The Mistress of the Manse | Page 2

me;?Let no poor creature be denied?The grace of tender courtesy?And kindness from the pastor's bride."
IV.
The moon came up the summer sky:?"Oh happy moon!" the lady said;?"Men love thee for thyself, but I?Am loved because my life is wed?To one whose message, pure and high,
Has spread the world's evangel far,?And thrown such radiance through the dark?That men behold him as a star,?And in his gracious coming mark?How beautiful his footsteps are.
"Oh Moon! dost thou take all thy light?From the great sun so lately gone??Are there not shapes upon thy white,?That mould and make his sheen thy own,?And charms that soften to the sight
The ardor of his blinding blaze??Who loves thee that thou art the sun's??Who does not give thee sweetest praise?Among the troop of shining ones?That sweep along the heavenly ways?
"Yet still within the holy place?The altar sanctifies the gift!?Poor, precious gift, that begs for grace!?Oh towering altar! that doth lift?The gift so high, that, in its face,
It bears no beauty to the thought?Of those who round the altar stand!?Poor, precious gift, that goes for naught?From willing heart and ready hand,?And wins no favor unbesought!
"The stars are whiter for the blue;?The sky is deeper for the stars;?They give and take in commerce true,?And lend their beauty to the cars?Of downy dusk, that all night through,
Roll o'er the void on silver wheels;?Yet neither starry sky nor cloud?Is loved the less that it reveals?A beauty all its own, endowed?By all the wealth its beauty steals.
"Am I a dew-drop in a rose,?With no significance apart??Must I but sparkle in repose?Close to its folded, fragrant, heart,?Its peerless beauty to disclose?
"Would I not toil to win his bread,?And give him all I have to give??Would I not die in his sweet stead,?And die in joy? But I must live;?And, living, I must still be fed
On love that comes in love's own right.?They must not pet, or pamper me--?Those who rejoice beneath his light--?Or pity him, that I can be?So precious in his princely sight."
With swifter wings, through heart and brain,?The little hour unheeded flew;?And when, behind the blazoned stain?Of saintly vestures, red and blue,?The lights on rose and window-pane
Within the chapel slowly died,?And figures muffled by the moon?Went shuffling home on either side--?One seeking her--she said: How soon!?And then the pastor kissed his bride.
V.
The bright night brightened into dawn;?The shadows down the mountain passed;?And tree and shrub and sloping lawn,?With bending, beaded beauty glassed?In myriad suns the sun that shone!
The robin fed her nested young;?The swallows bickered 'neath the eaves;?The hang-bird in her hammock swung,?And, tilting high among the leaves,?Her red mate sang alone, or flung
The dew-drops on her lifted head;?While on the grasses, white and far,?The tents of fairy hosts were spread?That, scared before the morning star,?Had left their reeking camp, and fled.
The pigeon preened his opal breast;?And o'er the meads the bobolink,?With vexed perplexity confessed?His tinkling gutturals in a kink,?Or giggled round his secret nest.
With dizzy wings and dainty craft,?In green and gold, the humming-bird?Dashed here and there, and touched and quaffed?The honey-dew, then flashed and whirred,?And vanished like the feathered shaft
That glitters from a random bow.?The flies were buzzing in the sun,?The bees were busy in the snow?Of lilies, and the spider spun,?And waited for his prey below.
With sail aloft and sail adown,?And motion neither slow nor swift,?With dark-brown hull and shadow brown,?Half-way between two skies adrift,?The barque went dreaming toward the town.
'Twas Sunday in the silent street,?And Sunday in the silent sky.?The peace of God came down to meet?The throng that laid their labor by,?And rested, weary hands and feet.
Ah, sweet the scene which caught the glance?Of eyes that with the morning woke,?And, from their window in the manse,?Looked up through sprays of elm and oak?Into the sky's serene expanse,
And off upon the distant wood,?And down into the garden's close,?And over, where his chapel stood?In ivy, reaching to its rose,?Waiting the Sunday multitude!
VI.
A red rose in her raven hair?Whose curls forbade the plait and braid,?The bride slid down the oaken stair,?And mantled like a bashful maid,?As, seated in the waiting chair,
Behind the fragrant urn, she poured?The nectar of the morn's repast;?But fairer lady, fonder lord,?In happier hall ne'er broke their fast?With sweeter bread, at prouder board.
And then they rose with common will,?And sought the parlor, cool and dim.?"Sing, love!" he said. "The birds grow still,?And wait with me to hear your hymn."?She swept a low, preluding trill--
A spray of sound--across the keys?That felt her fingers for the first;?And then, from simplest cadences,?A reverent melody she nursed,?And gave it voice in words like these:
"From full forgetfulness of pain,?From joy to opening joy again,?With bird and flower, and hill and tree,?We lift our eyes and hands, to thee,?To greet thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth
"That thou dost bathe our souls anew?With balm and boon of heavenly dew,?And smilest in our upward eyes?From the