The Hymn

For Summer's bloom and Autumn's blight,For bending wheat and blasted maize,For health and sickness, Lord of light,And Lord of darkness, hear our praise!

We trace to Thee our joys and woes--To Thee of causes still the cause,--We thank Thee that Thy hand bestows;We bless Thee that Thy love withdraws.

We bring no sorrows to Thy throne;We come to Thee with no complaint;In Providence Thy will is done,And that is sacred to the saint

Here on this blest Thanksgiving Night;We raise to Thee our grateful voice;For what Thou doest, Lord, is right;And thus believing, we rejoice.

A good old tune, indeed, and strongly sung;But, in my mind, the man who wrote the hymnHad seemed more modest, had he paused a while.Ere by a trick he furnished other tonguesWith words he only has the heart to sing.

There, children! No more bitter words like those!I do not understand them; they awakeA sad uneasiness within my heart.I found but Christian meaning in the hymn;Aye, I could say amen to every line,As to the breathings of my own poor prayer.But let us talk no more. I'll to my bed.Good-night, my children! Happy thoughts be yoursTill sleep arrive--then happy dreams till dawn!

There, little boys and girls--Off to the kitchen! Now there's fun for you.Play blind-man's-buff until you break your heads;And then sit down beside the roaring fire,And with wild stories scare yourselves to death.We'll all be out there, by and by. Meanwhile,I'll try the cellar; and if David, here,Will promise good behavior, he shall beMy candle-bearer, basket-bearer, and--But no! The pitcher I will bear myself.I'll never trust a pitcher to a manUnder this house, and--seventy years of age.

That noisy little youngster on the floorSlept through theology but wakes with mirth--Precocious little creature! He must goUp to his chamber. Come, Grace, take him off--Basket and all. Mary will lend a hand,And keep you company until he sleeps.

Queer, rather, I should say. Grace, now, is strange.I think she treats her husband shamefully.I can't imagine what possesses her,Thus to toss taunts at him with every word.If in his doctrines there be truth enough,He'll be a saint.

Well, now I tell you, such wild men as he,--Men who have crazy crotchets in their heads,--Can't make a woman happy. Don't you see?He isn't settled. He has wandered offFrom the old landmarks, and has lost himselfI may judge wrongly; but if truth were toldThere'd be excuse for Grace, I warrant ye.Grace is a right good girl, or was, beforeShe married David.

We can hardly tell.When men get loose in their theologyThe screws are started up in everything.Of course, I don't apologize for Grace.I think she might have done more prudentlyThan introduce her troubles here to-night,But, after all, we do not know the causeThat stirs her fretfulness.

Well, let it go!What does the evening's talk amount to? WhoIs wiser for the wisdom of the hour?The good old paths are good enough for me.The fathers walked to heaven in them, and we,By following mekly where they trod, may reachThe home they found. There will be mysteries;Let those who like, bother their heads with them.If Ruth and David seek to fathom all,I wish them patience in their bootless quest.For one, I'm glad the misty talk is done,And we, alone.

Look where you step, or you'll stumble!Care for your coat, or you'll crock it!Down with your crown, man! Be humble!Put your head into your pocket,Else something or other will knock it.Don't hit that jar of cucumbersStanding an the broad-stair!They have not waked from their slumbersSince they stood there.

Turn to the left--shun the wall--One step more--that is all!Now we are safe on the ground,I will show you around.

Sixteen barrels of ciderRipening all in a row!Open the vent-channels wider!See the froth, drifted like snow.Blown by the tempest below!Those delectable juicesFlowed through the sinuous sluicesOf sweet springs under the orchard;Climbed into fountains that chained them;Dripped into cups that retained them,And swelled till they dropped, and we gained them.Then they were gathered and torturedBy passage from hopper to vat,And fell-every apple crushed flat.Ah! how the bees gathered round them,And how delicious they found them!Oat-straw, as fragrant as clover,Was platted, and smoothly turned over,Weaving a neatly ribbed basket;And, as they built up the casket,In went the pulp by the scoop-full,Till the juice flowed by the stoup-full,--Filling the half of a puncheonWhile the men swallowed their luncheon.Pure grew the stream with the stressOf the lever and screw,Till the last drops from the pressWere as bright as the dew.There were these juices spilled;There were these barrels filled;Sixteen barrels of cider--Ripening all in a row!Open the vent-channels wider!See the froth, drifted like snow,Blown by the tempest below!

Hearts, like apples, are hard and sour,Till crushed by Pain's resistless power;And yield their juices rich and blandTo none but Sorrow's heavy hand.The purest streams of human loveFlow naturally never,But gush by pressure from aboveWith God's hand on the lever.The first are turbidest and meanest;The last are sweetest and serenest.

Sermon quite short for the text!What shall we hit upon next?Lift up the lid of that cask;See if the brine be abundant;Easy for me were the taskTo make it redundantWith tears for my beautiful Zephyr--Pet of the pasture and stall--Whitest and comeliest heifer,Gentlest of all!Oh, it seemed cruel to slay her!But they insulted my prayerFor her careless and innocent life,And the creature was brought to the knifeWith gratitude in her eye;For they patted her back, and chafed her head,And coaxed her with softest words, as they ledHer up to the ring to die.Do you blame me for cryingWhen my Zephyr was dying?I shut my room and my ears,And opened my heart and my tears,And wept for the half of a day;And I could not goTo the rooms belowTill the butcher went away.

Life evermore is fed by death,In earth and sea and sky;And, that a rose may breathe its breath,Something must die.

Earth is a sepulcher of flowers,Whose vitalizing moldThrough boundless transmutation towers,In green and gold.

The oak tree, struggling with the blast,Devours its father tree,And sheds its leaves and drops its mast,That more may be.

The falcon preys upon the finch,The finch upon the fly,And nought will loose the hunger-pinchBut death's wild cry.

The milk-haired heifer's life must passThat it may fill your own,As passed the sweet life of the grassShe fed upon.

The power enslaved by yonder caskShall many burdens bear;Shall nerve the toiler at his task,The soul at prayer.

From lowly woe springs lordly joy;From humbler good diviner;The greater life must aye destroyAnd drink the minor.

From hand to hand life's cup is passedUp Being's piled gradation,Till men to angels yield at lastThe rich collation.

Well, we are done with the brute;Now let us look at the fruit,--Every barrel, I'm told,From grafts half a dozen years old.That is a barrel of russets;But we can hardly discuss itsSpheres of frost and flint,Till, smitten by thoughts of Spring,And the old tree blossoming,Their bronze takes a yellower tint,And the pulp grows mellower in't.But oh! when they're sick with the savorsOf sweets that they dream of,Sure, all the toothsomest flavorsThey hold the cream of!You will be begging in May,In your irresistible way,For a peck of the apples in gray.

Those are the pearmains, I think,--Bland and insipid as eggs;They were too lazy to drinkThe light to its dregs,And left them upon the rind--A delicate film of blue--Leave them alone;--I can findBetter apples for you.

Those are the Rhode Island greenings;Excellent apples for pies;There are no mystical meaningsIn fruit of that color and size.They are too coarse and too juiceful;They are too large and too useful.There are the Baldwins and Flyers,Wrapped in their beautiful fires!Color forks up from their stemsAs if painted by Flora,Or as out from the pole stream the flamesOf the Northern Aurora.

Here shall our quest have a close;Fill up your basket with those;Bite through their vesture of flame,And then you will gatherAll that is meant by the name,"Seek-no-farther!"

The native orchard's fairest trees,Wild springing on the hill,Bear no such precious fruits as these,And never will;

Till ax and saw and pruning knifeCut from them every bough,And they receive a gentler lifeThan crowns them now.

And Nature's children, evermore,Though grown to stately stature,Must bear the fruit their fathers bore--The fruit of nature;

Till every thrifty vice is madeThe shoulder for a scion,Cut from the bending trees that shadeThe hills of Zion.

Sorrow must crop each passion-shoot,And pain each lust infernal,Or human life can bear no fruitTo life eternal.

For angels wait on Providence;And mark the sundered places,To graft with gentlest instrumentsThe heavenly graces.

Well, you're a curious creature!You should have been a preacher.But look at that bin of potatoes--Grown in all singular shapes--Red and in clusters, like grapes,Or more like tomatoes.Those are Merinoes, I guess;Very prolific and cheap;They make an excellent messFor a cow, or a sheep,And are good for the table, they say,When the winter has passed away.

Those are my beautiful Carters;Every one doomed to be martyrsTo the eccentric desireOf Christian people to skin them,--Brought to the trial of fireFor the good that is in them!Ivory tubers--divide one!Ivory all the way through!Never a hollow inside one;Never a core, black or blue!Ah, you should taste them when roasted!(Chestnuts are not half so good;)And you would find that I've boastedLess than I should.They make the meal for Sunday noon;And, if ever you eat one, let me begYou to manage it just as you do an egg.Take a pat of butter, a silver spoon,And wrap your napkin round the shell:Have you seen a humming-bird probe the bellOf a white-lipped morning-glory?Well, that's the rest of the story!But it's very singular, surely,They should produce so poorly.Father knows that I want them,So he continues to plant them;But, if I try to argue the question,He scoffs, as a thrifty farmer will;And puts me down with the stale suggestion--"Small potatoes, and few in a hill."

Thus is it over all the earth!That which we call the fairest,And prize for its surpassing worth,Is always rarest.

Iron is heaped in mountain piles,And gluts the laggard forges;But gold-flakes gleam in dim defilesAnd lonely gorges.

The snowy marble flecks the landWith heaped and rounded ledges,But diamonds hide within the sandTheir starry edges.

The finny armies clog the twineThat sweeps the lazy river,But pearls come singly from the brine,With the pale diver.

God gives no value unto menUnmatched by meed of labor;And Cost of Worth has ever beenThe closest neighbor.

Wide is the gate and broad the wayThat opens to perdition,And countless multitudes are theyWho seek admission.

But strait the gate, the path unkind,That lead to life immortal,And few the careful feet that findThe hidden portal.

All common good has common price;Exceeding good, exceeding;Christ bought the keys of ParadiseBy cruel bleeding;

And every soul that wins a placeUpon its hills of pleasure,Must give its all, and beg for graceTo fill the measure.

Were every hill a precious mine,And golden all the mountains;Were all the rivers fed with wineBy tireless fountains;

Life would be ravished of its zest,And shorn of its ambition,And sinks into the dreamless restOf inanition.

Up the broad stairs that Value rearsStand motives beckoning earthward,To summon men to nobler spheres,And lead them worthward.

I'm afraid to show you anything more;For parsnips and art are so very long,That the passage back to the cellar-doorWould be through a mile of song.But Truth owns me for an honest teller;And, if the honest truth be told,I am indebted to you and the cellarFor a lesson and a cold.And one or the other cheats my sight;(O silly girl! for shame!)Barrels are hooped with rings of light,And stopped with tongues of flame.Apples have conquered original sin,Manna is pickled in brine,Philosophy fills the potato bin,And cider will soon be wine.So crown the basket with mellow fruit,And brim the pitcher with pearls;And we'll see how the old-time dainties suitThe old-time boys and girls.

Hither, Sleep! A mother wants thee!Come with velvet arms!Fold the baby that she grants theeTo thy own soft charms!

Bear him into Dreamland lightly!Give him sight of flowers!Do not bring him back till brightlyBreak the morning hours!

Close his eyes with gentle fingers!Cross his hands of snow!Tell the angels where he lingersThey must whisper low!

I will guard thy spell unbrokenIf thou hear my call;Come then, Sleep! I wait the tokenOf thy downy thrall.

Now I see his sweet lips moving;He is in thy keep;Other milk the babe is provingAt the breast of sleep!

Sleep, babe, the honeyed sleep of innocence!Sleep like a bud; for soon the sun of lifeWith ardors quick and passionate shall rise,And, with hot kisses part the fragrant lips--The folded petals of thy soul! Alas!What feverish winds shall tease and toss thee, then!What pride and pain, ambition and despair,Desire, satiety, and all that fillWith misery life's fretful enterprise,Shall wrench and blanch thee, till thou fall at last,Joy after joy down fluttering to the earth,To be apportioned to the elements!I marvel, baby, whether it were illThat He who planted thee should pluck thee now,And save thee from the blight that comes on all.I marvel whether it would not be wellThat the frail bud should burst in Paradise,On the full throbbing of an angel's heart!

Oh, speak not thus! The thought is terrible.He is my all; and yet, it sickens meTo think that he will grow to be a man.If he were not a boy!

Were not a boy?That wakens other thoughts. Thank God for that!To be a man, if aught, is privilegePrecious and peerless. While I bide contentThe modest lot of woman, all my soulGives truest manhood humblest reverence.It is a great and god-like thing to do!'Tis a great thing, I think, to be a man.Man fells the forests, plows and tills the fields,And heaps the granaries that feed the world.At his behest swift Commerce spreads her wings,And tires the sinewy sea-birds as she flies,Fanning the solitudes from clime to clime.Smoke-crested cities rise beneath his hand,And roar through ages with the din of trade.Steam is the fleet-winged herald of his will,Joining the angel of the Apocalypse'Mid sound and smoke and wond'rous circumstance,And with one foot upon the conquered seaAnd one upon the subject land, proclaimsThat space shall be no more. The lightnings veilTheir fiery forms to wait upon his thought,And give it wing, as unseen spirits pauseTo bear to God the burden of his prayer.God crowns him with the gift of eloquence,And puts a harp into his tuneful hands,And makes him both his prophet and his priest.'Twas in his form the great ImmanuelRevealed himself; the Apostolic Twelve,Like those who since have ministered the Word,Were men. 'Tis a great thing to be a man.

And fortunate to have an advocateAcross whose memory convenient cloudsCome floating at convenient intervals.The harvest fields that man has honored mostAre those where human life is reaped like grain.There never rose a mart, nor shone a sail,Nor sprang a great invention into birth,By other motive than man's love of gold.It is for wrong that he is eloquent;For lust that he indites his sweetest songs.Christ was betrayed by treason of a man,And scourged and hung upon a tree by men;And the sad women who were at his cross,And sought him early at the sepulcher,And since that day, in gentle multitudesHave loved and followed him, have been man's slaves,--The victims of his power and his desire.

Hush, Grace! No more! I beg you, say no more.Nay! I will leave you at another word;For I could listen to a blasphemy,Falling from bestial lips, with lighter chillThan to the mad complainings of a soulWhich God has favored as he favors few.I dare not listen when a woman's voice,Which blessings strive to smother, flings them offIn mad contempt. I dare not hear the wordsWhose utterance all the gentle loves dissuadeBy kisses which are reasons, while a throngOf friendships, comforts, and sweet charities--The almoners of the All-Bountiful--With folded wings stand sadly looking on.Believe me, Grace, the pioneer of judgment--Ordained, commissioned--is Ingratitude;For where it moves, good withers; blessings die;Till a clean path is left for Providence,Who never sows a good the second timeTill the torn bosom of the graceless soilIs ready for the seed.

Oh, could you knowThe anguish of my heart, you would not chide!If I repine, it is because my lotIs not the blessed thing it seems to you.O Mary! Could you know! Could you but know!

Then why not tell me all? You know me, love.And know that secrets make their graves with me.

So, tell me all; for I do promise youSuch sympathy as God through sufferingHas given me power to grant to such as you.I bought it dearly, and its largess waitsThe opening of your heart.

Forgive me, Mary, for my heart is weak;Distrustful of itself and all the world.Ah, well! To what strange issues leads our life!It seems but yesterday that you were broughtTo this old house, an orphaned little girl,Whose large shy eyes, pale cheeks, and shrinking waysFilled all our hearts with wonder, as we stoodAnd stared at you, until your heart o'erfilledWith the oppressive strangeness, and you wept.Yes, I remember how I pitied you--I who had never wept, nor even sighed,Save on the bosom of my gentle mother;For my quick heart caught all your historyWhen with a hurried step you sought the sun,And pressed your eyes against the windowpaneThat God's sweet light might dry them. Well I knewThough all untaught, that you were motherless.And I remember how I followed you,--Embraced and kissed you--kissed your tears away--Tears that came faster, till they bathed the lipsThat would have sealed their flooded fountain-heads;And then we wound our arms around each other,And passed out-out under the pleasant sky,And stood among the lilies at the door.

I gave no formal comfort; you, no thanks;For tears had been your language, kisses mine,And we were friends. We talked about our dolls,And all the pretty playthings we possessed.Then we revealed, with childish vanity,Our little stores of knowledge. I was fullOf a sweet marvel when you pointed outThe yellow thighs of bees that, half asleep,Plundered the secrets of the lily-bells,And called the golden pigment honeycomb.And your black eyes were opened very wideWhen I related how, one sunny day,I found a well, half covered, down the lane,That was so deep and clear that I could seeStraight through the world, into another sky!

Do you remember how the Guinea hensSet up a scream upon the garden wall,That frightened me to running, when you screamedWith laughter quite as loud?

Aye, very well;But better still the scene that followed all.Oh, that has lingered in my memoryLike that divinest dream of Raphael--The Dresden virgin prisoned in a print--That watched with me in sickness through long weeks,And from its frame upon the chamber-wallBreathed constant benedictions, till I learnedTo love the presence like a Roman saint.

My mother called us in; and at her knee,Embracing still, we stood, and felt her smileShine on our upturned faces like the lightOf the soft summer moon. And then she stooped;And when she kissed us, I could see the tearsBrimming her eyes. O sweet experiment!To try if love of Jesus and of meCould make our kisses equal to her lips!Then straight my prescient heart set up a song,And fluttered in my bosom like a bird.

I knew a blessing was about to fall,As robins know the coming of the rain,And bruit the joyous secret, ere its stepsAre heard upon the mountain tops. I knewYou were to be my sister; and my heartWas almost bursting with its love and pride.I could not wait to hear the kindly wordsOur mother spoke--her counsels and commands--For you were mine--my sister! So I toreYour clinging hand from hers with rude constraint,And took you to my chamber, where I playedWith you, in selfish sense of property,The whole bright afternoon.

And here again,Within this same old chamber we are met.We told our secrets to each other then;Thus let us tell them now; and you shall beTo my grief-burdened soul what you have said,So many times that I have been to yours.

Alas! I never meant to tell my taleTo other ear than God's; but you have claimsUpon my confidence,--claims just rehearsed,And other claims which you have never known.

And other claims which I have never known!You speak in riddles, love. I only knowYou grew to womanhood, were beautiful,Were loved and wooed, were married and were blest;--

That after passage of mysterious yearsWe heard sad stories of your misery,And rumors of desertion; but your penRevealed no secrets of your altered life.Enough for me that you are here to-night,And have an ear for sorrow, and a heartWhich disappointment has inhabited.My history you know. A twelvemonth sinceThis fearful, festive night, and in this house,I gave my hand to one whom I believedTo be the noblest man God ever made;--A man who seemed to my infatuate heartHeaven's chosen genius, through whose tuneful soulThe choicest harmonies of life should flow,Growing articulate upon his lipsIn numbers to enchant a willing world.I cannot tell you of the pride that filledMy bosom, as I marked his manly form,And read his soul through his effulgent eyes,And heard the wondrous music of his voice,That swept the chords of feeling in all heartsWith such a divine persuasion as might growUnder the transit of an angel's hand.And, then, to think that I, a farmer's child,Should be the woman culled from all the worldTo be that man's companion,--to abideThe nearest soul to such a soul--to sitClose by the fountain of his peerless life--The welling center of his loving thoughts--And drink, myself, the sweetest and the best,--To lay my head upon his breast, and feelThat of all precious burdens it had borneThat was most precious--Oh! my heart was wildWith the delirium of happiness--But, Mary, you are weeping!

Well, we were married, as I said; and IWas not unthankful utterly, I think;Though, if the awful question had come then,And stood before me with a brow severeAnd steady finger, bidding me decideWhich of the two I loved the more, the GodWho gave my husband to me, or his gift,I know I should have groaned, and shut my eyes.

We passed a honeymoon whose atmosphere,Flooded with inspiration, and embracedBy a wide sky set full of starry thoughts,And constellated visions of delight,Still wraps me in my dreams--itself a dream.The full moon waned at last, and in my sky,With horn inverted, gave its sign of tears;And then, when wasted to a skeleton,It sank into a heaving sea of tearsThat caught its tumult from my sighing soul.My husband, who had spent whole months with me,Till he was wedded to my every thought,Left me through dreary hours,--nay, days,--alone!He pleaded business--business day and night;Leaving me with a formal kiss at morn,And meeting me with strange reserve at eve;And I could mark the sea of tendernessUpon whose beach I had sat down for life,Hoping to feel for ever, as at first,The love-breeze from its billows, and to claspWith open arms the silver surf that ranTo wreck itself upon my bosom, ebb,Day after day receding, till the sandGrew dry and hot, and the old hulls appearedOf hopes sent out upon that faithless mainSince woman loved, and he she loved was false.Night after night I sat the evening out,And heard the clock tick on the mantel-treeTill it grew irksome to me, and I grudgedThe careless pleasures of the kitchen maidsWhose distant laughter shocked the lapsing hours.

Never an honest word.He told me he was writing; and, at home,Sat down with heart absorbed and absent look.I was offended, and upbraided him.I knew he had a secret, and that fromThe center of its closely coiling foldsA cunning serpent's head, with forked tongue,Swayed with a double story--one for me,And one for whom I knew not--whom he knew.His words, which wandered first as carelesslyAs the free footsteps of a boy, were trainedTo the stern paces of a sentinelGuarding a prison door, and never trippedWith a suggestion.

I despaired at lastOf winning what I sought by wiles and prayers;So, through long nights of sleeplessness I lay,And held my ear beside his silent lips--An eager cup--ready to catch the gushOf the pent waters, if a dream-swung rodShould smite his bosom. It was all in vain.And thus months passed away, and all the whileAnother heart was beating under mine.May Heaven forgive me! but I grieved the charmsThe unborn thing was stealing, for I feltThat in my insufficiency of powerI had no charm to lose.

No--yes! Perhaps he pitied me, and thatIndeed was very pitiful; for whatHas love to do with pity? When a wifeHas sunk so hopelessly in the regardOf him she loves that he can pity her,--Has sunk so low that she may only shareThe tribute which a mute humanityBestows on those whom Providence has struckWith helpless poverty, or foul disease;She may he pitied, both by earth and heaven,Because he pities her. A pitied childThat begs its bread from door to door is blest;A wife who begs for love and confidence,And gets but alms from pity, is accurst.

Well, time passed on; and rumor came at lastTo tell the story of my husband's shameAnd my dishonor. He was seen at night,Walking in lonely streets with one whose eyesWere blacker than the night,--whose little handWas clinging to his arm. Both were absorbedIn the half-whispered converse of the time;And both, as if accustomed to the path,Turned down an alley, climbed a flight of steps,Entered a door, and closed it after them--A door of adamant 'twixt hope and me.I had my secret; and I kept it, too.I knew his haunt, and it was watched for me,Till doubt and prayers for doubt,--pale flowersI nourished with my tears--were crushedBy the relentless hand of Certainty.

Oh, Mary! Mary! Those were fearful days.My wrongs and all their shameful historyWere opened to me daily, leaf by leaf,Though he had only shown their title-page:That page was his; the rest were in my heart.I knew that he had left my home for hers;I knew his nightly labor was to feedOther than me;--that he was loaded downWith cares that were the price of sinful love.

Grace, in your heart do you believe all this?I fear--I know--you do your husband wrong.He is not competent for treachery.He is too good, too noble, to desertThe woman whom he only loves too well.You love him not!

I love him not? Alas!I am more angry with myself than himThat, spite his falsehood to his marriage vows,And spite my hate, I love the traitor still.I love him not? Why am I here to-night--Here where my girlhood's withered hopes are strewnThrough every room for him to trample on--But in my pride to show him to you all,With the dear child that publishes a loveThat blessed me once, e'en if it curse me now?You know I do my husband wrong! You think,Because he can talk smoothly, and befoolA simple ear with pious sophistries,He must be e'en the saintly man he seems.We heard him talk to-night; it was done well.I saw the triumph of his argument,And I was proud, though full of spite the while.His stuff was meant for me; and, with intentFor selfish purpose, or in irony,He tossed me bitterness, and called it sweet.My heart rebelled, and now you know the causeOf my harsh words to him.

I have never learned.I only know she stole my husband's heart,And made me very wretched. I supposeThat at the time my little babe was born,She went away; for David was at homeFor many days. That pain was bliss to me--I need no argument to teach me that--Which caused neglect of her, and gave offense.Since then, he has not where to go from me;And, loving well his child, he stays at home.

So he lugs round his secret, and I mine.I call him husband; and he calls me wife;And I, who once was like an April day,That finds quick tears in every cloud, have steeledMy heart against my fate, and now am calm.I will live on; and though these simple folkWho call me sister understand me not,It matters little. There is one who does;And he shall have no liberty of loveBy any word of mine. 'Tis woman's lot,And man's most weak and wicked wantonness.Mine is like other husbands, I suppose;No worse--no better.

I asked it once; you gave me unbelief.I had no choice but to grow hard again.'Tis my misfortune and my miseryThat every hand whose friendly ministryMy poor heart craves, is held--withheld--by him;And I must freeze that I may stand alone.

Have it your own way.Men fit to love, and fitted to be loved,Are prone to falsehood. I will not gainsayThe common virtue of the common herd.I prize it as I do the goodish menWho hold the goodish stuff, and know it not.These serve to fill an easy-going world,And that to clothe it with complacency.

I had not thought misanthropy like thisCould lodge with you; so I must e'en confessA tale which never passed my lips before,Nor sent its flush to any cheek but mine.In this, I'll prove my friendship, if I loseThe friendship which demands the sacrifice.

I have come back, a worse than widowed wife;Yet I went out with dream as bright as yours,--Nay, brighter,--for the birds were singing then,And apple-blossoms drifted on the groundWhere snow-flakes fell and flew when you were wed.The skies were soft; the roses budded full;The meads and swelling uplands fresh and green;--The very atmosphere was full of love.It was no girlish carelessness of heartThat kept my eyes from tears, as I went forthFrom this dear shelter of the orphan child.I felt that God was smiling on my lot,And made the airs his angels to conveyTo every sense and sensibilityThe message of his favor. Every soundWas music to me; every sight was peace;And breathing was the drinking of perfume.I said, content, and full of gratitude,"This is as God would have it; and he speaksThese pleasant languages to tell me so."

But I had no such honeymoon as yours.A few brief days of happiness, and thenThe dream was over. I had married oneWho was the sport of vagrant impulses.We had not been a fortnight wed, when heCame home to me with brandy in his brain--A maudlin fool--for love like mine to hideAs if he were an unclean beast. O Grace!I cannot paint the horrors of that night.My heart, till then serene, and safely keptIn Trust's strong citadel, quaked all night long,As tower and bastion fell before the rushOf fierce convictions; and the tumbling wallsBoomed with dull throbs of ruin through my brain.And there were palaces that leaned on this--Castles of air, in long and glittering lines,Which melted into air, and pierced the blueThat marks the star-strewn vault of heaven;--all fell,With a faint crash like that which scares the soulWhen dissolution shivers through a dreamSmitten by nightmare,--fell and faded allTo utter nothingness; and when the mornFlamed up the East, and with its crimson wingsBrushed out the paling stars that all the nightIn silent, slow procession, one by one,Had gazed upon me through the open sash,And passed along, it found me desolate.

The stupid dreamer at my side awoke,And with such helpless anguish as they feelWho know that they are weak as well as vile.I saw, through all his forward promises,Excuses, prayers, and pledges that were oaths(What he, poor boaster, thought I could not see),That he was shorn of will, and that his heartWas as defenseless as a little child's;--That underneath his fair good fellowshipHe was debauched, and dead in love with sin;--That love of me had made him what I loved,--That I could only hold him till the waveOf some overwhelming impulse should sweep in,To lift his feet and bear him from my arms.I felt that morn, when he went trembling forth,With bloodshot eyes and forehead hot with woe,That henceforth strife would be 'twixt Hell and me--The odds against me--for my husband's soul.

Poor dove! Poor Mary! Have you suffered thus?You had not even pride to keep you up.Were he my husband, I had left him then--The ingrate!

Not if you had loved as I;Yet what you know is but a bitter dropOf the full cup of gall that I have drained.Had he left me unstained,--had I rebelledAgainst the influence by which he soughtTo bring me to a compromise with him,--To make my shrinking soul meet his half way,It had been better; but he had an art,When appetite or passion moved in him,That clothed his sins with fair apologies,And smoothed the wrinkles of a haggard guiltWith the good-natured hand of charity.He knew he was a fool, he said, and said again;But human nature would be what it was,And life had never zest enough to bearToo much dilution; those who work like slavesMust have their days of frolic and of fun.He doubted whether God would punish sin;God was, in fact, too good to punish sin;For sin itself was a compounded thing,With weakness for its prime ingredient.And thus he fooled a heart that loved him well;And it went toward his heart by slow degrees,Till Virtue seemed a frigid anchorite,And Vice, a jolly fellow--bad enough,But not so bad as Christian people think.

This was the cunning work of months--nay, years;And, meantime, Edward sank from bad to worse.But he had conquered. Wine was on his board,Without my protest--with a glass for me!His boon companions came and went, and madeMy home their rendezvous with my consent.The doughty oath that shocked my ears at first,The doubtful jest that meant, or might not mean,That which should set a woman's brow aflame,Became at last (oh, shame of womanhood!)A thing to frown at with a covert smile;Anything to smile at with a decent frown;A thing to steal a grace from, as I feignedThe innocence of deaf unconsciousness.And I became a jester. I could jestIn a wild way on sacred things and themes;And I have thought that in his better moodsMy husband shrank with horror from the workWhich he had wrought in me.

I do not knowIf, during all these downward-tending years,Edward kept well his faith with me. I knowHe used to tell me, in his boastful way,How he had broke the hearts of pretty maids.And that if he were single--well-a-day!The time was past for thinking upon that!And I had heart to toss the badinageBack in his teeth, with pay of kindred coin;And tell him lies to stir his bestial mirth;And make my boast of conquests; and pretendThat the true heart I had bestowed on himHad flown, and left him but an empty hand.

I had some days of pain and penitence.I saw where all must end. I saw, too well,Edward was growing idle,--that his formWas gathering disgustful corpulence,--That he was going down, and dragging meTo shame and ruin, beggary and death.But judgment came, and overshadowed us;And one quick bolt shot from the awful cloudSevered the tie that bound two worthless lives.What God hath joined together, God may part:--Grace, have you thought of that?

You scare me, Mary!Nay! Do not turn on me with such a look!Its dread suggestion gives my heart a pangThat stops its painful beating.

Let it pass!One morn we woke with the first flush of light,Our windows jarring with the cannonadeThat ushered in the nation's festal day.The village streets were full of men and boys,And resonant with rattling mimicryOf the black-throated monsters on the hill,--A crashing, crepitating war of fire,--And as we listened to the fitful feud,Dull detonations came from far away,Pulsing along the fretted atmosphere,To tell that in the ruder villagesThe day had noisy greeting, as in ours.

I know not why it was, but then, and there,I felt a sinking sadness, passing tears--A dark foreboding I could not dissolve,Nor drive away. But when, next morn, I wokeIn the sweet stillness of the Sabbath day,And found myself alone, I knew that heartsWhich once have been God's temple, and in whichSomething divine still lingers, feel the throbAlong the lines that bind them to the ThroneWhen judgment issues; and, though dumb and blind,Shudder and faint with prophecies of ill.How--by what cause--calamity should come,I could not guess; that it was imminentSeemed just as certain as the morning's dawn.We were to have a gala day, indeed.There were to be processions and parades;A great oration in a mammoth tent,With dinner following, and toast and speechBy all the wordy magnates of the town;A grand balloon ascension afterwards;And, in the evening, fireworks on the hill.I knew that drink would flow from morn till nightIn a wild maelstrom, circling slow aroundThe village rim, in bright careering waves,But growing turbulent, and changed to inkAround the village center, till, at last,The whirling, gurgling vortex would engulfA maddened multitude in drunkenness.And this was in my thought (the while my heartWas palpitating with its nameless fear),As, wrapped in vaguest dreams, and purposeless,I laced my shoe and gazed upon the sky.Then strange determination stirred in me;And, turning sharply on my chair, I said,"Edward, where'er you go to-day, I go!"If I had smitten him upon the face,It had not tingled with a hotter flame.He turned upon me with a look of hate--A something worse than anger--and, with oaths,Raved like a fiend, and cursed me for a fool.But I was firm; he could not shake my will;So, through the morning, until afternoon,He stayed at home, and drank and drank again,Watching the clock, and pacing up and down,Until, at length, he came and sat by me,To try his hackneyed tricks of blandishment.He had not meant, he said, to give offense;But women in a crowd were out of place.He wished to see the aeronauts embark,And meet some friends; but there would be a throngOf boys and drunken boors around the car,And I should not enjoy it; more than this,The rise would be a finer spectacleAt home than on the ground. I gave assent,And he went out. Of course, I followed him;For I had learned to read him, and I knewThere was some precious scheme of sin on foot.

The crowd was heavy, and his form was lostQuick as it touched the mass; but I pressed on,Wild shouts and laughter punishing my ears,Till I could see the bloated, breathing cone,As if it were some monster of the skyCaught by a net and fastened to the earth--A butt for jeers to all the merry mob.But I was distant still; and if a manIn mad impatience tore a passage fromThe crowd that pressed upon him, or a girl,Frightened or fainting, was allowed escape,I slid like water to the vacant space,And thus, by deftly won advances, gainedThe stand I coveted.

We waited long;And as the curious gazers stood and talkedAbout the diverse currents of the air,And wondered where the daring voyagersWould find a landing-place, a young man said,In words intended for a spicy jest,A man and woman living in the townHad taken passage overland for hell!

Then at a distance rose a scattering shoutThat fixed the vision of the multitude,Standing on eager tiptoe, and afarI saw the crowd give way, and make a pathFor the pale heroes of the crazy hour.Hats were tossed wildly as they struggled on,And the gap closed behind them, till, at length,They stood within the ring. Oh, damning sight!The woman was a painted courtezan;The man, my husband! I was dumb as death.My teeth were clenched together like a vise,And every heavy heart-throb was a chill.But there I stood, and saw the shame go on.They took their seats; the signal gun was fired;The cords were loosed; and then the billowy bulkShot toward the zenith!

Never bent the skyWith a more cloudless depth of blue than then;And, as they rose, I saw his faithless armSlide o'er her shoulder, and her dizzy headDrop on his breast. Then I became insane.I felt that I was struggling with a dream--A horrid phantasm I could not shake off.The hollow sky was swinging like a bell;The silken monster swinging like its tongue;And as it reeled from side to side, the roarOf voices round me rang, and rang again,Tolling the dreadful knell of my despair.

At the last moment I could trace his form,Edward leaned over from his giddy seat,And tossed out something on the air. I sawThe little missive fluttering slowly down,And stretched my hand to catch it, for I knew,Or thought I knew, that it would come to me.And it did come to me--as if it slidUpon the cord that bound my heart to his--Strained to its utmost tension--snapped at last.I marked it as it fell. It was a rose.I grasped it madly as it struck my hand,And buried all its thorns within my palm;But the fierce pain released my prisoned voice,And, with a shriek, I staggered, swooned, and fell.

That night was brushed from life. A passing friendDirected those who bore me rudely off;And I was carried to my home, and laidEntranced upon my bed. The Sabbath mornThat followed all this din and devilrySwung noiseless wide its doors of yellow light,And in the hallowed stillness I awoke.My heart was still; I could not stir a hand.I thought that I was dying, or was dead.--That I had slipped through smooth unconsciousnessInto the everlasting silences.I could not speak; but winning strength, at last,I turned my eyes to seek for Edward's face,And saw an unpressed pillow. He was gone!

I was oppressed with awful sense of loss;And, as a mother, by a turbid seaThat has engulfed her fairest child, sits downAnd moans over the waters, and looks outWith curious despair upon the waves,Until she marks a lock of floating hair,And by its threads of gold draws slowly in,And clasps and presses to her frenzied breastThe form it has no power to warm again,So I, beside the sea of memory,Lay feebly moaning, yearning for a clewBy which to reach my own extinguished life.It came. A burning pain shot through my palm,And thorns awoke what thorns had put to sleep.It all came back to me--the roar, the rush,The upturned faces, the insane hurrahs,The skyward-shooting spectacle, the shame--And then I swooned again.

But was he killed?Did his foolhardy venture end in wreck?Or did it end in something worse than wreck?Surely, he came again!

To me, no more.He had his reasons, and I knew them soon;But, first, the fire enkindled in my brainBurnt through long weeks of fever--burnt my frameUntil it lay upon the sheet as whiteAs the pale ashes of a wasted coal.Then, when strength came to me, and I could sit,Braced by the double pillows that were mine,A kind friend took my hand, and told me all.

The day that Edward left me was the lastHe could have been my husband; for the nextDisclosed his infamy and my disgrace.He was a thief, and had been one, for years,--Defrauding those whose gold he held in trust;And he was ruined--ruined utterly.The very bed I sat on was not his,Nor mine, except by tender charity.A guilty secret menacing behind,A guilty passion burning in his heart,And, by his side, a guilty paramour,He seized upon this reckless whim, and fledFrom those he knew would curse him ere he slept.

My cup was filled with wormwood; and it grewBitter and still more bitter, day by day,Changing from shame and hate, to stern revenge.Life had no more for me. My home was lost;My heart unfitted to return to this;And, reckless of the future, I went forth--A woman stricken, maddened, desperate.I sought the city with as sure a scentAs vultures track a carcass through the air.I knew him there, delivered up to sin,And longed to taunt him with his infamy,--To haunt his haunts; to sting his perjured soulWith sharp reproaches; and to scare his eyes--With visions of his work upon my face.

But God had other means than my revengeTo humble him, and other thought for me.I saw him only once; we did not meet;There was a street between us; yet it seemedWide as the unbridged gulf that yawns betweenThe rich man and the beggar.

'Twas at dawn.I had arisen from the sleepless bedWhich my scant means had purchased, and gone forthTo taste the air, and cool my burning brow.I wandered on, not knowing where I went,Nor caring whither. There were few astir;The market wagons lumbered slowly in,Piled high with carcasses of slaughtered lambs,Baskets of unhusked corn, and mint, and allThe fresh, green things that grow in country fields.I read the signs--the long and curious names--And wondered who invented them, and ifTheir owners knew how very strange they were.A corps of weary firemen met me once,Late home from service, with their gaudy car,And loud with careless curses. Then I stopped,And chatted with a frowsy-headed girlWho knelt among her draggled skirts, and scrubbedThe heel-worn doorsteps of a faded house.Then, as I left her, and resumed my walk,I turned my eyes across the street, and sawA sight which stopped my feet, my breath, my heart.It was my husband. Oh, how sadly changed!His bloodshot eyes stared from an anxious face;His hat was battered, and his clothes were tornAnd splashed with mud. His poisoned frameHad shrunk away, until his garments hungIn folds about him. Then I knew it all:His life had been a measureless debauchSince his most shameless flight; and in his eye,Eager and strained, and peering down the stairsThat tumbled to the anterooms of hell,I saw the thirst which only death can quench.He did not raise his eyes; I did not speak;There was no work for me to do on him;And when, at last, he tottered down the stepsOf a dark gin-shop, I was satisfied,And half relentingly retraced my way.

I cannot tell the story of the monthsThat followed this. I toiled and toiled for bread,And for the shelter of one stingy room.Temptation, which the hand of povertyBears oft seductively to woman's lips,To me came not. I hated men like beasts;Their flattering words, and wicked, wanton leers,Sickened me with ineffable disgust.At length there came a change. One warm Spring eve,As I sat idly dreaming of the past,And questioning the future, my quick earCaught sound of feet upon the creaking stairs,And a light rap delivered at my door.I said, "Come in!" with half-defiant voice,Although I longed to see a human face,And needed labor for my idle hands.But when the door was opened, and there stoodA man before me, with an eye as pureAnd brow as fair as any little child's,Matched with a form and carriage which combinedAll manly beauty, dignity, and grace,A quick blush overwhelmed my pallid cheeks,And, ere I knew, and by no act of will,I rose and gave him gentle courtesy.

He took a seat, and spoke with pleasant voiceOf many pleasant things--the pleasant sky,The stars, the opening foliage in the park;And then he came to business. He would haveA piece of exquisite embroidery;My hand was cunning if report were true;Would it oblige him? It would do, I said,That which it could to satisfy his wish;And when he took the delicate pattern out,And spread the dainty fabric on his knees,I knew he had a wife.

He went awayWith kind "Good night," and said that, with my leave,He'd call and watch the progress of the work.I marked his careful steps adown the stairs,And then, his brisk, firm tread upon the pave,Till in the dull roar of the distant streetsIt mingled and was lost. Then I was lost,--Lost in a wild, wide-ranging reverie--From which I roused not till the midnight hushWas broken by the toll from twenty towers.This is a man, I said; a man in truth;My room has known the presence of a man,And it has gathered dignity from him.I felt my being flooded with new life.My heart was warm; my poor, sore-footed thoughtsSprang up full fledged through ether; and I feltLike the sick woman who had touched the hemOf Jesus' garment, when through all her veinsLeaped the swift tides of youth.

He had a wife!Why, to a wrecked, forsaken thing like meDid that thought bring a pang? I did not know;But, truth to tell, it gave me stinging pain.If he was noble, he was naught to me;If he was great, it only made me less;If he loved truly, I was not enriched.So, in my selfishness, I almost cursedThe unknown woman, thought for whom had broughtHer loving husband to me. What was ITo him? Naught but a poor unfortunate,Picking her bread up at a needle's point.He'll come and criticise my handiwork,I said, and when it is at last complete,He'll draw his purse and give me so much gold;And then, forgetting me for ever, goAnd gather fragrant kisses for the boon,From lips that do not know their privilege.I could be nothing but the mediumThrough which his love should pass to reach its shrine;The glass through which the sun's electric beamsKindles the rose's heart, and still remainsChill and serene itself--without reward!Then came to me the thought of my great wrong.A man had spoiled my heart, degraded me;A wanton woman had defrauded me;I would get reparation how I could!He must be something to me--I to him!All men, however good, are weak, I thought;And if I can arrest no beam of loveBy right of nature or by leave of law,I'll stain the glass! And the last words I said,As I lay down upon my bed to dream,Were those four words of sin: "I'll stain the glass!"

Mary, I cannot hear you more; your tale,So bitter and so passing pitifulI have forgotten tears, and feel my eyesBurn dry and hot with looking at your face,Now gathers blackness, and grows horrible.

Nay, you must hear me out; I cannot pause;And have no worse to say than I have said--Thank God, and him who put away my toils!He came, and came again; and every charmGod had bestowed on me, or art could frame,I used with keenest ingenuitiesTo fascinate the sensuous elementO'er which, mistrusted, and but half asleep,His conscience and propriety stood guard.I told with tears the story of my woe;He listened to me with a thoughtful face,And sadly sighed; and thus I won his ruth,And then I told him how my life was lost;--How earth had nothing more for me but pain;Not e'en a friend. At this, he took my hand,And said, out of his nobleness of heart,That I should have an honest friend in him;On which I bowed my head upon his arm,And wept again, as if my heart would breakWith the full pressure of his gratitude.He put me gently off, and read my face:I stood before him hopeless, helpless, his!His swift soul gathered what I meant it should.He sighed and trembled; then he crossed the floor,And gazed with eye abstracted on the sky;Then came and looked at me; then turned,As if affrighted at his springing thoughts,And, with abruptest movement, left the room.

This time he took with him the broidered thingThat I had wrought for him; and when I opedThe little purse that he rewarded me,I found full golden payment five times told.Given for pity? thought I,--that alone?Is manly pity so munificent?Pity has mixtures that it knows not of!

It was a cruel triumph, and I speakOf it with utter penitence and shame.I knew that he would come again; I knewHis feet would bring him, though his soul rebelled;I knew that cheated heart of his would toyWith the seductive chains that gave it thrall,And strive to reconcile its perjuryWith its own conscience of the better way,By fabrication of apologiesIt knew were false.

And he did come again;Confessing a strange interest in me,And doing for me many kindly deeds.I knew the nature of the sympathyThat drew him to my side, better than he;Though I could see that solemn change in himWhich every face will wear, when Heaven and HellAre struggling in the heart for mastery.He was unhappy; every sudden soundStartled his apprehensions; from his heartRose heavy suspirations, charged with prayer,Desire, and deprecation, and remorse;--Sighs like volcanic breathings--sighs that scorchedHis parching lips and spread his face with ashes,--Sighs born in such convulsions of the soulThat his strong frame quaked like Vesuvius,Burdened with restless lava.

Day by dayI marked this dalliance with sinful thought,Without a throb of pity in my heart.I took his gifts, which brought immunityFrom toil and care, as if they were my right.Day after day I saw my power increase,Until that noble spirit was a slave--A craven, helpless, self-suspected slave.

But this was not to last--thank God and him!One night he came, and there had been a change.My hand was kindly taken, but not heldIn the way wonted. He was self-possessed;The powers of darkness and his Christian heartHad had a struggle--his the victory;And on his manly brow the benisonOf a majestic peace had been imposed.Was I to lose the guerdon of my guile?He was my all, and by the only meansLeft to a helpless, reckless thing, like me:My heart made pledge the strife should be renewed.I took no notice of his altered mood,But strove, by all the tricks of tenderness,To fan to life again the drooping flameWithin his heart;--with what success, at last,The sequel shall reveal.

Strange fire came downResponsive to my call, and the quick flashThat shriveled resolution, vanquished will,And with a blood-red flame consumed the crownOf peace upon his brow, taught him how weak--How miserably imbecile--he had become,Tampering with temptation. Such a groan,Wrung from such agony, as then he breathed,Pray Heaven my ears may never hear again!He smote his forehead with his rigid palm,And sank, as if the blow had stunned him, to his knees,And there, with face pressed hard upon his handsGave utterance to frenzied sobs and prayers--The wild articulations of despair.I was confounded. He--a man--thought I,Blind with remorse by simple look at sin!And I--a woman--in the devil's hands,Luring him Hellward with no blush of shame!The thought came swift from God, and pierced my heart,Like a barbed arrow; and it quivered thereThrough whiles of tumult--quivered--and was fast.Thus, while I stood and marked his kneeling form,Still shocked by deep convulsions, such a lightIllumed my soul, and flooded all the room,That, without thought, I said, "The Lord is here!"Then straight my spirit heard these wondrous words:"Tempted in all points like ourselves, was He--Tempted, but sinless." Oh, what majestyOf meaning did those precious words convey!'Twas through temptation, thought I, that the Lord--The mediator between God and men--Reached down the hand of sympathetic loveTo meet the grasp of lost Humanity;And this man, kneeling, has the Lord in him,And comes to mediate 'twixt Christ and me,"Tempted, but sinless;"--one hand grasping mine,The other Christ's.

Why had he suffered thus?Why had his heart been led far down to mine,To beat in sinful sympathy with mine,But that my heart should cling to his and him,And follow his withdrawal to the heightsFrom whence he had descended? Then I learnedWhy Christ was tempted; and, as broad and full,The heart of the great secret was revealed,And I perceived God's dealings with my soul,I knelt beside the tortured man and wept,And cried to Heaven for mercy. As I prayed,My soul cast off its shameful enterprise;And when it fell, I saw my godless self--My own degraded, tainted, guilty heart,Which it had hidden from me. Oh, the pang--The poignant throe of uttermost despair--That followed the discovery! I feltThat I was lost beyond the grace of God;And my heart turned with instinct sure and swiftTo the strong struggler, praying at my side,And begged his succor and his prayers. I feltThat he must lead me up to where the handOf Jesus could lay hold on me, or I was doomed.Temptation's spell was past. He took my hand.And, as he prayed that we might be forgiven,And pledged our future loyalty to GodAnd His white throne within our hearts, I gaveResponses to each promise; then I crownedHis closing utterance with such AmenAs weak hearts, conscious of their weakness, giveWhen, bowed to dust, and clinging to the robesOf outraged mercy, they devote themselvesOnce and for ever to the pitying Christ.

Then we arose and stood upon our feet.He gave me no reproaches, but with voiceAttempered to his altered mood, confessedHis own blameworthiness, and pressed the prayerThat I would pardon him, as he believedThat God had pardoned; but my heart was full,--So full of its sore sense of wrong to him,Of the deep guilt of shameful purposesAnd treachery to worthy womanhood,That I could not repeat his Christian words,Asking forbearance on my own behalf.

He sat before me for a golden hour;And gave me counsel and encouragement,Till, like broad gates, the possibilitiesOf a serener and a higher lifeWere thrown wide open to my eager feet,And I resolved that I would enter in,And, with God's gracious help, go no more out.

For weeks he watched me with stern carefulness,Nourished my resolution, prayed with me,And led me, step by step, to higher ground,Till, gathering impulse in the upward walk,And strength in purer air, and keener sightIn the sweet light that dawned upon my soul,I grasped the arm of Jesus, and was safe.And now, when I look back upon my life,It seems as if that noble man were sentTo give me rescue from the pit of death.But from his distant height he could not reachAnd act upon my soul; so Heaven allowedTemptation's ladder 'twixt his soul and mineThat they might meet and yield his mission thrift.I doubt not in my grateful soul to-nightThat had he stayed within his higher world,And tried to call me to him, I had spurnedAlike his mission and his ministry.That he was tempted, was at once my sinAnd my salvation. That he sinned in thought,And fiercely wrestled with temptation, wonFor his own spirit that humilityWhich God had sought to clothe him with in vain,By other measures, and that strength which springsFrom a great conflict and a victory.We talked of this; and on our bended kneesWe blessed the Great Dispenser for the meansBy which we both had learned our sinful selves,And found the way to a diviner life.So, with my chastened heart and life, I comeBack to my home, to live--perhaps to die.God's love has been in all this discipline;God's love has used those awful sins of mineTo make me good and happy. I can mournOver my husband; I can pray for him,Nay, I forgive him; for I know the powerWith which temptation comes to stronger men.I know the power with which it came to me.

And now, dear Grace, my story is complete.You have received it with dumb wonderment,And it has been too long. Tell me what thoughtStirs in your face, and waits for utterance.

That I have suffered little--trusted less;That I have failed in charity, and beenUnjust to all men--specially to one.I did not think there lived a man on earthWho had such virtue as this friend of yours,--Weak, and yet strong. 'Twas but humanityTo give him pity in his awful strife;To stint the meed of reverence and praiseFor his triumphant conquest of himself,Were infamy. I love and honor him;And if I knew my husband were as strong,I could fall down before, and worship him;I could fall down, and wet his feet with tears--Tears penitential for the grievous wrongThat I have done him. But alas! alas!The thought comes back again. O God in heaven!Help me with patience to await the hourWhen the great purpose of thy disciplineShall be revealed, and, like this chastened one,I can behold it, and be satisfied.

Hark! They are calling us below, I think.We must go down. We'll talk of this againWhen we have leisure. Kiss the little one,And thank his weary brain it sleeps so well.

Well, we were playing "Blind-Man's-Buff"Until you fell, and rose in a huff,And declared the game was too rude and rough.Poor boy! What a pity he isn't tough!

Ha! ha! ha! what a pretty boy!Papa's delight, and mamma's joy!Wouldn't he like to go to bed,And have a cabbage-leaf on his head?

Laugh, if you like to! Laugh till you're gray;But I guess you'd laugh another wayIf you'd hit your toe, and fallen like me,And cut a bloody gash in your knee,And bumped your nose and bruised your shin,Tumbling over the rolling-pinThat rolled to the floor in the awful dinThat followed the fall of the row of tinThat stood upon the dresser.

Guess again--dear little guesser!You wouldn't catch this boy lopping his wing,Or whining over anything.So stir your stumps,Forget your bumps,Get out of your dumps,And up and at it again;For the clock is striking ten,And Ruth will come pretty soon and say,"Go to your bedsYou sleepy heads!"So--quick! What shall we play?

Now, Joseph, you shall be good,And do as you'd be done by;We didn't mean to be rudeWhen you fell and began to cry:We wanted to make you forget your pain;But it frets you, and we'll not laugh again.

Well, if you'll all sit still,And not be frisking about,Nor utter a whisper tillYou've heard my story out,I'll tell you a tale as weirdAs ever you heard in your lives,Of a man with a long blue beard,And the way he treated his wives.

Centuries since there flourished a man,(A cruel old Tartar as rich as the Khan),Whose castle was built on a splendid plan,With gardens and groves and plantations;But his shaggy beard was as blue as the sky,And he lived alone, for his neighbors were shy.And had heard hard stories, by the by,About his domestic relations.

Just on the opposite side of the plainA widow abode, with her daughters twain;And one of them--neither cross nor vain--Was a beautiful little treasure;So he sent them an invitation to tea,And having a natural wish to seeHis wonderful castle and gardens, all threeSaid they'd do themselves the pleasure.

As soon as there happened a pleasant day,They dressed themselves in a sumptuous way,And rode to the castle as proud and gayAs silks and jewels could make them;And they were received in the finest style,And saw everything that was worth their while,In the halls of Blue Beard's grand old pile,Where he was so kind as to take them.

The ladies were all enchanted quite;For they found old Blue Beard so politeThat they did not suffer at all from fright,And frequently called thereafter;Then he offered to marry the younger one,And as she was willing the thing was done,And celebrated by all the tonWith feasting and with laughter.

As kind a husband as ever was seenWas Blue Beard then, for a month, I ween;And she was as proud as any queen,And as happy as she could be, too;But her husband called her to him one day,And said, "My dear, I am going away;It will not be long that I shall stay;There is business for me to see to.

"The keys of my castle I leave with you;But if you value my love, be true,And forbear to enter the Chamber of Blue!Farewell, Fatima! Remember!"Fatima promised him; then she ranTo visit the rooms with her sister Ann;But when she had finished the tour, she beganTo think about the Blue Chamber.

Well, the woman was curiously inclined,So she left her sister and prudence behind,(With a little excuse) and started to findThe mystery forbidden.She paused at the door;--all was still as night!She opened it: then through the dim, blue lightThere blistered her vision the horrible sightThat was in that chamber hidden.

The room was gloomy and damp and wide,And the floor was red with the bloody tideFrom headless women, laid side by side,The wives of her lord and master!Frightened and fainting, she dropped the key,But seized it and lifted it quickly; then sheHurried as swiftly as she could fleeFrom the scene of the disaster.

She tried to forget the terrible dead,But shrieked when she saw that the key was red,And sickened and shook with an awful dreadWhen she heard Blue Beard was coming.He did not appear to notice her pain;But he took his keys, and seeing the stain,He stopped in the middle of the refrainThat he had been quietly humming.

"Mighty well, madam!" said he, "mighty well!What does this little bloodstain tell?You've broken your promise; prepare to dwellWith the wives I've had before you!You've broken your promise, and you shall die."Then Fatima, supposing her death was nigh,Fell on her knees and began to cry,"Have mercy, I implore you!"

"No!" shouted Blue Beard, drawing his sword;"You shall die this very minute," he roared."Grant me time to prepare to meet my Lord,"The terrified woman entreated."Only ten minutes," he roared again;And holding his watch by its great gold chain,He marked on the dial the fatal ten,And retired till they were completed.

"Sister, oh, sister, fly up to the tower!Look for release from this murderer's power!Our brothers should be here this very hour;--Speak! Does there come assistance?""No. I see nothing but sheep on the hill.""Look again, sister!" "I'm looking still,But naught can I see, whether good or ill,Save a flurry of dust in the distance."

"Time's up!" shouted Blue Beard, out from his room;"This moment shall witness your terrible doom,And give you a dwelling within the roomWhose secrets you have invaded.""Comes there no help for my terrible need?""There are horsemen twain riding hither with speed.""Oh! tell them to ride very fast indeed,Or I must meet death unaided."

"Time's fully up! Now have done with your prayer,"Shouted Blue Beard, swinging his sword on the stair;Then he entered, and grasping her beautiful hair,Swung his glittering weapon around him;But a loud knock rang at the castle gate,And Fatima was saved from her horrible fate,For, shocked with surprise, he paused too late;And then the two soldiers found him.

They were her brothers, and quick as they knewWhat the fiend was doing, their swords they drew,And attacked him fiercely, and ran him through,So that soon he was mortally wounded.With a wild remorse was his conscience filledWhen he thought of the hapless wives he had killed;But quickly the last of his blood was spilled,And his dying groan was sounded.

As soon as Fatima recovered from fright,She embraced her brothers with great delight;And they were as glad and as grateful quiteAs she was glad and grateful.Then they all went out from that scene of pain,And sought in quietude to regainTheir minds, which had come to be quite insane,In a place so horrid and hateful.

'Twas a private funeral Blue Beard had;For the people knew he was very bad,And, though they said nothing, they all were gladFor the fall of the evil-doer;But Fatima first ordered some graves to be made,And there the unfortunate ladies were laid,And after some painful months, with the aidOf her friends, her spirits came to her.

Then she cheered the hearts of the suffering poor,And an acre of land around each doorAnd a cow and a couple of sheep, or more,To her tenantry she granted.So all of them had enough to eat,And their love for her was so completeThey would kiss the dust from her little feet,Or do anything she wanted.

Capital! Capital! Wasn't it good!I should like to have been her brother;If I had been one, you may guess there wouldHave been little work for the other.I'd have run him right through the heart, just so;And cut off his head at a single blow,And killed him so quickly he'd never knowWhat it was that struck him, wouldn't I, Joe?

You are very brave with your bragging tongue;But if you had been there, you'd have sungA very different tunePoor Blue Beard! He would have been afraidOf a little boy with a penknife blade,Or a tiny pewter spoon!

It makes no difference what you say(Pretty little boy, afraid to play!)But it served him rightly any way,And gave him just his due.And wasn't it good that his little wifeShould live in his castle the rest of her life,And have all his money, too?

I'm thinking of the ladies whoWere lying in the Chamber Blue,With all their small necks cut in two.

I see them lying, half a score,In a long row upon the floor,Their cold, white bosoms marked with gore.I know the sweet Fatima wouldHave put their heads on if she could;And made them live--she was so good;

And washed their faces at the sink;But Blue Beard was not sane, I think:I wonder if he did not drink!

For no man in his proper mindWould be so cruelly inclinedAs to kill ladies who were kind.

Story and comment alike are bad;These little fellows are raving madWith thinking what they should do,Supposing their sunny-eyed sister hadGiven her heart--and her head--to a ladLike the man with the Beard of Blue.Each little jacketIs now a packetOf murderous thoughts and fancies;Oh, the gentle tradeBy which fiends are madeWith the ready aidOf these bloody old romances!And the little girl takes the woman's turn,And thinks that the old curmudgeonWho owned the castle, and rolled in goldOver fields and gardens manifold,And kept in his house a family tomb,With his bowling course and his billiard-room,Where he could preserve his precious dead,Who took the kiss of the bridal bedFrom one who straightway took their head,And threw it away with the pair of glovesIn which he wedded his hapless loves,Had some excuse for his dudgeon.

We learn by contrast to admireThe beauty that enchains us;And know the object of desireBy that which pains us.

The roses blushing at the door,The lapse of leafy June,The singing birds, the sunny shore,The summer moon;--

All these entrance the eye or earBy innate grace and charm;But o'er them, reaching through the year,Hangs Winter's arm.

To give to memory the sign,The index of our bliss,And show by contrast how divineThe Summer is.

From chilling blasts and stormy skies,Bare hills and icy streams,Touched into fairest life ariseOur summer dreams.

And virtue never seems so fairAs when we lift our gazeFrom the red eyes and bloody hairThat vice displays.

We are too low,--our eyes too darkLove's height to estimate,Save as we note the sunken markOf brutal Hate.

So this ensanguined tale shall moveAright each little dreamer,And Blue Beard teach them how to loveThe sweet Fatima.

They hate his crimes, and it is well;They pity those who died;Their sense of justice when he fellWas satisfied.

No fierce revenges are the fruitOf their just indignation;They sit in judgment on the brute,And condemnation;

And turn to her, his rescued wife,Her deeds so kind and human,And love the beauty of her life,And bless the woman.

That is the way I supposed you would twist it;And now that the boys are disposed of,And the moral so handsomely closed off,What do you say of the girl? That she missed

When she thought of old Blue Beard as some do of Judas,Who with this notion essay to delude us:That when he relented,And fiercely repented,He was hardly so badAs he commonly hadThe fortune to be represented?

The noblest pity in the earthIs that bestowed on sin.The Great Salvation had its birthThat ruth within.

The girl is nearest God, in fact;The boy gives crime its due;She blames the author of the act,And pities too.

Thus, from this strange excess of wrongHer tender heart has caughtThe noblest truth, the sweetest song,The Saviour taught.

So, more than measured homily,Of sage, or priest, or preacher,Is this wild tale of crueltyLove's gentle teacher.

It tells of sin, its deep remorse,Its fitting recompense,And vindicates the tardy courseOf Providence.

These boyish bosoms are on fireWith chivalric possession,And burn with just and manly ireAgainst oppression.

The glory and the grace of life,And Love's surpassing sweetness,Rise from the monster to the wifeIn high completeness;

And thence look down with mercy's eyeOn sin's accurst abuses,And seek to wrest from charitySome fair excuses.

These greedy mouths are wateringFor the fruit within the basket;And, although they will not ask it,Their jack-knives all are burningAnd their eager hands are yearningFor the peeling and the quartering.So let us have done with our talk;For they are too tired to say their prayers,And the time is come they should walkFrom the story below to the story upstairs.

Since the old gentleman retired to bed,Things have gone strangely. David, here, and Ruth,Have wasted thirty minutes undergroundIn explorations. One would think the houseCovered the entrance of the Mammoth Cave,And they had lost themselves. Mary and GraceStill hold their chamber and their conference,And pour into each other's greedy earsTheir stream of talk, whose low monotonous hum,Would lull to slumber any storm but this.The children are play-tired and gone to bed;And one may know by looking round the roomTheir place of sport was here. And we, plain folk,Who have no gift of speech, especiallyOn themes which we and none may understand,Have yawned and nodded in the great square room,And wondered if the parted familyWould ever meet again.

John, do you seeThe apples and the cider on the hearth?If I remember rightly, you discussSuch themes as these with noticeable zestAnd pleasant tokens of intelligence;Rather preferring scanty companyTo the full circle. So, sir, take the lead,And help yourself.

The ground is thick with sleet, and still it falls!The atmosphere is plunging like the seaAgainst the woods, and pouring on the nightThe roar of breakers, while the blinding sprayO'erleaps the barrier, and comes drifting onIn lines as level as the window-bars.What curious visions, in a night like this,Will the eye conjure from the rocks and treesAnd zigzag fences! I was almost sureI saw a man staggering along the roadA moment since; but instantly the shapeDropped from my sight. Hark! Was not that a call--A human voice? There's a conspiracyBetween my eyes and ears to play me tricks,Else wanders there abroad some hapless soulWho needs assistance. There he stands again,And with unsteady essay strives to breastThe tempest. Hush! Did you not hear that cry?Quick, brothers! We must out, and give our aid.None but a dying and despairing manEver gave utterance to a cry like that.Nay, wait for nothing. Follow me!

Alas!Who can he be, who on a night like this,And on this night, of all nights in the year,Holds to the highway, homeless?

ProbablySome neighbor, started from his home in questOf a physician; or, more likely still,Some poor inebriate, sadly overcomeBy his sad keeping of the holiday.I hope they'll give him quarters in the barn;If he sleep here, there'll be no sleep for me.

I see plainly nowWhat we shall all see plainly, soon enough.The man is dead, and they are bearing himAs if he were a log. Quick! Stir the fire,And clear the settle! We must lay him there.I will bring cordials, and flannel stuffsWith which to chafe him; open wide the door.

Now do my bidding, orderly and swift;And we may save from death a fellow-man.Peter, relieve him of those frozen shoes,And wrap his feet in flannel. This way, Ruth!Administer that cordial yourself.John, you are strong, and that rough hand of yoursWill chafe him well. Work with a will, I say!

My hand is on his heart, and I can feelBoth warmth and motion. If we persevere,He will be saved. Work with a will, I say!

A groan? Ha! That is good. Another groan?Better and better!

Give him brisk treatment, and persistent, too;And we shall be rewarded presently,For there is life in him.

He moves his lipsAnd tries to speak.

And now he opes his eyes.What eyes! How wandering and wild they are!

We are your friends. We found you overcomeBy the cold storm without, and brought you in.We are your friends, I say; so be at ease,And let us do according to your need.What is your wish?

My friends? O God in Heaven!They've cheated me! I'm in the hospital.Oh, it was cruel to deceive me thus!No, you are not my friends. What bitter painRacks my poor body!

Poor man, how he raves!Let us be silent while the warmth and wineProvoke his sluggish blood to steady flow,And each dead sense comes back to life again,O'er the same path of torture which it trodWhen it went out from him. He'll slumber soon,And, when he wakens, we may talk with him.

Shall I not call the family? I thinkMary and Grace must both be very cold;And they know nothing of this strange affair.I'll wait them at the landing, and secureTheir silent entrance.

At his first wild awaking he bemoanedHis fancied durance in a hospital;And since he spoke so strangely, I have thoughtHe may have fled a mad-house. Matters not!We've done our duty, and preserved his life.

Go. Move you carefully, and bring us wordWhether he sleeps.

Why! What ails the girl?I thought her nerves were iron. Dash her brow,And bathe her temples!

Oh, what a heavenly dream! But it is past,Like all my heavenly dreams, for never moreShall dream entrance me. Death has never dreams,But everlasting wakefulness. The eyeOf the quick spirit that has dropped the fleshMay close no more in slumber.

I must die!This painless spell which binds my weary limbs--This peace ineffable of soul and sense--Is dissolution's herald, and gives noteThat life is conquered and the struggle o'er.But I had hoped to see her ere I died;To kneel for pardon, and implore one kiss,Pledge to my soul that in the coming heavenWe should not meet as strangers, but rejoinOur hearts and lives so madly sundered here,Through fault and freak of mine. But it is well!God's will be done!

I dreamed that I had reachedThe old red farmhouse,--that I saw the lightFlaming as brightly as in other timesIt flushed the kitchen windows; and that formsWere sliding to and fro in joyous life,Restless to give me welcome. Then I dreamedOf the dear woman who went out with meOne sweet spring morning, in her own sweet spring,To--wretchedness and ruin. Oh, forgive--Dear, pitying Christ, forgive this cruel wrong,And let me die! Oh let me--let me die!Mary! my Mary! Could you only knowHow I have suffered since I fled from you.--How I have sorrowed through long months of pain,And prayed for pardon,--you would pardon me.

Edward, I am here!I am your Mary! Know you not my face?My husband, speak to me! Oh, speak once more!This is no dream, but kind reality.

You, Mary? Is this heaven, and am I dead?I did not know you died: when did you die?And John and Peter, Grace and little RuthGrown to a woman; are they all with you?'Tis very strange! O pity me, my friends!For God has pitied me, and pardoned, too;Else I should not be here. Nay, you seem cold,And look on me with sad severity.Have you no pardoning word--no smile for me?

This is not Heaven's, but Earth's reality;This is the farm-house--these your wife and friends.I hold your hand, and I forgive you all.Pray you recline! You are not strong enoughTo bear this yet.

O toiling heart! O sick and sinking heart!Give me one hour of service, ere I die!This is no dream. This hand is precious flesh,And I am here where I have prayed to be.My God, I thank thee! Thou hast heard my prayer,And, in its answer, given me a pledgeOf the acceptance of my penitence.How have I yearned for this one priceless hour!Cling to me, dearest, while my feet go downInto the silent stream; nor loose your hold,Till angels grasp me on the other side.

Edward, you are not dying--must not die;For only now are we prepared to live.You must have quiet, and a night of rest.Be silent, if you love me!

If I love?Ah, Mary! never till this blessed hour,When power and passion, lust and pride are gone,Have I perceived what wedded love may be;--Unutterable fondness, soul for soul;Profoundest tenderness between two heartsAllied by nature, interlocked by life.I know that I shall die; but the low cloudsThat closed my mental vision have retired,And left a sky as clear and calm as Heaven.I must talk now, or never more on earth;So do not hinder me.

I have no friendsBut you and these, and only wish to leaveMy worthless name and memory redeemedWithin your hearts to pitying respect.I have no strength, and it becomes me not,To tell the story of my life of sin.I was a drunkard, thief, adulterer;And fled from shame, with shame, to find remorse.I had but few months of debauchery,Pursued with mad intent to damp or drownThe flames of a consuming conscience, whenMy body, poisoned, crippled with disease,Refused the guilty service of my soul,And at midday fell prone upon the street.Thence I was carried to a hospital,And there I woke to that deliriumWhich none but drunkards this side of the pitMay even dream of.

But at last there came,With abstinence and kindly medicines,Release from pain and peaceful sanity;And then Christ found me, ready for His hand.I was not ready for Him when He cameAnd asked me for my youth; and when He knockedAt my heart's door in manhood's early primeWith tenderest monitions, I debarredHis waiting feet with promise and excuse;And when, in after years, absorbed in sin,The gentle summons swelled to thunderingsThat echoed through the chambers of my soulWith threats of vengeance, I shut up my ears;And then He went away, and let me rushWithout arrest, or protest, toward the pit.I made swift passage downward, till, at length,I had become a miserable wreck--Pleasure behind me; only pain before;My life lived out; the fires of passion dead,Without a friend; no pride, no power, no hope;No motive in me e'en to wish for life.Then, as I said, Christ came, with stern and sadReminders of His mercy and my guilt,And the door fell before Him.

I went out,And trod the wildernesses of remorseFor many days. Then from their outer verge,Tortured and blinded, I plunged madly downInto the sullen bosom of despair;But strength from Heaven was given me, and preservedBreath in my bosom, till a light streamed upUpon the other shore, and I struck outOn the cold waters, struggling for my life.Fainting I reached the beach, and on my kneesClimbed up the thorny hill of penitence,Till I could see, upon its distant brow,The Saviour beck'ning. Then I ran--I flew--And grasped His outstretched hand. It lifted meHigh on the everlasting rock, and thenIt folded me, with all my griefs and tears,My sin-sick body and my guilt-stained soul,To the great heart that throbs for all the world.

Mary, my wife, forbear! I may not giveResponse to such petition. I have prayedThat I may die. When first the love DivineReceived me on its bosom, and in mineI felt the springing of another life,I begged the Lord to grant me two requests:The first that I might die, and in that worldWhere passion sleeps, and only influenceFrom Him and those who cluster at His throneBreathes on the soul, the germ of His great life,Bursting within me, might be perfected.The second, that your life, my love, and mineMight be once more united on the earthIn holy marriage, and that mine might beBreathed out at last within your loving arms.One prayer is granted, and the other waitsBut a brief space for its accomplishment.

But why this prayer to die? Still loving me,--With the great motive for desiring lifeAnd the deep secret of enjoyment won,--Why pray for death?

Do you not know me, Mary?I am afraid to live, for I am weak.I've found a treasure only life can steal;I've won a jewel only death will keep.In such a heart as mine, the priceless pearlWould not be safe. That which I would not takeWhen health was with me,--which I spurned awaySo long as I had power to sin, I fearWould be surrendered with that power's returnAnd the temptation to its exercise.For soul like mine, diseased in every part,There is but one condition in which graceMay give it service. For my maladyThe Great Physician draws the blood awayThat only flows to feed its baleful fires;For only thus the balsam and the balmMay touch the springs of healing.

So I prayTo be delivered from myself,--to beDelivered from necessity of ill,--To be secured from bringing harm to you.Oh, what a boon is death to the sick soul!I greet it with a joy that passes speech.Were the whole world to come before me now,--Wealth with its treasures; Pleasure with its cup;Power robed in purple; Beauty in its pride,And with Love's sweetest blossoms garlanded;Fame with its bays, and Glory with its crown,--To tempt me lifeward, I would turn away,And stretch my hands with utter eagernessToward the pale angel waiting for me now,And give my hand to him, to be led out,Serenely singing, to the land of shade.

Edward, I yield you. I would not retainOne who has strayed so long from God and heaven,When his weak feet have found the only pathOpen for such as he.

My strength recedes;But ere it fail, tell me how fares your life.You have seen sorrow; but it comforts meTo hear the language of a chastened soulFrom one perverted by my guilty hand.You speak the dialect of the redeemed--The Heaven-accepted. Tell me it is so,And you are happy.

With sweet hope and trustI may reply, 'tis as you think and wish.I have seen sorrow, surely, and the moreThat I have seen what was far worse; but GodSent His own servant to me to restoreMy sadly straying feet to the sure path;And in my soul I have the pledge of graceWhich shall suffice to keep them there.

Ah, joy!You found a friend; and my o'erflowing heart,Welling with gratitude, pours out to himFor his kind ministry its fitting meed.Oh, breathe his name to me, that my poor lipsMay bind it to a benison, and that,While dying, I may whisper it with those--Jesus and Mary--which I love the best.Name him, I pray you.

It is hardTo give denial to a dying wish;But, Edward, I've no right to speak his name.He was a Christian man, and you may giveOf the full largess of your gratitudeAll, without robbing God, you have to give,And fail, e'en then, of worthy recompense.Nay, Mary, tell it him!Where is he going he should bruit the name?Remember where he lies, and that no earsSave those of angels--

We will all retire.It is not proper we should linger here,Barring the sacred confidence of heartsParting so sadly.

I will declare it under your command.This stranger friend--stranger for many months--This man, selectest instrument of Heaven,Who gave me succor in my hour of need,Snatched me from ruin, rescued me from want,Counseled and cheered me, prayed with me, and thenLed me with careful hand into the light,Was he now bending over you in tears--David, my brother!

David? My husband? Did I hear aright?You are not jesting! Sure you would not jestAt such a juncture! Speak, my husband, speak!Is this a plot to cheat a dying man,Or cheat a wife who, if it be no plot,Is worthy death? What can you mean by this?

Mary's words are truth.Grace.

O mean and jealous heart, what hast thou done!What wrong to honor, spite to Christian love,And shame to self beyond self-pardoning!How can I ever lift my faithless eyesTo those true eyes that I have counted false;Or meet those lips that I have charged with lies;Or win the dear embraces I have spurned?O most unhappy, most unworthy wife!No one but he who still has clung to thee,--Proud, and imperious, and impenitent,--No one but he who has in silence borneThy peevish criminations and complaintsCan now forgive thee, when in deepest shameThou bowest with confession of thy faults.Dear husband! David! Look upon your wife!Behold one kneeling never knelt to you!I have abused you and your faithful love,And, in my great humiliation, prayYou will not trample me beneath your feet.Pity my weakness, and remember, too,That Love was jealous of thee, and not Hate--That it was Love's own pride tormented me.My husband, take me once more to your arms,And kiss me in forgiveness; say that youWill be my counselor, my friend, my love;And I will give myself to you again,To be all yours--my reason, confidence,My faith and trust all yours, my heart's best love,My service and my prayers, all yours--all yours!

Rise, dearest, rise! It gives me only painThat such as you should kneel to such as I.Your words inform me that you know how weakI am whom you have only fancied weak.Forgive you? I forgive you everything;And take the pardon which your prayer insures.Let this embrace, this kiss, be evidenceOur jarring hearts catch common rhythm again,And we are lovers.

Dear wife, farewell!The room grows dim, and silently and softThe veil is dropping 'twixt my eyes and yours,Which soon will hide me from you--you from me.Only one hand is warm; it rests in yours,Whose full, sweet pulses throb along my arm,So that I live upon them. Cling to me!And thus your life, after my life is past,Shall lay me gently in the arms of Death.Thus shall you link your being with a soulGazing unveiled upon the Great White Throne.

Dear hearts of love surrounding me, farewell!I cannot see you now; or, if I do,You are transfigured. There are floating formsThat whisper over me like summer leaves;And now there comes, and spreads through all my soul.Delicious influx of another life,From out whose essence spring, like living flowers,Angelic senses with quick ultimates,That catch the rustle of ethereal robes,And the thin chime of melting minstrelsy--Rising and falling--answered far away--As Echo, dreaming in the twilight woods,Repeats the warble of her twilight birds.And flowers that mock the Iris toss their cupsIn the impulsive ether, and spill outSweet tides of perfume, fragrant deluges,Flooding my spirit like an angel's breath.

And still the throng increases; still unfoldWith broader span and more elusive sweepThe radiant vistas of a world divine.But O my soul! what vision rises now!Far, far away, white blazing like the sun,In deepest distance and on highest height,Through walls diaphanous, and atmosphereFlecked with unnumbered forms of missive power,Out-going fleetly and returning slow,A Presence shines I may not penetrate;But on a throne, with smile ineffable,I see a form my conscious spirit knows.Jesus, my Saviour! Jesus, Lamb of God!Jesus who taketh from me all my sins,And from the world! Jesus, I come to thee!Come thou to me! O come, Lord, quickly! Come!

Flown on the wings of rapture! Is this death?His heart is still; his beaded brow is cold;His wasted breast struggles for breath no more;And his pale features, hardened with the stressOf Life's resistance, momently subsideInto a smile, calm as a twilight lake,Sprent with the images of rising stars,We have seen Evil in his countless formsIn these poor lives; have met his armed hostsIn dread encounter and discomfiture;And languished in captivity to them,Until we lost our courage and our faith;And here we see their Chieftain--Terror's King!He cuts the knot that binds a weary soulTo faithless passions, sateless appetites,And powers perverted, and it flies awaySinging toward heaven. He turns and looks at us,And finds us weeping with our gratitude--Full of sweet sorrow,--sorrow sweeter farThan the supremest ecstasy of joy.

And this is death! Think you that raptured soulNow walking humbly in the golden streets,Bearing the precious burden of a loveToo great for utterance, or with hushed heartDrinking the music of the ransomed throng,Counts death an evil?--evil, sickness, pain,Calamity, or aught that God prescribedTo cure it of its sin, or bring it whereThe healing hand of Christ might touch it? No!He is a man to-night--a man in Christ.This was his childhood, here; and as we giveA smile of wonder to the little woesThat drew the tears from out our own young eyes,The kind corrections and severe constraintsImposed by those who loved us--so he seesA father's chastisement in all the illThat filled his life with darkness; so he seesIn every evil a kind instrumentTo chasten, elevate, correct, subdue,And fit him for that heavenly estate--Saintship in Christ--the Manhood Absolute!

Midnight and silence! In the West, unveiled,The broad, full moon is shining, with the stars.On mount and valley, forest, roof, and rock,On billowy hills smooth-stretching to the sky,On rail and wall, on all things far and near,Cling the bright crystals,--all the earth a floorOf polished silver, pranked with bending formsUplifting to the light their precious weightOf pearls and diamonds, set in palest gold.The storm is dead; and when it rolled awayIt took no star from heaven, but left to earthSuch legacy of beauty as The Wind--The light-robed shepherdess from Cuban groves--Driving soft showers before her, and warm airs,And her wide-scattered flocks of wet-winged birds,Never bestowed upon the waiting Spring.Pale, silent, smiling, cold, and beautiful!Do storms die thus? And is it this to die?

Midnight and silence! In that hallowed roomGod's full-orbed peace is shining, with the stars.On head and hand, on brow, and lip, and eye,On folded arms, on broad unmoving breast,On the white-sanded floor, on everythingRest the pale radiance, while bending formsStand all around, loaded with precious weightOf jewels such as holy angels wear.The man is dead; and when he passed awayHe blotted out no good, but left behindSuch wealth of faith, such store of love and trust,As breath of joy, in-floating from the islesSmiled on by ceaseless summer, and induedWith foliage and flowers perennial,Never conveyed to the enchanted soul.Do men die thus? And is it this to die?

Midnight and silence! At each waiting tied,Husband and wife, embracing, kneel in prayer;And lips unused to such a benisonBreathe blessings upon evil, and give thanksFor knowledge of its sacred ministry.An infant nestles on a mother's breast,Whose head is pillowed where it has not lainFor months of wasted life--the tale all told,And confidence and love for aye secure.

The widow and the virgin: where are they?The morn shall find them watching with the dead,Like the two angels at the tomb of Christ,--One at the head, the other at the foot,--Guarding a sepulcher whose occupantHas risen, and rolled the heavy stone away!