The Mistress of the Manse | Page 9

of unsuspected source
Which feed with gold delicious fruits,?Kept by unguessed Hesperides,?Or cool the lips of gentle brutes?That breed and browse among the trees?Whose wind-tossed limbs and leaves are lutes,
The maiden free, the maiden wed,?Can never, never be the same.?A new life springs from out the dead,?And, with the speaking of a name,?A breath upon the marriage-bed,
She finds herself a something new--?(Which he learns later, but no less);?And good and evil, false and true,?May change their features--who can guess?--?Seen close, or from another view.
For maiden life, with all its fire,?Is hid within a grated cell,?Where every fancy and desire?And graceless passion, guarded well,?Sits dumb behind the woven wire.
Marriage is freedom: only when?The husband turns the prison-key?Knows she herself; nor even then?Knows she more wisely well than he,?Who finds himself least wise of men.
New duties bring new powers to birth,?And new relations, new surprise?Of depths of weakness or of worth,?Until he doubt if her disguise?Mask more of heaven, or more of earth.
Tears spring beneath a careless touch;?Endurance hardens with a word;?She holds a trifle with a clutch?So strangely, childishly absurd,?That he who loves and pardons much
Doubts if her wayward wit be sane,?When straight beyond his manly power?She stiffens to the awful strain?Of some supreme or crucial hour,?And stands unblanched in fiercest pain!
A jealous thought, a petty pique,?Enwraps in gloom, or bursts in storm;?She questions all that love may speak,?And weighs its tone, and marks its form,?Or yields her frailty to a freak
That vexes him or breeds disgust;?Then rises in heroic flame,?And treads a danger into dust,?Or puts his doubting soul to shame?With love unfeigned and perfect trust.
Still seas unknown the husband sails;?Life-long the lovely marvel lasts;?In golden calms or driving gales,?With silent prow, or reeling masts,?Each hour a fresh surprise unveils.
The brooding, threatening bank of mist?Grows into groups of virid isles,?By sea embraced and sunlight kissed,?Or breaks into resplendent smiles?Of cinnabar and amethyst!
No day so bright but scuds may fall,?No day so still but winds may blow;?No morn so dismal with the pall?Of wintry storm, but stars may glow?When evening gathers, over all!
And so thought Philip, when, in haste?Returning from his lengthened stay--?The river and the lawn retraced--?He found his Mildred blithe and gay,?And all his anxious care a waste.
To be half vexed that she could thrive?Without him through a morning's span,?Upon the honey in her hive,?Was but to prove himself a man,?And show that he was quite alive!
II.
A sympathetic word or kiss,?(Mildred had insight to discern,)?Though grateful quite, is quite amiss,?In leading to the life etern?The soul that has no bread in this.
The present want must aye be fed,?And first relieved the present care:?"Give us this day our daily bread"?Must be recited in our prayer?Before "forgive us" may be said.
And he who lifts a soul from vice,?And leads the way to better lands;?Must part his raiment, share his slice,?And oft with weary, bleeding hands,?Pave the long path with sacrifice.
So on a pleasant summer morn,?Wrapped in her motive, sweet and safe,?She sought the homes of sin and scorn,?And found her little Sunday waif?Ragged, and hungry, and forlorn.
She called her quickly to her knee;?And with her came a motley troop?Of children, poor and foul as she,?Who gathered in a curious group,?And ceased their play, to hear and see.
Tanned brown by all the summer suns,?With brutish brows and vacant eyes,?They drank her speech and ate her buns,?While she behind their sad disguise?Beheld her dear Lord's "little ones."
She stood like Ruth amid the wheat,?With ready hand and sickle keen,?And looked on all with aspect sweet;?For where she only thought to glean,?She found a harvest round her feet.
Ah! little need the tale to write?Of garments begged from door to door,?Of needles plying in the night,?And money gathered from the store?Alike of screw and Sybarite,
With which to clothe the little flock.?She went like one sent forth of God?To loose the bolts of heart and lock,?And with the smiting of her rod?To call a flood from every rock.
And little need the tale to tell?How, when the Sunday came again,?A wondrous change the group befell,?And how from every noisome den,?Responding to the chapel bell,
They issued forth with shout and call,?And Mildred walking at their head,?Who, with her silken parasol,?Bannered the army that she led,?And with low words commanded all.
The little army walked through smiles?That hung like lamps above their march,?And lit their swart and straggling files,?While bending elm and plumy larch?Shaped into broad cathedral aisles
The paths that led with devious trend?To where the ivied chapel stood,?There their long passage found its end,?And there they gathered in a brood?Of gentle clamor round their friend.
A score pressed in on either side?To share the burden of her care,?And hearts and house gave entrance wide?To those to whom the words of prayer?Were stranger than the curse of pride.
And Mildred who, without a thought?Of glory in her week's long task,?This marvel of the week