An' she looked full ez rosy agin Ez the apples she was peelin'. 'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look He was six foot o' man, A 1, Clean grit an' human natur'; None could n't quicker pitch a ton Nor dror a furrer straighter. He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells All is, he could n't love 'em. But long o' her his veins 'ould run All crinkly like curled maple, She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, She knowed the Lord was nigher. An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! Down to her very shoe-sole. She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, Like sparks in burnt-up paper. He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" "Wal signin' no I come da To say why gals act so or so, Or don't, 'ould be presumin'; He stood a spell on one foot fust, Says he, "I'd better call agin"; Says she, "Think likely, Mister"; When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, An' teary roun' the lashes. For she was jes' the quiet kind The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued Then her red come back like the tide AMBROSE. NEVER, surely, was holier man Through earnest prayer and watchings long He sought to know 'twixt right and wrong, Much wrestling with the blessed Word At last he builded a perfect faith, "To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es To himself he fitted the doorway's size, Agin to-morrer's i'nin'.' Meted the light to the need of his eyes, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine. Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die The eternal death who believe not as I"; And some were boiled, some burned in fire, Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire, For the good of men's souls, might be satisfied, By the drawing of all to the righteous side. One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth 'T were pity he should not believe as he ought. So he set himself by the young man's side, And the state of his soul with questions tried; But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, Nor received the stamp of the one true creed, And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find Such face the porch of so narrow a mind. "As each beholds in cloud and fire The shape that answers his own desire, So each," said the youth, "in the Law shall find The figure and features of his mind; And to each in his mercy hath God allowed His several pillar of fire and cloud." The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal And holy wrath for the young man's weal: "Believest thou then, most wretched youth," Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth? I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin To take the Lord in his glory in." Now there bubbled beside them where they stood A fountain of waters sweet and good; The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!" 227 And when over breakers to leeward But, after the shipwreck, tell me Then better one spar of Memory, To the spirit its splendid conjectures, Immortal? I feel it and know it, turn There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard | Forgive me, if from present things I LIFE may be given in many ways, But then to stand beside her, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs. Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, Wept with the passion of an angry grief: To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth, But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity!" They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy MARIA WHITE LOWELL. I praise him not; it were too late; And some innative weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Safe in himself as in a fate. He knew to bide his time, Disturb our judgment for the hour, These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, 229 'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay, But the high faith that failed not by the way; Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave; No bar of endless night exiles the brave; And to the saner mind We rather seem the dead that stayed behind. Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow! For never shall their aureoled presence lack: I see them muster in a gleaming row, With ever-youthful brows that nobler show; We find in our dull road their shining track; In every nobler mood We feel the orient of their spirit glow, Part of our life's unalterable good, Of all our saintlier aspiration; They come transfigured back, Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, Beautiful evermore, and with the rays Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation! MARIA WHITE LOWELL. [U. S. A., 1821-1853] THE ALPINE SHEEP. WHEN on my ear your loss was knelled, And tender sympathy upburst, A little spring from memory welled, Which once had quenched my bitter thirst. And I was fain to bear to you A portion of its mild relief, After our child's untroubled breath And friends came round, with us to weep The story of the Alpine sheep And the dial's lazy shadow hovered nigh the brink of noon. On the benches in the market, rows of languid idlers lay, When to Pisa's nodding belfry, with a friend, I took my way. From the top we looked around us, and as far as eye might strain, Saw no sign of life or motion in the town, or on the plain, Hardly seemed the river moving, through the willows to the main; Nor was any noise disturbing Pisa from her drowsy hour, Save the doves that fluttered 'neath us, in and out and round the tower. Not a shout from gladsome children, or the clatter of a wheel, Nor the spinner of the suburb, winding his discordant reel, Nor the stroke upon the pavement of a hoof or of a heel. Even the slumberers, in the churchyard of the Campo Santo seemed Scarce more quiet than the living world that underneath us dreamed. Dozing at the city's portal, heedless guard the sentry kept, | More than oriental dulness o'er the sunny farms had crept, Near the walls the ducal herdsman by the dusty roadside slept; While his camels, resting round him, half alarmed the sullen ox, Seeing those Arabian monsters pasturing with Etruria's flocks. Then it was, like one who wandered, lately, singing by the Rhine, Strains perchance to maiden's hearing sweeter than this verse of mine, That we bade Imagination lift us on her wing divine. And the days of Pisa's greatness rose from the sepulchral past, When a thousand conquering galleys bore her standard at the mast. Memory for a moment crowned her sov ereign mistress of the seas, When she braved, upon the billows, Venice and the Genoese, Daring to deride the Pontiff, though he shook his angry keys. |