Part 5 (2/2)
I am happy having grown Such a Sapling of my own; And I crave No garland for my brows, But peace beneath its boughs Till the grave.
”O DOMINE DEUS,
”O DOMINE DEUS, SPERAVI IN TE, O CARE MI JESU, NUNC LIBERA ME.”
Her quiet resting-place is far away, None dwelling there can tell you her sad story: The stones are mute. The stones could only say, ”A humble spirit pa.s.sed away to glory.”
She loved the murmur of this mighty town, The lark rejoiced her from its lattice prison; A streamlet soothes her now,--the bird has flown,-- Some dust is waiting there--a soul has risen.
No city smoke to stain the heather bells,-- Sigh, gentle winds, around my lone love sleeping,-- She bore her burthen here, but now she dwells Where scorner never came, and none are weeping.
O cough! O cruel cough! O gasping breath!
These arms were round my darling at the latest: All scenes of death are woe--but painful death In those we dearly love is surely greatest!
I could not die. HE willed it otherwise; My lot is here, and sorrow, wearing older, Weighs down the heart, but does not fill the eyes, And even friends may think that I am colder.
I might have been more kind, more tender; now Repining wrings my bosom. I am grateful No eye can see this mark upon my brow, Yet even gay companions.h.i.+p is hateful.
But when at times I steal away from these, And find her grave, and pray to be forgiven, And when I watch beside her on my knees, I think I am a little nearer heaven.
THE HOUSEMAID.
”Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide.”
Alone she sits, with air resigned She watches by the window-blind: Poor girl! No doubt The pilgrims here despise thy lot: Thou canst not stir--because 'tis not Thy _Sunday out_.
To play a game of hide and seek With dust and cobwebs all the week, Small pleasure yields: O dear, how nice it is to drop One's scrubbing-brush, one's pail and mop-- And scour the fields!
Poor Bodies some such Sundays know; They seldom come. How soon they go!
But Souls can roam.
And, lapt in visions airy-sweet, She sees in this too doleful street Her own loved Home!
The road is now no road. She pranks A brawling stream with thymy banks; In Fancy's realm This post sustains no lamp--aloof It spreads above her parents' roof A gracious elm.
How often has she valued there A father's aid--a mother's care:-- She now has neither: And yet--such work in dreams is done, She still may sit and smile with one More dear than either.
The poor can love through woe and pain, Although their homely speech is fain To halt in fetters: They feel as much, and do far more Than those, at times of meaner ore, Miscalled _their Betters_.
Sometimes, on summer afternoons Of sundry sunny Mays and Junes-- Meet Sunday weather, I pa.s.s her window by design, And wish her _Sunday out_ and mine Might fall together.
For sweet it were my lot to dower With one brief joy, one white-robed flower; And prude, or preacher, Could hardly deem it much amiss To lay one on the path of this Forlorn young creature.
Yet if her thought on wooing runs-- And if her swain and she are ones Who fancy strolling, She'd like my nonsense less than his, And so it's better as it is-- And that's consoling.
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