THE HASCHISH. No common wrong provoked your zeal; The silken gauntlet that is thrown In such a quarrel rings like steel. The brave old strife the fathers saw God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, Give ermined knaves their hour of Ye have the future grand and great, 243 And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand. And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile. Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves. No longer through the Red Sea, as of old, The bondmen walk dry shod; Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled, Runs now that path of God! FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills, But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to-day! The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls; MARY GARVIN. And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty grew, On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the crackling walnut log; "Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking sadly, under breath, And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who speaks of death. The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty years, to-day, Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought, 245 "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown ; On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone. One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head; "Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain.” The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-light glistened fair Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self I see ! "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger, sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child! "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day "And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, "When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, "Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. "Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied ; "And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly mother! thou at least wilt not condemn ! "So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake; As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her sake." "God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh, and he gives; He woundeth, but he healeth; in her child our daughter lives!" Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away, And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, "Let us pray." All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew paraphrase, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise. But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee, The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie. "What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English Christian's home A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?" Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried' "O, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died! "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall, As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the dear God watches all !" The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee; "Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one. Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son." When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit, Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown, From the pulpit read the preacher, -"Goodman Garvin and his wife Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life, "For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child; "And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood, Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is Papist born and bred": Thought the young men, ""T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead! " MAUD MULLER. MAUD MULLER. 247 Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, At last, like one who for delay Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! That I the Judge's bride might be ! "He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. "My father should wear a broadcloth |