Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve,My summer and my winter, spring and fall;For Nature left on thee a touch of allThe moods that come to gladden or to grieveThe heart of Time, with purpose to relieveFrom lagging sameness. So do these forestallIn thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pallToo swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave.
Scenes that I love to me always remainBeautiful, whether under summer sunBeheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain.So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet one:Doubt not I love thee well in each, who seeThy constant change is changeful constancy.
With my beloved I lingered late one night.At last the hour when I must leave her came:But, as I turned, a fear I could not namePossessed me that the long sweet evening mightPrelude some sudden storm, whereby delightShould perish. What if death, ere dawn, should claimOne of us? What, though living, not the sameEach should appear to each in morning-light?
Changed did I find her, truly, the next day:Ne'er could I see her as of old again.That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away,And let her beauty pour through every veinSunlight and life, part of me. Thus the loverWith each new morn a new world may discover.
Haunted by unknown feet—Ways of the midnight hour!Strangely you murmur below me,Strange is your half-silent power.Places of life and of death,Numbered and named as streets,What, through your channels of stone,Is the tide that unweariedly beats?A whisper, a sigh-laden breath,Is all that I hear of its flowing.Footsteps of stranger and foe—Footsteps of friends, could we meet—Alike to me in my sorrow;Alike to a life left alone.Yet swift as my heart they throb,They fall thick as tears on the stone:My spirit perchance may borrowNew strength from their eager tone.
Still ever that slip and slideOf the feet that shuffle or glide,And linger or haste through the populous wasteOf the shadowy, dim-lit square!And I know not, from the sound,As I sit and ponder within,The goal to which those steps are bound,—On hest of mercy, or hest of sin,Or joy's short-measured round;Yet a meaning deep they bearIn their vaguely muffled din.
Roar of the multitude,Chafe of the million-crowd,To this you are all subduedIn the murmurous, sad night-air!Yet whether you thunder aloud,Or hush your tone to a prayer,You chant amain through the modern mazeThe only epic of our days.
Still as death are the places of life;The city seems crumbled and gone,Sunk 'mid invisible deeps—The city so lately rifeWith the stir of brain and brawn.Haply it only sleeps;But what if indeed it were dead,And another earth should ariseTo greet the gray of the dawn?Faint then our epic would wailTo those who should come in our stead.But what if that earth were ours?What if, with holier eyes,We should meet the new hope, and not fail?
Weary, the night grows pale:With a blush as of opening flowersDimly the east shines red.Can it be that the morn shall fulfilMy dream, and refashion our clayAs the poet may fashion his rhyme?Hark to that mingled screamRising from workshop and mill—Hailing some marvelous sight;Mighty breath of the hours,Poured through the trumpets of steam;Awful tornado of time,Blowing us whither it will!
God has breathed in the nostrils of night,And behold, it is day!
Glimmers gray the leafless thicketClose beside my garden gate,Where, so light, from post to picketHops the sparrow, blithe, sedate;Who, with meekly folded wing,Comes to sun himself and sing.
It was there, perhaps, last year,That his little house he built;For he seems to perk and peer,And to twitter, too, and tiltThe bare branches in between,With a fond, familiar mien.
Once, I know, there was a nest,Held there by the sideward thrustOf those twigs that touch his breast;Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gustCaught it, over-full of snow,—Bent the bush,—and stole it so.
Thus our highest holds are lost,In the ruthless winter's wind,When, with swift-dismantling frost,The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'dOf their leafage, grow too coldFor frail hopes of summer's mold.
But if we, with spring-days mellow,Wake to woeful wrecks of change,And the sparrow's ritornelloScaling still its old sweet range;Can we do a better thingThan, with him, still build and sing?
Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breedThought in me beyond all telling;Shootest through me sunlight, seed,And fruitful blessing, with that wellingRipple of ecstatic restGurgling ever from thy breast!
And thy breezy carol spursVital motion in my blood,Such as in the sap-wood stirs,Swells and shapes the pointed budOf the lilac; and besetsThe hollow thick with violets.
Yet I know not any charmThat can make the fleeting timeOf thy sylvan, faint alarmSuit itself to human rhyme:And my yearning rhythmic wordDoes thee grievous wrong, blithe bird.
So, however thou hast wroughtThis wild joy on heart and brain,It is better left untaught.Take thou up the song again:There is nothing sad afloatOn the tide that swells thy throat!
And did you think my heartCould keep its love unchanging,Fresh as the buds that startIn spring, nor know estranging?Listen! The buds depart:I loved you once, but now—I love you more than ever.
'T is not the early love;With day and night it alters,And onward still must moveLike earth, that never faltersFor storm or star above.I loved you once; but now—I love you more than ever.
With gifts in those glad daysHow eagerly I sought you!Youth, shining hope, and praise:These were the gifts I brought you.In this world little stays:I loved you once, but now—I love you more than ever.
A child with glorious eyesHere in our arms half sleeping—So passion wakeful lies;Then grows to manhood, keepingIts wistful, young surprise:I loved you once, but now—I love you more than ever.
When age's pinching airStrips summer's rich possession,And leaves the branches bare,My secret in confessionStill thus with you I'll share:I loved you once, but now—I love you more than ever.
(ARNOLD'S MARCH TO CANADA, 1775)
(ARNOLD'S MARCH TO CANADA, 1775)
The trumpet, with a giant sound,Its harsh war-summons wildly sings;And, bursting forth like mountain-springs,Poured from the hillside camping-ground,Each swift battalion shouting flingsIts force in line; where you may seeThe men, broad-shouldered, heavilySway to the swing of the march; their headsDark like the stones in river-beds.
Lightly the autumn breezesPlay with the shining dust-cloudRising to the sunset raysFrom feet of the moving column.Soft, as you listen, comesThe echo of iterant drums,Brought by the breezes lightFrom the files that follow the road.A moment their guns have glowedSun-smitten: then out of sightThey suddenly sink,Like men who touch a new grave's brink!
So it was the march began,The march of Morgan's riflemen,Who like iron held the vanIn unhappy Arnold's planTo win Wolfe's daring fame again.With them, by her husband's side,Jemima Warner, nobly free,Moved more fair than when, a bride,One year since, she strove to hideThe blush it was a joy to see.
O distant, terrible forests of Maine,With huge trees numberless as the rainThat falls on your lonely lakes!(It falls and sings through the years, but wakesNo answering echo of joy or pain.)
Your tangled wilderness was trackedWith struggle and sorrow and vengeful act'Gainst Puritan, pagan, and priest.Where wolf and panther and serpent ceased,Man added the horrors your dark maze lacked.
The land was scarred with deeds not good,Like the fretting of worms on withered wood.What if its venomous spellBreathed into Arnold a prompting of Hell,With slow empoisoning force indued?
As through that dreary realm he went,Followed a shape of dark portent:—Pard-like, of furtive eye, with brainTo treason narrowing, Aaron Burr,Moved loyal-seeming in the train,Led by the arch-conspirator.And craven Enos closed the rear,Whose honor's flame died out in fear.Not sooner does the dry bough burnAnd into fruitless ashes turn,Than he with whispered, false commandDrew back the hundreds in his hand;Fled like a shade; and all forsook.
Wherever Arnold bent his look,Danger and doubt around him hung;And pale Disaster, shrouded, flungBlack omens in his track, as thoughThe fingers of a future woeAlready clutched his life, to wringSome expiation for the thingThat he was yet to do. A chillStruck helpless many a steadfast willWithin the ranks; the very airRang with a thunder-toned despair:The hills seemed wandering to and fro,Like lost guides blinded by the snow.
Yet faithful still 'mid woe and doubtOne woman's loyal heart—whose painFilled it with pure celestial light—Shone starry-constant like the North,Or that still radiance beaming forthFrom sacred lights in some lone fane.But he whose ring Jemima wore,By want and weariness all unstrung,Though strong and honest of heart and young,Shrank at the blast that pierced so frore—Like a huge, invisible bird of preyFurious launched from LabradorAnd the granite cliffs of Saguenay!
Along the bleak Dead River's banksThey forced amain their frozen way;But ever from the thinning ranksShapes of ice would reel and fall,Human shapes, whose dying prayerFloated, a mute white mist, in air;The crowding snow their pall.
Spectre-like Famine drew near;Her doom-word hummed in his ear:Ah, weak were woman's hands to reachAnd save him from the hellish charmsAnd wizard motion of those arms!Yet only noble womanhoodThe wife her dauntless part could teach:She shared with him the last dry foodAnd thronged with hopefulness her speech,As when hard by her home the floodOf rushing Conestoga fillsIts depth afresh from springtide rills!
All, all in vain!For far behind the invading routThese two were left alone;And in the waste their wildest shoutSeemed but a smothered groan.Like sheeted wanderers from the graveThey moved, and yet seemed not to stir,As icy gorge and sere-leaf'd groveOf withered oak and shrouded firWere passed, and onward still they strove;While the loud wind's artillery claveThe air, and furious sleety rainSwung like a sword above the plain!
They crossed the hills; they came to whereThrough an arid gloom the river ChaudiereFled like a Maenad with outstreaming hair;And there the soldier sank, and died.Death-dumb he fell; yet ere life sped,Child-like on her knee he laid his head.She strove to pray; but all words fledSave those their love had sanctified.
And then her voice rose waveringlyTo the notes of a mother's lullaby;But her song was only "Ah, must thou die?"And to her his eyes death-still replied.
Dead leaves and stricken boughsShe heaped o'er the fallen form—Wolf nor hawk nor lawless stormHim from his rest should rouse;But first, with solemn vows,Took rifle, pouch, and horn,And the belt that he had worn.Then, onward pressing fastThrough the forest rude and vast,Hunger-wasted, fever-parch'd,Many bitter days she marchedWith bleeding feet that spurned the flinty pain;One thought always throbbing through her brain:"They shall never say, 'He was afraid,'—They shall never cry, 'The coward stayed!'"
Now the wilderness is passed;Now the first hut reached, at last.
Ho, dwellers by the frontier trail,Come forth and greet the bride of war!From cabin and rough settlementThey come to speed her on her way—Maidens, whose ruddy cheeks grow paleWith pity never felt before;Children that cluster at the door;Mothers, whose toil-worn hands are lentTo help, or bid her longer stay.But through them all she passes on,Strangely martial, fair and wan;Nor waits to listen to their cheersThat sound so faintly in her ears.For now all scenes around her shift,Like those before a racer's eyesWhen, foremost sped and madly swift,Quick stretching toward the goal he flies,Yet feels his strength wane with his breath,And purpose fail 'mid fears of death,—
Till, like the flashing of a lamp,Starts forth the sight of Arnold's camp,—The bivouac flame, and sinuous gleamOf steel,—where, crouched, the army waits,Ere long, beyond the midnight stream,To storm Quebec's ice-mounded gates.
Then to the leader she was brought,And spoke her simply loyal thought.If, 'mid the shame of after-days,The man who wronged his country's trust(Yet now in worth outweighed all praise)Remembered what this woman wrought,It should have bowed him to the dust!"Humbly my soldier-husband triedTo do his part. He served,—and died.But honor did not die. His nameAnd honor—bringing both, I came;And this his rifle, here, to show,While far away the tired heart sleeps,To-day his faith with you he keeps!"
Proudly the war bride, ending so,Sank breathless in the dumb white snow.
O many-toned rain!O myriad sweet voices of the rain!How welcome is its delicate overtureAt evening, when the moist and glowing westSeals all things with cool promise of night's rest.
At first it would allureThe earth to kinder mood,With dainty flatteringOf soft, sweet pattering:Faintly now you hear the trampOf the fine drops, falling dampOn the dry, sun-seasoned groundAnd the thirsty leaves, resound.But anon, imbuedWith a sudden, bounding accessOf passion, it relaxesAll timider persuasion.And, with nor pretext nor occasion,Its wooing redoubles;And pounds the ground, and bubblesIn sputtering spray,Flinging itself in a furyOf flashing white away;Till the dusty road,Dank-perfumed, is o'erflowed;And the grass, and the wide-hung trees,The vines, the flowers in their beds,—The virid corn that to the breezeRustles along the garden-rows,—Visibly lift their heads,And, as the quick shower wilder grows,Upleap with answering kisses to the rain.
Then, the slow and pleasant murmurOf its subsiding,As the pulse of the storm beats firmer,And the steady rainDrops into a cadenced chiding!Deep-breathing rain,The sad and ghostly noiseWherewith thou dost complain—-Thy plaintive, spiritual voice,Heard thus at close of dayThrough vaults of twilight gray—Vexes me with sweet pain;And still my soul is fainTo know the secret of that yearningWhich in thine utterance I hear returning.Hush, oh hush!Break not the dreamy rushOf the rain:Touch not the marring doubtWords bring to the certaintyOf its soft refrain;But let the flying fringes floutTheir drops against the pane,And the gurgling throat of the water-spoutGroan in the eaves amain.
The earth is wedded to the shower;Darkness and awe gird round the bridal hour!
O many-toned rain!It hath caught the strainOf a wilder tune,Ere the same night's noon,When dreams and sleep forsake me,And sudden dread doth wake me,To hear the booming drums of heaven beatThe long roll to battle; when the knotted cloud,With an echoing loud,Bursts asunderAt the sudden resurrection of the thunder;And the fountains of the air,Unsealed again, sweep, ruining, everywhere,To wrap the world in a watery winding-sheet.
O myriad sweet voices of the rain!When the airy war doth wane,And the storm to the east hath flown,Cloaked close in the whirling wind,There's a voice still left behindIn each heavy-hearted tree,Charged with tearful memoryOf the vanished rain:From their leafy lashes wetDrip the dews of fresh regretFor the lover that's gone!All else is still;Yet the stars are listening,And low o'er the wooded hillHangs, upon listless wingOutspread, a shape of damp, blue cloud,Watching, like a bird of evilThat knows nor mercy nor reprieval,The slow and silent death of the pallid moon.
But soon, returning duly,Dawn whitens the wet hilltops bluely.To her vision pure and coldThe night's wild tale is toldOn the glistening leaf, in the mid-road pool,The garden mold turned dark and cool,And the meadows' trampled acres.But hark, how fresh the song of the winged music-makers!For now the moanings bitter,Left by the rain, make harmonyWith the swallow's matin-twitter,And the robin's note, like the wind's in a tree.The infant morning breathes sweet breath,And with it is blentThe wistful, wild, moist scentOf the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth:And behold!The last reluctant drop of the storm,Wrung from the roof, is smitten warmAnd turned to gold;For in its veins doth runThe very blood of the bold, unsullied sun!
Far out at sea there has been a storm,And still, as they roll their liquid acres,High-heaped the billows lower and glisten.The air is laden, moist, and warmWith the dying tempest's breath;And, as I walk the lonely strandWith sea-weed strewn, my forehead fannedBy wet salt-winds, I watch the breakers,Furious sporting, tossed and tumbling,Shatter here with a dreadful rumbling—Watch, and muse, and vainly listenTo the inarticulate mumblingOf the hoary-headed deep;For who may tell me what it saith,Muttering, moaning as in sleep?
Slowly and heavilyComes in the sea,With memories of storm o'erfreighted,With heaving heart and breath abated,Pregnant with some mysterious, endless sorrow,And seamed with many a gaping, sighing furrow.
Slowly and heavilyGrows the green water-mound;But drawing ever nigher,Towering ever higher,Swollen with an inward rageNaught but ruin can assuage,Swift, now, without sound,Creeps stealthilyUp to the shore—Creeps, creeps and undulates;As one dissimulatesTill, swayed by hateful frenzy,Through passion grown immense, heBursts forth hostilely;And rising, a smooth billow—Its swelling, sunlit domeThinned to a tumid ledgeWith keen, curved edgeLike the scornful curlOf lips that snarl—O'ertops itself and breaksInto a raving foam;So springs upon the shoreWith a hungry roar;Its first fierce anger slakesOn the stony shallow;And runs up on the land,Licking the smooth, hard sand,Relentless, cold, yet wroth;And dies in savage froth.
Then with its backward swirlThe sands and the stones, how they whirl!O, fiercely doth it drawThem to its chasm'd maw,And against it in vainThey linger and strain;And as they slip awayInto the seething grayFill all the thunderous airWith the horror of their despair,And their wild terror wreakIn one hoarse, wailing shriek.
But scarce is this done,When another oneFalls like the bolt from a bellowing gun,And sucks away the shoreAs that did before:And another shall smother it o'er.
Then there's a lull—a half-hush;And forward the little waves rush,Toppling and hurrying,Each other worrying,And in their hasteRun to waste.
Yet again is heard the trampleOf the surges high and ample:Their dreadful meeting—The wild and sudden breaking—The dinting, and battering, and beating,And swift forsaking.
And ever they burst and boom,A numberless host;Like heralds of doomTo the trembling coast;And ever the tangled sprayIs tossed from the fierce affray,And, as with spectral armsThat taunt and beckon and mock,And scatter vague alarms,Clasps and unclasps the rock;Listlessly over it wanders;Moodily, madly maunders,And hissingly fallsFrom the glistening walls.
So all day along the shoreShout the breakers, green and hoar,Weaving out their weird tune;Till at night the full moonWeds the dark with that ringOf gold that you see her flingOn the misty air.Then homeward slow returningTo slumbers deep I fare,Filled with an infinite yearning,With thoughts that rise and fallTo the sound of the sea's hollow call,Breathed now from white-lit waves that reachCold fingers o'er the damp, dark beach,To scatter a spray on my dreams;Till the slow and measured roteBrings a drowsy easeTo my spirit, and seemsTo set it soothingly afloatOn broad and buoyant seasOf endless rest, lulled by the dirgeOf the melancholy surge.
"Who is Blackmouth?" Well, that's hard to say.Mebbe he might ha' told you, 't other day,If you'd been here. Now,—he's gone away.Come to think on, 't wouldn't ha' been no useIf you'd called here earlier. His excuseAlways was, whenever folks would ask himWhere he hailed from, an'wouldtease an' task him;—What d' you s'pose? He just said, "I don' know."
That was truth. He came here long ago;But, before that, he'd been born somewhere:The conundrum started first, right there.Little shaver—afore he knew his nameOr the place from whereabouts he came—On a wagon-train the Apaches caught him.Killed the old folks! But this cus'—they brought himSafe away from fire an' knife an' arrows.So'thin' 'bout him must have touched their marrows:They was merciful;—treated him real good;Brought him up to man's age well's they could.Now, d' you b'lieve me, that there likely lad,For all they used him so, went to the bad:Leastways left the red men, that he knew,'N' come to look for folks like me an' you;—Goldarned white folks that he never saw.Queerest thing was—though he loved a squaw,'T was on her account he planned escape;Shook the Apaches, an' took up red tapeWith the U. S. gov'ment arter a while;Tho' they do say gov'ment may be vile,Mean an' treacherous an' deceivin'. Well,Iain't sayin' our gov'ment is a sell.
Bocanegra—Spanish term—I've heardStands for "Blackmouth." Now this curious bird,Known as Bocanegra, gave his lifeMost for others. First, he saved his wife;Her I spoke of;—nothin' but a squaw.You might wonder by what sort of lawHe, a white man born, should come to love her.But 't was somehow so: hediddiscoverBeauty in her, of the holding kind.Some men love the light, an' some the shade.Round that little Indian girl there playedSoft an' shadowy tremblings, like the darkUnder trees; yet now an' then a spark,Quick 's a firefly, flashing from her eyes,Made you think of summer-midnight skies.She was faithful, too, like midnight stars.As for Blackmouth, if you'd seen the scarsMade by wounds he suffered for her sake,You'd have calledhimtrue, and no mistake.
Growin' up a man, he scarcely metOther white folks; an' his heart was setOn this red girl. Yet he said: "We'll wait.You must never be my wedded mateTill we reach the white man's country. There,Everything that's done is fair and square."Patiently they stayed, thro' trust or doubt,Till tow'rds Colorado he could scoutSome safe track. He told her: "You go first.All my joy goes with you:—that's the worst!ButIwait, to guard or hide the trail."
Indians caught him; an' they gave him—hail;Cut an' tortured him, till he was bleeding;Yet they found that still they weren't succeeding."Where's that squaw?" they asked. "We'll have her blood!Either that, or grind you into mud;Pick your eyes out, too, if you can't seeWhere she's gone to. Which, now, shall it be?Tell us where she's hid."
"I'll show the way,"Blackmouth says; an' leads toward dawn of day,Till they come straight out beside the brinkOf a precipice that seems to sinkInto everlasting gulfs below."Loose me!" Blackmouth tells 'em. "But go slow."Then they loosed him; and, with one swift leap,Blackmouth swooped right down into the deep;—Jumped out into space beyond the edge,While the Apaches cowered along the ledge.Seven hundred feet, they say. That's guff!Seventy foot, I tell you, 's 'bout enough.Indians called him a dead antelope;But they couldn't touch the bramble-slopeWhere he, bruised and stabbed, crawled under brush.Theirhand was beat hollow:heheld a flush.
Day and night he limped or crawled along:Winds blew hot, yet sang to him a song(So he told me, once) that gave him hope.Every time he saw a shadow gropeDown the hillsides, from a flying cloud,Something touched his heart that made him proud:Seemed to him he saw her dusky faceWatching over him, from place to place.Every time the dry leaves rustled near,Seemed to him she whispered, "Have no fear!"
So at last he found her:—they were married.But, from those days on, he always carriedMarks of madness; actually—yes!—Trusted the good faith of these U. S.
Indian hate an' deviltry he braved;'N' scores an' scores of white men's lives he saved.Just for that, his name should be engraved.But it won't be! U. S. gov'ment dreadsMen who're taller 'n politicians' heads.
All the while, his wife—tho' half despisedBy the frontier folks that civilizedAn' converted her—served by his side,Helping faithfully, until she died.Left alone, he lay awake o' nights,Thinkin' what they'd both done for the whites.Then he thought of her, and Indian people;Tryin' to measure, by the church's steeple,Just how Christian our great nation's beenToward those native tribes so full of sin.When he counted all the wrongs we've doneTo the wild men of the setting sun,Seem'd to him the gov'ment wa'n't quite fair.When its notes came due, it wa'n't right there.U. S. gov'ment promised Indians lots,But at last it closed accounts with shots.Mouth was black, perhaps;—buthewas white.Calling gov'ment black don't seem polite:Yet I'll swear, its actions wouldn't show'Longside Blackmouth's better 'n soot with snow.
Yes, sir! Blackmouth took the other side:Honestly for years an' years he triedGetting justice for the Indians. He,Risking life an' limb for you an' me;—He, the man who proved his good intentBy his deeds, an' plainly showed he meantHe would die for us,—turned round an' said:"White men have been saved. Now, save the red!"But it didn't pan out. No one would hark."Let the prairie-dogs an' Blackmouth bark,"Said our folks. And—no, he wa'n't resigned,But concluded he had missed his find.
"Whereis Blackmouth?" That I can't decide.Red an' white men, both, he tried to serve;But I guess, at last, he lost his nerve.Kind o' tired out. See? He had his pride:Gave his life for others, far 's he could,Hoping it would do 'em some small good.Didn't seem to be much use. An' so—Well; you see that man, dropped in the snow,Where the crowd is? Suicide, they say.Looks as though he had quit work, to stay.Bullet in the breast.—Hisbody's there;But poor Blackmouth's gone—I don't know where!
"Dying of hunger and sorrow:I die for my youth I fear!"Murmured the midnight-hauntingVoice of the stricken Year.
There like a child it perishedIn the stormy thoroughfare:The snow with cruel whitenessHad aged its flowing hair.
Ah, little Year so fruitful,Ah, child that brought us bliss,Must we so early lose you—Our dear hopes end in this?
"Too young am I, too tender,To bear earth's avalancheOf wrong, that grinds down life-hope,And makes my heart's-blood blanch.
"Tell him who soon shall followWhere my tired feet have bled,He must be older, shrewder,Hard, cold, and selfish-bred—
"Or else like me be trampledUnder the harsh world's heel.'Tis weakness to be youthful;'Tis death to love and feel."
Then saw I how the New YearCame like a scheming man,With icy eyes, his foreheadWrinkled by care and plan
For trade and rule and profit.To him the fading childLooked up and cried, "Oh, brother!"But died even while it smiled.
Down bent the harsh new-comerTo lift with loving armThe wanderer mute and fallen;And lo! his eyes were warm;
All changed he grew; the wrinklesVanished: he, too, looked young—As if that lost child's spiritInto his breast had sprung.
So are those lives not wasted,Too frail to bear the fray.So Years may die, yet leave usYoung hearts in a world grown gray.
To-day I saw a little, calm-eyed child,—Where soft lights rippled and the shadows tarriedWithin a church's shelter arched and aisled,—Peacefully wondering, to the altar carried;
White-robed and sweet, in semblance of a flower;White as the daisies that adorned the chancel;Borne like a gift, the young wife's natural dower,Offered to God as her most precious hansel.
Then ceased the music, and the little oneWas silent, with the multitude assembledHearkening; and when of Father and of SonHe spoke, the pastor's deep voice broke and trembled.
But she, the child, knew not the solemn words,And suddenly yielded to a troublous wailing,As helpless as the cry of frightened birdsWhose untried wings for flight are unavailing.
How much the same, I thought, with older folk!The blessing falls: we call it tribulation,And fancy that we wear a sorrow's yoke,Even at the moment of our consecration.
Pure daisy-child! Whatever be the formOf dream or doctrine,—or of unbelieving,—A hand may touch our heads, amid the stormOf grief and doubt, to bless beyond bereaving;
A voice may sound, in measured, holy riteOf speech we know not, tho' its earnest meaningBe clear as dew, and sure as starry lightGathered from some far-off celestial gleaning.
Wise is the ancient sacrament that blendsThis weakling cry of children in our churchesWith strength of prayer or anthem that ascendsTo Him who hearts of men and children searches;
Since we are like the babe, who, soothed again,Within her mother's cradling arm lay nested,Bright as a new bud, now, refreshed by rain:And on her hair, it seemed, heaven's radiance rested.