Bitter-Sweet | Page 2

good old farmer, Israel,
In his ancestral home--a
Puritan
Who reads his Bible daily, loves his God,
And lives

serenely in the faith of Christ.
For threescore years and ten his life has
run
Through varied scenes of happiness and woe;
But, constant
through the wide vicissitude,
He has confessed the Giver of his joys,

And kissed the hand that took them; and whene'er
Bereavement
has oppressed his soul with grief,
Or sharp misfortune stung his heart
with pain,
He has bowed down in childlike faith, and said,
"Thy
will, O God--Thy will be done, not mine!"
His gentle wife, a dozen
summers since,
Passed from his faithful arms and went to heaven;

And her best gift--a maiden sweetly named--
His daughter
Ruth--orders the ancient house,
And fills her mother's place beside
the board,
And cheers his life with songs and industry.
But who are
these who crowd the house to-night--
A happy throng? Wayfaring
pilgrims, who,
Grateful for shelter, charm the golden hours
With
the sweet jargon of a festival?
Who are these fathers? who these
mothers? who
These pleasant children, rude with health and joy?
It is the Puritan's Thanksgiving Eve;
And gathered home, from
fresher homes around,
The old man's children keep the holiday--
In
dear New England, since the fathers slept--
The sweetest holiday of
all the year.
John comes with Prudence and her little girls,
And
Peter, matched with Patience, brings his boys--
Fair boys and girls
with good old Scripture names--
Joseph, Rebekah, Paul, and Samuel;

And Grace, young Ruth's companion in the house,
Till wrested
from her last Thanksgiving Day
By the strong hand of Love, brings
home her babe
And the tall poet David, at whose side
She went
away. And seated in the midst,
Mary, a foster-daughter of the house,

Of alien blood--self-aliened many a year--
Whose chastened face
and melancholy eyes
Bring all the wondering children to her knee,

Weeps with the strange excess of happiness,

And sighs with joy.
What recks the driving storm
Of such a scene as this? And what reck
these
Of such a storm? For every heavy gust
That smites the
windows with its cloud of sleet,
And shakes the sashes with its

ghostly hands,
And rocks the mansion till the chimney's throat

Through all its sooty caverns shrieks and howls,
They give full bursts
of careless merriment,
Or songs that send it baffled on its way.
PRELUDE.
Doubt takes to wings on such a night as this;
And while the traveler
hugs her fluttering cloak,
And staggers o'er the weary waste alone,

Beneath a pitiless heaven, they flap his face,
And wheel above, or
hunt his fainting soul,
As, with relentless greed, a vulture throng,

With their lank shadows mock the glazing eyes
Of the last camel of
the caravan.
And Faith takes forms and wings on such a night.

Where love burns brightly at the household hearth,
And from the altar
of each peaceful heart
Ascends the fragrant incense of its thanks,

And every pulse with sympathetic throb
Tells the true rhythm of
trustfulest content,
They flutter in and out, and touch to smiles
The
sleeping lips of infancy; and fan
The blush that lights the modest
maiden's cheeks;
And toss the locks of children at their play.
Silence is vocal if we listen well;
And Life and Being sing in dullest
ears
From morn to night, from night to morn again,
With fine
articulations; but when God
Disturbs the soul with terror, or inspires

With a great joy, the words of Doubt and Faith
Sound quick and
sharp like drops on forest leaves;
And we look up to where the
pleasant sky
Kisses the thunder-caps, and drink the song.
A SONG OF DOUBT.
The day is quenched, and the sun is fled;
God has forgotten the world!

The moon is gone, and the stars are dead;
God has forgotten the
world!
Evil has won in the horrid feud
Of ages with The Throne;
Evil
stands on the neck of Good,
And rules the world alone.

There is no good; there is no God;
And Faith is a heartless cheat

Who bares the back for the Devil's rod,
And scatters thorns for the
feet.
What are prayers in the lips of death,
Filling and chilling with hail?

What are prayers but wasted breath
Beaten back by the gale?
The day is quenched, and the sun is fled;
God has forgotten the world!

The moon is gone and the stars are dead;
God has forgotten the
world!
A SONG OF FAITH.
Day will return with a fresher boon;
God will remember the world!

Night will come with a newer moon;
God will remember the world!
Evil is only the slave of Good;
Sorrow the servant of Joy;
And the
soul is mad that refuses food
Of the meanest in God's employ.
The fountain of joy is fed by tears,
And love is lit by the breath of
sighs;
The deepest griefs and the wildest fears
Have holiest
ministries.
Strong grows the oak in the sweeping storm;
Safely the flower sleeps
under the snow;
And the farmer's hearth is never warm
Till the cold
wind starts to blow.
Day will return with a fresher boon;
God will remember the world!

Night will come with a newer moon;
God will remember the world!
FIRST MOVEMENT.
LOCALITY--The square room of a New England farmhouse.
PRESENT--ISRAEL, head of the family; JOHN,
PETER, DAVID,
PATIENCE, PRUDENCE, GRACE,
MARY, RUTH, and

CHILDREN.