ON THE MARRIAGE OF MISS ELIZABETH MARY NICHOLL
CARNE, FEBRUARY 6TH, 1868.
Oh, blessed Love! that clothes with laughing flowers
Life's martyr-crown of thorns, and raises up
The heart to hold communion with its God,
'Tis thine, this day, with golden clasp, to bind
The volume of a life, where sterling worth
And beauty go to make the story up.
A maiden, one, who, when on tiptoe, sees
Her history running through a line of Kings:
In fame how excellent; in life how pure;
As though the virtues of her ancestry
Had found new utterance in her virtuous self.
As rain-drops, trickling through the hills of Time,
Commingling gather, till, in sparkling life,
They come, a streamlet, happy in the sun,
To gladden all with beauty, so the gems
That thickly fleck an old ancestral name
From time how distant, centre in the soul
Of her who comes this day with loving smile
To crown a husband with such wealth of worth
As 'tis her own to give. Thrice happy pair!
May cloudlets never dim the arc of light
That should engirdle all their lives, and make
Their home a paradise. If such should come,
May they be transient as a summer cloud
That mars but for a moment, yet to make
The sky more beautiful. May truest Love
Be with them ever, garnishing their lives
With bliss perpetual, and lighting up
Their footsteps o'er the earth, as when, of old,
God's angels walked with men. So shall they live
A life which loving hearts alone may know.