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And the cloud of her soul was lifted,
And she knew her little child.

A beam of the slant west sunshine
Made the wan face almost fair,
Lit the blue eyes' patient wonder,
And the rings of pale gold hair.

She kissed it on lip and forehead,
She kissed it on cheek and chin,
And she bared her snow-white bosom
To the lips so pale and thin.

O, fair on her bridal morning

Was the maid who blushed and smiled,

But fairer to Ezra Dalton

Looked the mother of his child.

With more than a lover's fondness
He stooped to her worn young face,
And the nursing child and the mother
He folded in one embrace.

"Blessed be God!" he murmured.
"Blessed be God!" she said;
"For I see, who once was blinded,
I live, who once was dead.

"Now mount and ride, my goodman,
As thou lovest thy own soul!
Woe's me, if my wicked fancies
Be the death of Goody Cole!"

His horse he saddled and bridled,
And into the night rode he,—
Now through the great black woodland,
Now by the white-beached sea.

He rode through the silent clearings,
He came to the ferry wide,

And thrice he called to the boatman
Asleep on the other side.

He set his horse to the river,

He swam to Newbury town, And he called up Justice Sewall In his nightcap and his gown.

And the grave and worshipful justice
(Upon whose soul be peace!)
Set his name to the jailer's warrant
For Goodwife Cole's release.

1866.

Then through the night the hoof-beats
Went sounding like a flail;
And Goody Cole at cockcrow
Came forth from Ipswich jail.

IN SCHOOL-DAYS.

STILL

TILL sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning;
Around it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry vines are running.

Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;

The charcoal frescos on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;

His cap pulled low upon a face

Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow

To right and left, he lingered;

As restlessly her tiny hands

The blue-checked apron fingered.

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.

"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,

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HE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew;

THE

Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew!

Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay;
Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day,

Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof,
On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof,

The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the stand,
The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand!

What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light,
As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight?

Done was the work of her hands, she had eaten her bitter bread;
The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead.

But her soul went back to its childtime; she saw the sun o'erflow
With gold the basin of Minas, and set over Gasperau;

The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea at flood,
Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to upland wood;

The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's rise and fall,
The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark coast-wall.

She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song she sang;
And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang!

By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing the wrinkled sheet,
Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the ice-cold feet.

VOL. VI.-25

1872.

With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and long abuse,
By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use.

Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the mistress stepped,
Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept.
Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, with brows afrown:
"What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town?"

"Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know and God knows
I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes!

"Oh mother! that sweet face came pleading, for love so athirst. You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God's angel at first."

Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down a bitter cry;
And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh,

She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer the young girl pressed, With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast.

"My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice cruel grown.
"She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!"

But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his lips to her ear,
And he called back the soul that was passing: "Marguerite, do you hear?"

She paused on the threshold of heaven; love, pity, surprise,
Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes.

With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never her cheek grew red, And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead.

And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to blossoms grew;
Of the folded hands and the still face never the robins knew!

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