The Mistress of the Manse | Page 2

chair
These words, and sealed them with a seal:
"Only an hour: but comfort take;--
This home and I are wholly yours;

And many bosoms fondly ache
To tell you, that while life endures,

You shall be cherished for my sake.
"So throw your heart's door open wide,
And take in mine as well as
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--