A GIRL'S REVERIE
Mother says, "Be in no hurry,Marriage oft means care and worry."
Auntie says, with manner grave,"Wife is synonym for slave."
Father asks, in tones commanding,"How does Bradstreet rate his standing?"
Sister crooning to her twins,Sighs, "With marriage care begins."
Grandma, near life's closing days,Murmurs, "Sweet are girlhood's ways."
Maud, twice widowed ("sod and grass")Looks at me and moans "Alas!"
They are six, and I am one,Life for me has just begun.
They are older, calmer, wiser:Age should aye be youth's adviser.
They must know--and yet, dear me,When in Harry's eyes I see
All the world of love there burning--On my six advisers turning,
I make answer, "Oh, but HarryIs not like most men who marry.
"Fate has offered me a prize,Life with love means Paradise.
"Life without it is not worthAll the foolish joys of earth."
So, in spite of all they say,I shall name the wedding day.
Let the old snow be covered with the new:The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.Let it be hidden wholly from our viewBy pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden.When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring's feet,Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet.Let the old life be covered by the new:The old past life so full of sad mistakes,Let it be wholly hidden from the viewBy deeds as white and silent as snow-flakes.Ere this earth life melts in the eternal SpringLet the white mantle of repentance flingSoft drapery about it, fold on fold,Even as the new snow covers up the old.
I and my Soul are alone to-day,All in the shining weather;We were sick of the world, and put it away,So we could rejoice together.
Our host, the Sun, in the blue, blue skyIs mixing a rare, sweet wine,In the burnished gold of this cup on high,For me, and this Soul of mine.
We find it a safe and royal drink,And a cure for every pain;It helps us to love, and helps us to think,And strengthens body and brain.
And sitting here, with my Soul alone,Where the yellow sun-rays fall,Of all the friends I have ever knownI find it the BEST of all.
We rarely meet when the world is near,For the World hath a pleasing artAnd brings me so much that is bright and dearThat my Soul it keepeth apart.
But when I grow weary of mirth and glee,Of glitter, glow, and splendour,Like a tried old friend it comes to me,With a smile that is sad and tender.
And we walk together as two friends may,And laugh and drink God's wine.Oh, a royal comrade any dayI find this Soul of mine.
HOW happy they are, in all seeming,How gay, or how smilingly proud,How brightly their faces are beaming,These people who make up the crowd.How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter,How they look at each other and smile,How they glow, and what _bons mots_ they utter!But a strange thought has found me the while!
It is odd, but I stand here and fancyThese people who now play a part,All forced by some strange necromancyTo speak, and to act, from the heart.What a hush would come over the laughter!What a silence would fall on the mirth!And then what a wail would sweep after,As the night-wind sweeps over the earth,
If, the secrets held under and hidden,In the intricate hearts of the crowd,Were suddenly called to, and biddenTo rise up and cry out aloud,How strange one would look to another!Old friends of long standing and years--Own brothers, would not know each other,Robed new in their sorrows and fears,
From broadcloth, and velvet, and laces,Would echo the groans of despair,And there would be blanching of facesAnd wringing of hands and of hair.That man with his record of honour,The lady down there with the rose,That girl with Spring's freshness upon her,Who knoweth the secrets of those?
Smile on, O ye maskers, smile sweetly!Step lightly, bow low and laugh loud!Though the world is deceived and completely,I know ye, O sad-hearted crowd!I watch you with infinite pity:But play on, play ever your part,Be gleeful, be joyful, be witty!'Tis better than showing the heart.
If the sad old world should jump a cogSometime, in its dizzy spinning,And go off the track with a sudden jog,What an end would come to the sinning,What a rest from strife and the burdens of lifeFor the millions of people in it,What a way out of care, and worry and wear,All in a beautiful minute.
As 'round the sun with a curving sweepIt hurries and runs and races,Should it lose its balance, and go with a leapInto the vast sea-spaces,What a blest relief it would bring to the grief,And the trouble and toil about us,To be suddenly hurled from the solar worldAnd let it go on without us.
With not a sigh or a sad good-byeFor loved ones left behind us,We would go with a lunge and a mighty plungeWhere never a grave should find us.What a wild mad thrill our veins would fillAs the great earth, like a feather,Should float through the air to God knows where,And carry us all together.
No dark, damp tomb and no mourner's gloom,No tolling bell in the steeple,But in one swift breath a painless deathFor a million billion people.What greater bliss could we ask than this,To sweep with a bird's free motionThrough leagues of space to a resting place,In a vast and vapoury ocean--To pass away from this life for ayeWith never a dear tie sundered,And a world on fire for a funeral pyre,While the stars looked on and wondered?
Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under--The busy Old Year who has gone away--How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder,Brought to life by the sun of May?Will the rose-tree branches, so wholly hiddenThat never a rose-tree seems to be,At the sweet Spring's call come forth unbidden,And bud in beauty, and bloom for me?
Will the fair green Earth, whose throbbing bosomIs hid like a maid's in her gown at night,Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossomGem her garments to please my sight?Over the knoll in the valley yonderThe loveliest buttercups bloomed and grew;When the snow has gone that drifted them under,Will they shoot up sunward, and bloom anew?
When wild winds blew, and a sleet-storm pelted,I lost a jewel of priceless worth;If I walk that way when snows have melted,Will the gem gleam up from the bare brown Earth?I laid a love that was dead or dying,For the year to bury and hide from sight;But out of a trance will it waken, crying,And push to my heart, like a leaf to the light?
Under the snow lie things so cherished--Hopes, ambitions, and dreams of men--Faces that vanished, and trusts that perished,Never to sparkle and glow again.The Old Year greedily grasped his plunder,And covered it over and hurried away:Of the thousand things that he did, I wonderHow many will rise at the call of May?O wise Young Year, with your hands held underYour mantle of ermine, tell me, pray!
I hold it the duty of one who is giftedAnd specially dowered in all men's sight,To know no rest till his life is liftedFully up to his great gifts' height.
He must mould the man into rare completeness,For gems are set only in gold refined.He must fashion his thoughts into perfect sweetness.And cast out folly and pride from his mind.
For he who drinks from a god's gold fountainOf art or music or rhythmic songMust sift from his soul the chaff of malice,And weed from his heart the roots of wrong.
Great gifts should be worn, like a crown befitting,And not like gems in a beggar's hands!And the toil must be constant and unremittingWhich lifts up the king to the crown's demands.
What can be said in New Year rhymes,That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,And that's the burden of the year.
Is it the world, or my eyes, that are sadder?I see not the grace that I used to seeIn the meadow-brook whose song was so glad, orIn the boughs of the willow tree.The brook runs slower--its song seems lowerAnd not the song that it sang of old;And the tree I admired looks weary and tiredOf the changeless story of heat and cold.
When the sun goes up, and the stars go under,In that supreme hour of the breaking day,Is it my eyes, or the dawn, I wonder,That finds less of the gold, and more of the grayI see not the splendour, the tints so tender,The rose-hued glory I used to see;And I often borrow a vague half-sorrowThat another morning has dawned for me.
When the royal smile of that welcome comerBeams on the meadow and burns in the sky,Is it my eyes, or does the SummerBring less of bloom than in days gone by?The beauty that thrilled me, the rapture that filled me,To an overflowing of happy tears,I pass unseeing, my sad eyes beingDimmed by the shadow of vanished years.
When the heart grows weary, all things seem dreary;When the burden grows heavy, the way seems long.Thank God for sending kind death as an ending,Like a grand Amen to a minor song.
The highest culture is to speak no ill,The best reformer is the man whose eyesAre quick to see all beauty and all worth;And by his own discreet, well-ordered life,Alone reproves the erring.
When thy gazeTurns in on thine own soul, be most severe.But when it falls upon a fellow-manLet kindliness control it; and refrainFrom that belittling censure that springs forthFrom common lips like weeds from marshy soil.
Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,Were it not kindness should I give thee restBy plunging this sharp dagger in thy breast?Dying so young, with all thy wealth of youth,What part of life wouldst thou not claim, in sooth?Only the woe,Sweetheart, that sad souls know.
Now, in this sacred hour of supreme trust,Of pure delight and palpitating joy,Ere change can come, as come it surely must,With jarring doubts and discords, to destroyOur far too perfect peace, I pray thee, Sweet,Were it not best for both of us, and meet,If I should bring swift death to seal our bliss?Dying so full of joy, what could we miss?Nothing but tears,Sweetheart, and weary years.
How slight the action! Just one well-aimed blowHere, where I feel thy warm heart's pulsing beat,And then another through my own, and soOur perfect union would be made complete:So, past all parting, I should claim thee mine.Dead with our youth, and faith, and love divine,Should we not keep the best of life that way?What shall we gain by living day on day?What shall we gain,Sweetheart, but bitter pain?
Thou Christ of mine, Thy gracious ear low bendingThrough these glad New Year days,To catch the countless prayers to heaven ascending--For e'en hard hearts do raiseSome secret wish for fame, or gold, or power,Or freedom from all care--Dear, patient Christ, who listeneth hour on hour,Hear now a Christian's prayer.
Let this young year that, silent, walks beside me,Be as a means of graceTo lead me up, no matter what betide me,Nearer the Master's face.If it need be that ere I reach the FountainWhere living waters play,My feet should bleed from sharp stones on the mountain,Then cast them in my way.
If my vain soul needs blows and bitter lossesTo shape it for Thy crown,Then bruise it, burn it, burden it with crosses,With sorrows bear it down.Do what Thou wilt to mould me to Thy pleasure,And if I should complain,Heap full of anguish yet another measureUntil I smile at pain.Send dangers--deaths! but tell me how to dare them;Enfold me in Thy care.Send trials, tears! but give me strength to bear them--This is a Christian's prayer.
I have been across the bridges of the years.Wet with tearsWere the ties on which I trod, going backDown the trackTo the valley where I left, 'neath skies of Truth,My lost youth.
As I went, I dropped my burdens, one and all--Let them fall;All my sorrows, all my wrinkles, all my care,My white hair,I laid down, like some lone pilgrim's heavy pack,By the track.
As I neared the happy valley with light feet,My heart beatTo the rhythm of a song I used to knowLong ago,And my spirits gushed and bubbled like a fountainDown a mountain.
On the border of that valley I found you,Tried and true;And we wandered through the golden Summer-LandHand in hand.And my pulses beat with rapture in the blissesOf your kisses.
And we met there, in those green and verdant places,Smiling faces,And sweet laughter echoed upward from the dellsLike gold bells.And the world was spilling over with the gloryOf Youth's story.
It was but a dreamer's journey of the brain;And againI have left the happy valley far behind;And I findTime stands waiting with his burdens in a packFor my back.
As he speeds me, like a rough, well-meaning friend,To the end,Will I find again the lost ones loved so well?Who can tell!But the dead know what the life will be to come--And they are dumb!