At Sundown | Page 3

his neighbors said?"The poor old captain is out of his head."
But from morn to noon, and from noon to night,?He toiled at his task with main and might;
And when at last, from the loosened earth,?Under his spade the stream gushed forth,
And fast as he climbed to his deep well's brim,?The water he dug for followed him,
He shouted for joy: "I have kept my word,?And here is the well I promised the Lord!"
The long years came and the long years went,?And he sat by his roadside well content;
He watched the travellers, heat-oppressed,?Pause by the way to drink and rest,
And the sweltering horses dip, as they drank,?Their nostrils deep in the cool, sweet tank,
And grateful at heart, his memory went?Back to that waterless Orient,
And the blessed answer of prayer, which came?To the earth of iron and sky of flame.
And when a wayfarer weary and hot,?Kept to the mid road, pausing not
For the well's refreshing, he shook his head;?"He don't know the value of water," he said;
"Had he prayed for a drop, as I have done,?In the desert circle of sand and sun,
"He would drink and rest, and go home to tell?That God's best gift is the wayside well!"
AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION.
The substance of these lines, hastily pencilled several years ago, I find among such of my unprinted scraps as have escaped the waste-basket and the fire. In transcribing it I have made some changes, additions, and omissions.
On these green banks, where falls too soon?The shade of Autumn's afternoon,?The south wind blowing soft and sweet,?The water gliding at nay feet,?The distant northern range uplit?By the slant sunshine over it,?With changes of the mountain mist?From tender blush to amethyst,?The valley's stretch of shade and gleam?Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream,?With glad young faces smiling near?And merry voices in my ear,?I sit, methinks, as Hafiz might?In Iran's Garden of Delight.?For Persian roses blushing red,?Aster and gentian bloom instead;?For Shiraz wine, this mountain air;?For feast, the blueberries which I share?With one who proffers with stained hands?Her gleanings from yon pasture lands,?Wild fruit that art and culture spoil,?The harvest of an untilled soil;?And with her one whose tender eyes?Reflect the change of April skies,?Midway 'twixt child and maiden yet,?Fresh as Spring's earliest violet;?And one whose look and voice and ways?Make where she goes idyllic days;?And one whose sweet, still countenance?Seems dreamful of a child's romance;?And others, welcome as are these,?Like and unlike, varieties?Of pearls on nature's chaplet strung,?And all are fair, for all are young.?Gathered from seaside cities old,?From midland prairie, lake, and wold,?From the great wheat-fields, which might feed?The hunger of a world at need,?In healthful change of rest and play?Their school-vacations glide away.
No critics these: they only see?An old and kindly friend in me,?In whose amused, indulgent look?Their innocent mirth has no rebuke.?They scarce can know my rugged rhymes,?The harsher songs of evil times,?Nor graver themes in minor keys?Of life's and death's solemnities;?But haply, as they bear in mind?Some verse of lighter, happier kind,--?Hints of the boyhood of the man,?Youth viewed from life's meridian,?Half seriously and half in play?My pleasant interviewers pay?Their visit, with no fell intent?Of taking notes and punishment.
As yonder solitary pine?Is ringed below with flower and vine,?More favored than that lonely tree,?The bloom of girlhood circles me.?In such an atmosphere of youth?I half forget my age's truth;?The shadow of my life's long date?Runs backward on the dial-plate,?Until it seems a step might span?The gulf between the boy and man.
My young friends smile, as if some jay?On bleak December's leafless spray?Essayed to sing the songs of May.?Well, let them smile, and live to know,?When their brown locks are flecked with snow,?'T is tedious to be always sage?And pose the dignity of age,?While so much of our early lives?On memory's playground still survives,?And owns, as at the present hour,?The spell of youth's magnetic power.
But though I feel, with Solomon,?'T is pleasant to behold the sun,?I would not if I could repeat?A life which still is good and sweet;?I keep in age, as in my prime,?A not uncheerful step with time,?And, grateful for all blessings sent,?I go the common way, content?To make no new experiment.?On easy terms with law and fate,?For what must be I calmly wait,?And trust the path I cannot see,--?That God is good sufficeth me.?And when at last on life's strange play?The curtain falls, I only pray?That hope may lose itself in truth,?And age in Heaven's immortal youth,?And all our loves and longing prove?The foretaste of diviner love.
The day is done. Its afterglow?Along the west is burning low.?My visitors, like birds, have flown;?I hear their voices, fainter grown,?And dimly through the dusk I see?Their 'kerchiefs wave good-night to me,--?Light hearts of girlhood, knowing nought?Of all the cheer their coming brought;?And, in their going, unaware?Of silent-following feet of prayer?Heaven make their budding promise good?With flowers of gracious womanhood!
R. S. S., AT DEER ISLAND ON