’ a Sabbath mornin’ came
When I took my boy to meetin’ to git his Christian name.
Jest as proud as a peacock I stood a-waitin’ there;
I couldn’t hardly listen to the readin’ nor the prayer,
For of half a dozen babies, mine was the finest of all;
An’ they had sech common names too! But pride must have a fall.
“What will ye call him?” says Parson Brown, bendin’ his head to
hear.
Then I handed a bit of paper up, with the names writ full an’ clear.
But Uncle Si, ’stead of passin’ it, jest reads it over slow,
With sech a wond’rin’, puzzled face, as ef he didn’t know.
The child was beginnin’ to fidget, an’ Rube was gittin’ red,
So I kinder scowled at Uncle Si, and then I shook my head.
“The name?” says Parson Brown agin; “I’m ’feared I haven’t caught
it.”
“_Jee—hoshaphat!_” says Uncle Si, out loud, before he thought
it.
The parson—he’s near-sighted—he couldn’t understand,
Though I p’inted to the paper in Uncle Silas’ hand.
But _that_ word did the business; an’ before I got my breath
That boy was named JEHOSHAPHAT. I felt a’ most like death.
I couldn’t keep from cryin’ as I hurried down the aisle,
An’ I fairly hated Widder Green when I see her kinder smile.
I’ve never, _never_ called him by that name, an’ never will,
An’ I _can’t_ forgive old Parson Brown, though I bear him no
ill-will.
_E. T. Corbett, in Harper’s._
THE VILLAGE CHOIR.
Half a bar, half a bar,
Half a bar onward!
Into an awful ditch,
Choir and precentor hitch,
Into a mess of pitch,
They led the Old Hundred.
Trebles to right of them,
Tenors to left of them,
Basses in front of them,
Bellowed and thundered.
Oh, that precentor’s look,
When the sopranos took
Their own time and hook,
From the Old Hundred!
Screeched all the trebles here,
Boggled the tenors there,
Raising the parson’s hair,
While his mind wandered;
Theirs not to reason why
This psalm was pitched too high:
Theirs but to gasp and cry
Out the Old Hundred.
Trebles to right of them,
Tenors to left of them,
Basses in front of them,
Bellowed and thundered.
Stormed they with shout and yell,
Not wise they sang, nor well,
Drowning the sexton’s bell,
While all the church wondered.
Dire the precentor’s glare,
Flashed his pitchfork in air,
Sounding the fresh keys to bear
Out the Old Hundred.
Swiftly he turned his back,
Reached he his hat from rack,
Then from the screaming pack
Himself he sundered.
Tenors to right of him,
Trebles to left of him,
Discords behind him
Bellowed and thundered.
Oh the wild howls they wrought!
Right to the end they fought!
Some tune they sang, but not,
Not the Old Hundred.
—_Audre’s Journal._
FILLING HIS PLACE.
Young Rip Van Winkle took into his head
To go on a cruise round the world, he said;
And in three years’ time he would come once more,
And all would go on as it had before.
What a blank he left, alack and alack!
But the years went round till they brought him back.
And one lazy day in the last of June
Stood a sunburnt sailor, humming a tune,
And watching them play on the cricket-ground.
He was champion once of the country round;
But that brawny lad with the laughing face,
It was plain to see, was filling his place;
And with half a sigh he turned him away,
Saying, “It matters not, it is naught but play.”
And he took the road to the old grist-mill,
Where his place, he knew, they could never fill;
For he’d miss him sore, the miller declared,
And his own right hand could be better spared.
The miller had found, on the day he sailed,
A good honest lad, who had never failed.
“Well, all men can work, but all cannot sing.
I’ll sit in the choir; and they’ll know the ring
“Of my voice again, for the girls did say
’Twould break up the choir when I went away.”
Has it lost the ring that it had of old?
For they look askance, and with glances cold;
And the girls declare, with a pretty pout,
That the stranger there, he has put them out.
What matters it, though, when trifles befall?
One sweet hope is left, that is better than all:
His neighbors and friends may all have forgot,
But sweet Mary Ann, he is sure, has not.
She gave him a rose when he sailed away:
He’ll show her that rose when he goes to-day.
How glad she will be, after waiting so long,
To see him again so hearty and strong!
Alas for the sailor! alas for the rose!
They’ve gone round the world, and this is the close:
“You have stayed too long, you have stayed too long,
Had you come before,”—this was all her song,—
“You had found my heart but an empty nest,
And ready to welcome its truant guest.
“Go, bring the dead rose to life if you can,
But your place is filled by a better man.”
And sadder and wiser he went his way,
But he kept that rose to his dying day.
_Maria L. Eve._
THE HERITAGE.
The rich man’s son inherits lands,
And piles of brick and stone and gold;
And he inherits soft, white hands,
And tender flesh that feels the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man’s son inherits cares:
The bank may break, the factory burn;
A breath may burst his bubble shares;
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man’s son inherits wants:
His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants
Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy chair,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
A patience learned by being poor;
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it;
A fellow-feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
O rich man’s son! there is a toil,
That with all others level stands:
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whiten, soft white hands;
This is the best crop from thy lands,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
O poor man’s son! scorn not thy state:
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record to a well-filled past,—
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.
_James Russell Lowell._
CASABIANCA (Colored).
One darky stood in the ’backer patch,
Whence all the rest had fled;
While the mule-heels, clods, and green worms flew
A-whizzing round his head.
Savory, stout, and black he stood,
As born to work a farm,
While gaping mouth and bulging eyes
Betokened his alarm.
That mule kicked hard: he wouldn’t leave
“Unless de boss said so.”
“De boss,” unconscious of his plight,
Had gone off to the show.
The darky yelled, “See here, boss, say!
Mus’ I lef dis mule go?”
Just then the boss was miles away,
And Cuffee called out “Whoa!”
Quite thick and fast a cloud of dust
Arose towards the sky,
And filled the darky’s eyes and nose
Like flour off hotel pie.
“Say, boss!” again poor Cuffee cried,
“Ef ’tain’t mos’ time I’se gone?”
Naught but the clattering hoofs replied,
As the agile mule kicked on.
At last there came a thunderous crash
That made the earth resound;
And when the dust and débris passed,
The mule could not be found.
That fateful last terrific kick
Had struck on Cuffee’s head;
And now the mule, a shattered wreck,
Lay far off, limp and dead.
MARY’S LAMB ON A NEW PRINCIPLE.
Mollie had a little ram as black as rubber shoe, and everywhere
that Mollie went he emigrated too.
He went with her to church one day; the folks hilarious grew,
to see him walk demurely into Deacon Allen’s pew.
The worthy deacon quickly let his angry passions rise,
and gave it an unchristian kick between the sad brown eyes.
This landed rammy in the aisle; the deacon followed fast,
and raised his foot again: alas! that first kick was his last.
For Mr. Sheep walked slowly back, about a rod ’tis said,
and ere the deacon could retreat he stood him on his head.
The congregation then arose, and went for that ’ere sheep:
several well-directed butts just piled them in a heap.
Then rushed they straightway for the door, with curses long and
loud;
while rammy struck the hindmost man, and shoved him through the
crowd.
The minister had often heard that kindness would subdue
the fiercest beast. “Aha!” he said, “I’ll try that game on you.”
And so he kindly, gently, called, “Come, rammy, rammy, ram;
to see the folks abuse you so, I grieved and sorry am.”
With kind and gentle words he came from that tall pulpit down,
saying, “Rammy, rammy, ram—best sheepy in the town.”
The ram quite dropped its humble air, and rose from off his feet;
and when the parson landed, he was behind the hindmost seat.
As he shot out the door, and closed it with a slam,
he named a California town—I think ’twas “Yuba Dam.”
CUT, CUT BEHIND.
Vhen shnow und ice vas on der ground,
Und merry shleigh-bells shingle;
Vhen Shack Frost he vas peen around,
Und make mine oldt ears tingle—
I hear dhose roguish gamins say,
“Let shoy pe unconfined!”
Und dhen dhey go for efry shleigh,
Und yell, “Cut, cut pehind!”
It makes me shust feel young some more,
To hear dhose youngsters yell,
Und eef I don’d vas shtiff und sore,
Py shings! I shust vould—Vell,
Vhen some oldt pung was coomin’ py,
I dink I’d feel inclined
To shump right in upon der shly,
Und shout, “Cut, cut pehind!”
I mind me vot mine fader said
Vonce vhen I vas a poy,
Mit meeschief alvays in mine head,
Und fool of life und shoy.
“Now, Hans, keep off der shleighs,” says he,
“Or else shust bear in mind,
I dake you righdt across my knee,
Und cut, cut, cut pehind!”
Yell, dot vas years und years ago,
Und mine young Yawcob too,
Vas now shkydoodling droo der shnow,
Shust like I used to do;
Und ven der pungs coom py mine house,
I shust peeks droo der plind,
Und sings oudt, “Go id, Yawcob Strauss,
Cut, cut, cut, cut, pehind!”
_Charles Follen Adams, in Harper’s._
SCENE FROM ION.
CHARACTERS.
ADRASTUS. CRYTHES.
ADRASTUS _discovered_.—CRYTHES _introducing_ ION.
_Cry._ The king!
_Ad._ Stranger, I bid thee welcome:
We are about to tread the same dark passage,
Thou almost on the instant.—Is the sword
[TO _Crythes._
Of justice sharpened, and the headsman ready?
_Cry._ Thou mayst behold them plainly in the court;
Even now the solemn soldiers line the ground,
The steel gleams on the altar, and the slave
Disrobes himself for duty.
_Ad._ (_to_ ION) Dost thou see them?
_Ion._ I do.
_Ad._ By Heaven! he does not change.
If, even now, thou wilt depart, and leave
Thy traitorous thoughts unspoken, thou art free.
_Ion._ I thank thee for thy offer; but I stand
Before thee for the lives of thousands, rich
In all that makes life precious to the brave;
Who perish not alone, but in their fall
Break the far-spreading tendrils that they feed,
And leave them nurtureless. If thou wilt hear me
For them, I am content to speak no more.
_Ad._ Thou hast thy wish, then.—Crythes! till yon dial
Casts its thin shadow on the approaching hour,
I hear this gallant traitor. On the instant,
Come without word, and lead him to his doom.
Now leave us.
_Cry._ What, alone?
_Ad._ Yes, slave, alone:
He is no assassin! [_Exit_ CRYTHES.
Tell me who thou art.
What generous source owns that heroic blood,
Which holds its course thus bravely? What great wars
Have nursed the courage that can look on death—
Certain and speedy death—with placid eye?
_Ion._ I am a simple youth who never bore
The weight of armor; one who may not boast
Of noble birth, or valor of his own.
Deem not the powers which nerve me thus to speak
In thy great presence, and have made my heart,
Upon the verge of bloody death, as calm,
As equal in its beatings, as when sleep
Approached me nestling from the sportive toils
Of thoughtless childhood, and celestial forms
Began to glimmer through the deepening shadows
Of soft oblivion,—to belong to me!
These are the strengths of Heaven; to thee they speak,
Bid thee to hearken to thy people’s cry,
Or warn thee that thy hour must shortly come!
_Ad._ I know it must; so mayst thou spare thy warnings.
The envious gods in me have doomed a race,
Whose glories stream from the same cloud-girt founts
Whence their own dawn upon the infant world;
And I shall sit on my ancestral throne
To meet their vengeance; but till then I rule
As I have ever ruled, and thou wilt feel.
_Ion._ I will not further urge thy safety to thee;
It may be, as thou sayest, too late; nor seek
To make thee tremble at the gathering curse
Which shall burst forth in mockery at thy fall;
But thou art gifted with a nobler sense,—
I know thou art my sovereign!—sense of pain
Endured by myriad Argives, in whose souls,
And in whose fathers’ souls, thou and thy fathers
Have kept their cherished state; whose heart-strings, still
The living fibres of thy rooted power,
Quiver with agonies thy crimes have drawn
From heavenly justice on them.
_Ad._ How! my crimes?
_Ion._ Yes; ’tis the eternal law, that where guilt is,
Sorrow shall answer it; and thou hast not
A poor man’s privilege to bear alone,
Or in the narrow circle of his kinsmen,
The penalties of evil; for in thine,
A nation’s fate lies circled. King Adrastus!
Steeled as thy heart is with the usages
Of pomp and power, a few short summers since
Thou wert a child, and canst not be relentless.
Oh, if maternal love embraced thee then,
Think of the mothers who with eyes unwet
Glare o’er their perishing children; hast thou shared
The glow of a first friendship which is born
’Midst the rude sports of boyhood, think of youth
Smitten amidst its playthings; let the spirit
Of thy own innocent childhood whisper pity!
_Ad._ In every word thou dost but steel my soul.
My youth was blasted: parents, brother, kin—
All that should people infancy with joy—
Conspired to poison mine; despoiled my life
Of innocence and hope,—all but the sword
And sceptre. Dost thou wonder at me now?
_Ion._ I know that we should pity—
_Ad._ Pity! Dare
To speak that word again, and torture waits thee!
I am yet king of Argos. Well, go on;
The time is short, and I am pledged to hear.
_Ion._ If thou hast ever loved—
_Ad._ Beware! beware!
_Ion._ Thou hast! I see thou hast! Thou art not marble,
And thou shalt hear me! Think upon the time
When the clear depths of thy yet lucid soul
Were ruffled with the troublings of strange joy,
As if some unseen visitant from heaven
Touched the calm lake, and wreathed its images
In sparkling waves; recall the dallying hope
That on the margin of assurance trembled,
As loath to lose in certainty too blest
Its happy being; taste in thought again
Of the stolen sweetness of those evening walks,
When pansied turf was air to wingèd feet,
And circling forests, by ethereal touch
Enchanted, wore the livery of the sky,
As if about to melt in golden light,
Shapes of one heavenly vision; and thy heart,
Enlarged by its new sympathy with one,
Grew bountiful to all!
_Ad._ That tone! that tone!
Whence came it? from thy lips? It cannot be
The long-hushed music of the only voice
That ever spake unbought affection to me,
And waked my soul to blessing. O sweet hours
Of golden joy, ye come! your glories break
Through my pavilion’d spirit’s sable folds.
Roll on! roll on!—Stranger, thou dost enforce me
To speak of things unbreathed by lip of mine
To human ear: wilt listen?
_Ion._ As a child.
_Ad._ Again! that voice again! Thou hast seen me moved
As never mortal saw me, by a tone
Which some light breeze, enamoured of the sound,
Hath wafted through the woods, till thy young voice
Caught it to rive and melt me. At my birth
This city, which, expectant of its prince,
Lay hushed, broke out in clamorous ecstasies;
Yet, in that moment, while the uplifted cups
Foamed with the choicest product of the sun,
And welcome thundered from a thousand throats,
My doom was sealed. From the hearth’s vacant space,
In the dark chamber where my mother lay,
Faint with the sense of pain-bought happiness,
Came forth in heart-appalling tone, these words
Of me, the nursling: “Woe unto the babe!
Against the life which now begins shall life,
Lighted from thence, be armed, and, both soon quenched,
End this great line in sorrow!” Ere I grew
Of years to know myself a thing accursed,
A second son was born, to steal the love
Which fate had else scarce rifled: he became
My parents’ hope, the darling of the crew
Who lived upon their smiles, and thought it flattery
To trace in every foible of my youth—
A prince’s youth—the workings of the curse.
My very mother—Jove! I cannot bear
To speak it now—looked freezingly upon me.
_Ion._ But thy brother—
_Ad._ Died. Thou hast heard the lie,
The common lie that every peasant tells
Of me, his master,—that I slew the boy.
’Tis false! One summer’s eve, below a crag
Which, in his wilful mood, he strove to climb,
He lay a mangled corpse: the very slaves,
Whose cruelty had shut him from my heart,
Now coined their own injustice into proofs
To brand me as his murderer.
_Ion._ Did they dare
Accuse thee?
_Ad._ Not in open speech: they felt
I should have seized the miscreant by the throat,
And crushed the lie half-spoken with the life
Of the base speaker: but the tale looked out
From the stolen gaze of coward eyes, which shrank
When mine have met them; murmured through the crowd
That at the sacrifice, or feast, or game,
Stood distant from me; burnt into my soul,
When I beheld it in my father’s shudder!
_Ion._ Didst not declare thy innocence?
_Ad._ To whom?
To parents who could doubt me? To the ring
Of grave impostors, or their shallow sons,
Who should have studied to prevent my wish
Before it grew to language; hailed my choice
To service as a prize to wrestle for;
And whose reluctant courtesy I bore,
Pale with proud anger, till from lips compressed
The blood has started? To the common herd,
The vassals of our ancient house, the mass
Of bones and muscles framed to till the soil
A few brief years, then rot unnamed beneath it;
Or, decked for slaughter at their master’s call,
To smite, and to be smitten, and lie crushed
In heaps to swell his glory or his shame?
Answer to them? No! though my heart had burst,
As it was nigh to bursting! To the mountains
I fled, and on their pinnacles of snow
Breasted the icy wind, in hope to cool
My spirit’s fever; struggled with the oak
In search of weariness, and learned to rive
Its stubborn boughs, till limbs once lightly strung
Might mate in cordage with its infant stems;
Or on the sea-beat rock tore off the vest
Which burnt upon my bosom, and to air
Headlong committed, clove the water’s depth
Which plummet never sounded,—but in vain.
_Ion._ Yet succor came to thee?
_Ad._ A blessed one!
Which the strange magic of thy voice revives,
And thus unlocks my soul. My rapid steps
Were in a wood-encircled valley stayed
By the bright vision of a maid, whose face
Most lovely, more than loveliness revealed
In touch of patient grief, which dearer seemed
Than happiness to spirit seared like mine.
With feeble hands she strove to lay in earth
The body of her aged sire, whose death
Left her alone. I aided her sad work;
And soon two lonely ones by holy rites
Became one happy being. Days, weeks, months,
In streamlike unity flowed silent by us
In our delightful nest. My father’s spies—
Slaves, whom my nod should have consigned to stripes
Or the swift falchion—tracked our sylvan home,
Just as my bosom knew its second joy,
And, spite of fortune, I embraced a son.
_Ion._ Urged by thy trembling parents to avert
That dreadful prophecy.
_Ad._ Fools! did they deem
Its worst accomplishment could match the ill
Which they wrought on me? It had left unharmed
A thousand ecstasies of passioned years,
Which, tasted once, live ever, and disdain
Fate’s iron grapple! Could I now behold
That son with knife uplifted at my heart,
A moment ere my life-blood followed it,
I would embrace him with my dying eyes,
And pardon destiny! While jocund smiles
Wreathed on the infant’s face, as if sweet spirits
Suggested pleasant fancies to its soul,
The ruffians broke upon us—seized the child—
Dashed through the thicket to the beetling rock
’Neath which the deep sea eddies; I stood still,
As stricken into stone: I heard him cry,
Pressed by the rudeness of the murderer’s grip,
Severer ill unfearing—then the splash
Of waters that shall cover him forever;
And could not stir to save him!
_Ion._ And the mother?
_Ad._ She spake no word; but clasped me in her arms,
And laid her down to die! A lingering gaze
Of love she fixed on me,—none other loved,—
And so passed from hence. By Jupiter! her look,
Her dying patience glimmers in thy face!
She lives again! She looks upon me now!
There’s magic in’t. Bear with me—I am childish.
_Enter_ CRYTHES _and_ GUARDS.
Why art thou here?
_Cry._ The dial points the hour.
_Ad._ Dost thou not see that horrid purpose passed?
Hast thou no heart—no sense?
_Cry._ Scarce half an hour
Hath flown since the command on which I wait.
_Ad._ Scarce half an hour! Years, years have rolled since then.
Begone! Remove that pageantry of death;
It blasts my sight. And hearken! Touch a hair
Of this brave youth, or look on him as now,
With thy cold headsman’s eye, and yonder band
Shall not expect a fearful show in vain.
Hence! without a word. [_Exit_ CRYTHES.
What wouldst thou have me do?
_Ion._ Let thy awakened heart speak its own language:
Convene thy sages; frankly, nobly meet them;
Explore with them the pleasure of the gods,
And whatsoe’er the sacrifice, perform it.
_Ad._ Well, I will seek their presence in an hour:
Go summon them, young hero! Hold! no word
Of the strange passion thou hast witnessed here.
_Ion._ Distrust me not.—Benignant powers! I thank ye!
[_Exit._
_Ad._ Yet stay!—He’s gone—his spell is on me yet;
What have I promised him? To meet the men
Who from my living head would strip the crown,
And sit in judgment on me? I must do it.
Yet shall my band be ready to o’erawe
The cause of liberal speech, and if it rise
So as too loudly to offend my ear,
Strike the rash brawler dead! What idle dream
Of long-past days had melted me? It fades—
It vanishes—I am again a king.
_Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd._
MISSING.
In the cool, sweet hush of a wooded nook,
Where the May-buds sprinkle the green old sward,
And the winds and the birds and the limpid brook
Murmur their dreams with a drowsy sound,
Who lies so still in the plushy moss,
With his pale cheek pressed on a breezy pillow,
Couched where the light and shadows cross,
Through the flickering fringe of the willow,—
Who lies, alas!
So still, so chill, in the whispering grass?
A soldier, clad in a Zouave dress,
A bright-haired man, with his lips apart;
One hand thrown over his frank, dead face,
And the other clutching his pulseless heart,
Lies here in the shadows cool and dim,
His musket swept by a trailing bough;
With a careless grace in his quiet limbs,
And a wound on his manly brow,—
A wound, alas!
Whence the warm blood drips on the quiet grass.
The violets peer from their dusky beds,
With a tearful dew in their great, pure eyes;
The lilies quiver their shining heads,
Their pale lips full of sad surprise;
And the lizard glides through the glistening fern,
And the squirrel rustles the branches hoary;
Strange birds fly out with a cry, to bathe
Their wings in the sunset glory,
While the shadows pass
O’er the quiet face and the dewy grass.
God pity the bride who waits at home,
With her lily cheeks and her violet eyes,
Dreaming the sweet old dream of love,
While her lover is walking in paradise!
God strengthen her heart as the days go by,
And the long, drear nights of her vigil follow,
Nor bird, nor moon, nor whispering wind,
May breathe the tale of the hollow;
Alas! alas!
The secret’s safe with the woodland grass.
DECORATION DAY.
Down by the clear river’s side they wandered,
Hand in hand, on that perfect day;
He was young, handsome, brave, and tender,
She more sweet than the flowers of May.
He looked on her with brown eyes adoring,
Watching her blushes grow soft and deep;
“Darling,” he said, with tones imploring,
“Shall we not ever the memory keep
“Of this bright day, so happy, so holy;
This sweetest hour my life has e’er known,
When you, dear, speaking gently and slowly,
Answered me ‘Yes,’ when I called you my own?”
Fair was the sky, the sunset, the river,
Wind in the trees, the water’s low psalm,
Bird-song, scent of wild roses. Oh, never
Was there an hour more blissful and calm!
Close in his arms he held her: the morrow
Would bring to their fond hearts parting and pain,—
After love’s rapture, bitterest sorrow;
After May sunshine, gloom and the rain.
The country her sons to save her was calling:
He answered her summons, fearless and brave;
On to the front, where heroes were falling,
Love and all of life’s promise he gave.
She by the hearth, through long hours slow measure,
Watched and yearned, and suffered and prayed;
Read o’er his letters, lovingly treasured,
Hoped his return,—to hope, half afraid.
“God is good,” she said. “His love will infold him,
Protect him, and bring him safe to me again;
I shall hear him once more, in rapture behold him,—
Oh, blessed reward, for my waiting and pain!”
In camp, on the field, on marches long, weary,
Her face and her voice in his heart’s inner shrine
He kept; they brightened his way when most dreary,
Lifted his life to the Life all divine.
He fell in the ranks, at awful Stone River,
Blood of our heroes made sacred that sod;
On battle’s red tide his soul went out ever
Forward and upward, to meet with his God.
* * * * *
Worn, grown old, yet tenderly keeping,
Every May month, sad tryst with her dead,
She knows not where her darling is sleeping,
She lays no garlands on his low bed.
All soldiers’ graves claim her love and her blessing:
She decks them with flowers made sacred by tears;
Love of her heart for her soldier expressing,
“Love that is stronger than death,” through the years.
Soon in the land of unfading beauty,
He, faithful knight of valor and truth,
She, living martyr to country and duty,
Shall find the sweetness and love of their youth.
Honor the dead with the richest oblation,—
Cover their graves with laurel and palm!
Honor the living for life’s consecration,—
Give to their pierced hearts love’s healing balm.
_Mary Bassett Hussey._
WHEN GREEK MET GREEK.