Narrative Poems, part 7, Bay of Seven Islands | Page 6

modest raiment faultless as her life,
The type of
England's worthiest womanhood.
To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone
The sweet
persuasion of her lips sufficed,
And guilt, which only hate and fear
had known,
Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ.

So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went
She followed, finding every
prison cell
It opened for her sacred as a tent
Pitched by Gennesaret
or by Jacob's well.
And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal,
And priest and ruler
marvelled as they saw
How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal,

And woman's pity kept the bounds of law.
She rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs
The air of earth as
with an angel's wings,
And warms and moves the hearts of men like
hers,
The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.
United now, the Briton and the Hun,
Each, in her own time, faithful
unto death,
Live sister souls! in name and spirit one,
Thuringia's
saint and our Elizabeth!
1885.
REQUITAL.
As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew
Nigh to its close,
besought all men to say
Whom he had wronged, to whom he then
should pay
A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue,
And, through the
silence of his weeping friends,
A strange voice cried: "Thou owest
me a debt,"
"Allah be praised!" he answered. "Even yet
He gives
me power to make to thee amends.
O friend! I thank thee for thy
timely word."
So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed,
For all have
sinned in thought, or word, or deed,
Or, like the Prophet, through
neglect have erred.
All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay
Ere
the night cometh, while it still is day.
1885.
THE HOMESTEAD.
AGAINST the wooded hills it stands,
Ghost of a dead home, staring
through
Its broken lights on wasted lands
Where old-time harvests
grew.

Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn,
The poor, forsaken
farm-fields lie,
Once rich and rife with golden corn
And pale green
breadths of rye.
Of healthful herb and flower bereft,
The garden plot no housewife
keeps;
Through weeds and tangle only left,
The snake, its tenant,
creeps.
A lilac spray, still blossom-clad,
Sways slow before the empty rooms;

Beside the roofless porch a sad
Pathetic red rose blooms.
His track, in mould and dust of drouth,
On floor and hearth the
squirrel leaves,
And in the fireless chimney's mouth
His web the
spider weaves.
The leaning barn, about to fall,
Resounds no more on husking eves;

No cattle low in yard or stall,
No thresher beats his sheaves.
So sad, so drear! It seems almost
Some haunting Presence makes its
sign;
That down yon shadowy lane some ghost
Might drive his
spectral kine!
O home so desolate and lorn!
Did all thy memories die with thee?

Were any wed, were any born,
Beneath this low roof-tree?
Whose axe the wall of forest broke,
And let the waiting sunshine
through?
What goodwife sent the earliest smoke
Up the great
chimney flue?
Did rustic lovers hither come?
Did maidens, swaying back and forth

In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom,
Make light their toil with
mirth?
Did child feet patter on the stair?
Did boyhood frolic in the snow?

Did gray age, in her elbow chair,
Knit, rocking to and fro?

The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze,
The pine's slow whisper,
cannot tell;
Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees
Keep the home
secrets well.
Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast
Of sons far off who strive and
thrive,
Forgetful that each swarming host
Must leave an emptier
hive.
O wanderers from ancestral soil,
Leave noisome mill and chaffering
store:
Gird up your loins for sturdier toil,
And build the home once
more!
Come back to bayberry-scented slopes,
And fragrant fern, and
ground-nut vine;
Breathe airs blown over holt and copse
Sweet with
black birch and pine.
What matter if the gains are small
That life's essential wants supply?

Your homestead's title gives you all
That idle wealth can buy.
All that the many-dollared crave,
The brick-walled slaves of 'Change
and mart,
Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have,
More dear
for lack of art.
Your own sole masters, freedom-willed,
With none to bid you go or
stay,
Till the old fields your fathers tilled,
As manly men as they!
With skill that spares your toiling hands,
And chemic aid that science
brings,
Reclaim the waste and outworn lands,
And reign thereon as
kings
1886.
HOW THE ROBIN CAME.
AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND.
HAPPY young friends, sit by me,
Under May's blown apple-tree,

While these home-birds in and out
Through the blossoms flit about.


Hear a story, strange and old,
By the wild red Indians told,
How
the robin came to be:
Once a great chief left his son,--
Well-beloved, his only one,--

When the boy was well-nigh grown,
In the trial-lodge alone.
Left
for tortures long and slow
Youths like him must undergo,
Who their
pride of manhood test,
Lacking water, food, and rest.
Seven days the fast he kept,
Seven nights he never slept.
Then the
young boy, wrung with pain,
Weak from nature's overstrain,

Faltering, moaned a low complaint
"Spare me, father, for I faint!"

But the chieftain, haughty-eyed,
Hid his pity in his pride.
"You
shall be a hunter good,
Knowing never lack of food;
You shall be a
warrior great,
Wise as fox and strong as bear;
Many scalps your belt
shall wear,
If with patient heart you wait
Bravely till your task is