403

"She looked up, glowing with the health

The country air had brought her, And, laughing, said: "You lack a wife, Your mother lacks a daughter.

"To mend your frock and bake your bread

You do not need a lady:

Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready, -

"Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand
And cheerful heart for treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's measure."

He bent his black brows to a frown,
He set his white teeth tightly.
"T is well,' he said, for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.

"You think, because my life is rude
I take no note of sweetness:
I tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmeetness.
"Itself its best excuse, it asks

No leave of pride or fashion
When silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.

"You think me deaf and blind; you bring

Your winning graces hither As free as if from cradle-time

We two had played together.

Alone the hangbird overhead, His hair-swung cradle straining, Looked down to see love's miracle, The giving that is gaining.

"And so the farmer found a wife,

His mother found a daughter: There looks no happier home than hers On pleasant Bearcamp Water.

"Flowers spring to blossom where she walks

The careful ways of duty;
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.

"Our homes are cheerier for her sake, Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about the social air

Is sweeter for her coming.

"Unspoken homilies of peace
Her daily life is preaching;
The still refreshment of the dew
Is her unconscious teaching.

For larger life and wiser aims
The farmer is her debtor;
Who holds to his another's heart
Must needs be worse or better.

"Through her his civic service shows A purer-toned ambition;

No double consciousness divides
The man and politician.

"In party's doubtful ways he trusts
Her instincts to determine;
At the loud polls, the thought of her

Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.

"He owns her logic of the heart,
And wisdom of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weigh.s
The needed word in season.

"He sees with pride her richer thought,

Her fancy's freer ranges;
And love thus deepened to respect

Is proof against all changes.

"And if she walks at ease in ways Ilis feet are slow to travel,

And if she reads with cultured eyes
What his may scarce unravel,

"Still clearer, for her keener sight
Of beauty and of wonder,
He learns the meaning of the hills
He dwelt from childhood under.

"And higher, warmed with summer lights,

Or winter-crowned and hoary,
The ridged horizon lifts for him
Its inner veils of glory.

"He has his own free, bookless lore,
The lessons nature taught him,
The wisdom which the woods and hills
And toiling men have brought him:

"The steady force of will whereby

Her flexile grace seems sweeter; The sturdy counterpoise which makes Her woman's life completer:

"A latent fire of soul which lacks

No breath of love to fan it ; And wit, that, like his native brooks, Plays over solid granite.

"How dwarfed against his manliness

She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of fashion and convention!

"How life behind its accidents

Stands strong and self-sustaining,
The human fact transcending all
The losing and the gaining.

"And so, in grateful interchange
Of teacher and of hearer,
Their lives their true distinctness keep
While daily drawing nearer.

"And if the husband or the wife

In home's strong light discovers Such slight defaults as failed to meet The blinded eyes of lovers,

"Why need we care to ask? - who dreams

Without their thorns of roses, Ur wonders that the truest steel

The readiest spark discloses ?

"For still in mutual sufferance lies

405

THE CLEAR VISION.

I DID but dream. I never knew
What charms our sternest season

wore.

Was never yet the sky so blue,

Was never earth so white before. Till now I never saw the glow Of sunset on yon hills of snow, And never learned the bough's designs Of beauty in its leafless lines.

Did ever such a morning break

As that my eastern windows see?
Did ever such a moonlight take
Weird photographs of shrub and
tree?

Rang ever bells so wild and fleet
The music of the winter street?
Was ever yet a sound by half
So merry as yon school-boy's laugh?

O Earth! with gladness overfraught,

No added charm thy face hath found; Within my heart the change is wrought,

My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The freshness of a glad surprise.

Fair seem these winter days, and soon Shall blow the warm west winds of spring

To set the unbound rills in tune,

And hither urge the bluebird's wing. The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods

Grow misty green with leafing buds,
And violets and wind-flowers sway
Against the throbbing heart of May.

Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own
The wiser love severely kind;
Since, richer for its chastening grown,
I see, whereas I once was blind.
The world, O Father! hath not wronged
With loss the life by thee prolonged;

But still, with every added year,
More beautiful thy works appear!

As thou hast made thy world without, Make thou more fair my world within ;

Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt;

Rebuke its haunting shapes of sin; Fill, brief or long, my granted span Of life with love to thee and man ; Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, But let my last days be my best ! 2d Month, 1868.

THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.

THE land was pale with famine

And racked with fever-pain; The frozen fiords were fishless, The earth withheld her grain,

Men saw the boding Fylgja

Before them come and go, And, through their dreams, the Urday.

moon

From west to east sailed slow!

Jarl Thorkell of Thevera

At Yule-time made his vow;
On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone
He slew to Frey his cow.

To bounteous Frey he slew her:
To Skuld, the younger Norn,
Who watches over birth and death,
He gave her calf unborn.
And his little gold-haired daughter
Took up the sprinkling-rod,
And smeared with blood the temple
And the wide lips of the god.

Hoarse below, the winter water
Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er;
Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves
Rose and fell along the shore.

The red torch of the Jokul,

Aloft in icy space,

Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones And the statue's carven face.

"No wrong by wrong is righted, No pain is cured by pain;

407

The blood that smokes from Doom

rings

Falls back in redder rain.

"The gods are what you make them,
As earth shall Asgard prove;
And hate will come of hating,
And love will come of love.

"Make dole of skyr and black bread
That old and young may live;
And look to Frey for favor
When first like Frey you give.

"Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows The summer dawn begins;

The tun shall have its harvest,

The fiord its glancing fins."

Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell : "By Gimli and by Hel,

O Vala of Thingvalla,

Thou singest wise and well!

"Too dear the Æsir's favors
Bought with our children's lives ;
Better die than shame in living
Our mothers and our wives.

"The full shall give his portion

To him who hath most need:
Of curdled skyr and black bread,
Be daily dole decreed."

He broke from off his neck-chain
Three links of beaten gold;
And each man, at his bidding,
Brought gifts for young and old.
Then mothers nursed their children,
And daughters fed their sires,
And Health sat down with Plenty
Before the next Yule fires.

The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal;
The Doom-ring still remains;
But the snows of a thousand winters
Have washed away the stains.
Christ ruleth now; the Æsir

Have found their twilight dim;
And, wiser than she dreamed, of old
The Vala sang of Him!