"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air, Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her a harvester of hay :
“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, And weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds, And health of quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell
He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Müller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain:
Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein:
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been !":
Alas! for Maiden, alas! for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad works of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been !"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
[See page 161.]
THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village pass'd
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flash'd like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said;
"Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
"O stay," the maiden said, “and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answer'd with a sigh,
Excelsior!
“Beware the pine-tree's wither'd branch! Beware the awful avalanche !"
This was the peasant's last Good-night,
A voice replied far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Utter'd the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!
A traveller by the faithful hound
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice,
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell like an evening star,
Excelsior!
The Rev. John Moultrie is the rector of Rugby, author of "My Brother's Grave," and other poems (1827), "Lays of the English Church, &c." (1843), and editor of an edition of Gray's poetical works. He was born about 1804.]
I HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years old,
With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind of gentle mould,
They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways appears,
That my child is grave and wise of heart beyond his childish years.
I cannot say how this may be, I know his face is fair;
And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious air:
I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me,
But loveth yet his mother more, with grateful fervency:
But that which others most admire, is the thought which fills his mind,
The food for grave inquiring speech, he everywhere doth find.
Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk;
He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children talk,
Nor cares he much for childish sports, dotes not on bat or ball,
But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics all.
His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplexed
With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next.
He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him to pray,
And strange, and sweet, and solemn, then, are the words which he
Oh! should my gentle child be spared to manhood's
A holier and a wiser man, I trust that he will be!
And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,
I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now.
I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three;
I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be,
How silvery sweet those tones of his, when he prattles on my knee:
I do not think his light blue eye is, like his brother's, keen;
Nor his brow so full of childish thought, as his hath ever been;
But his little heart's a fountain pure, of kind and tender feeling,
And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.
When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street,
Will speak their joy, and bless my boy, who looks so mild and sweet,
A playfellow is he to all, and yet with cheerful tone,
He'll sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone.
His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden home and hearth,
To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth.
Should he grow up to riper years, God grant his heart may prove
As sweet a home for heavenly grace, as now for earthly love!
And if, beside his grave, the tears our aching eyes must dim,
God comfort us for all the love which we shall lose in him!
I have a son, a third sweet son! his age I cannot tell,
For they reckon not by years and months where he is gone to dwell.
To us for fourteen anxious months, his infant smiles were given,
And then he bade farewell to earth, and went to live in heaven.
I cannot tell what form he has, what looks he weareth now,
Nor guess how bright a glory crowns his shining seraph brow,
The thoughts that fill his sinless soul, the bliss which he doth feel,
Are numbered with the secret things which God will not reveal;
But I know (for God hath told me this) that he is now at rest,
Where other blessed infants be, on their Saviour's loving breast.
I know his spirit feels no more this weary load of flesh;
But his sleep is blessed with endless dreams of joy for ever fresh.
I know the angels fold him close, beneath their glittering wings, And soothe him with a song that breathes of Heaven's divinest things.
I know that we shall meet our babe (his mother dear and I),
Where God for aye shall wipe away all tears from every eye.
Whate'er befalls his brethren twain, his bliss can never cease;
Their lot may here be grief and fear, but his is certain peace.
It
may
be that the tempter's wiles their souls from bliss may sever,
But if our own poor faith fail not, he must be ours for ever.
When we think of what our darling is, and what we still must be;
When we muse on that world's perfect bliss and this world's misery;
When we groan beneath this load of sin, and feel this grief and pain,
Oh! we'd rather lose our other two, than have him here again.
[Mr. Elliott worked in the iron trade, at Sheffield, for many years. He was unsuccessful at first, but persevered and succeeded. He was born at Mas borough, near Rotherham, 1781, and died 1849.]
STRONG climber of the mountain side,
Though thou the vale disdain,
Yet walk with me where hawthorns hide
The wonders of the lane.
High o'er the rushy springs of Don
The stormy gloom is roll'd;
The moorland hath not yet put on
His purple, green, and gold.
But here the titling spreads his wing,
Where dewy daisies gleam;
And here the sun flower of the spring
Burns bright in morning's beam.
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