The Wedding Guest: A Friend of the Bride and Bridegroom. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ grief-sob rises to the lips that bid her first-born go.

      It is not that she doubts his love to whom thou'st given thine—

       The fear that he may coldly look upon his clasping vine;

       But, oh, she feels however loved and cherished as his wife,

       Though calm her lily may float down upon the stream of life;

      Yet, by her own glad married years, she knows that clouds will stray,

       And tears will sometimes fill thy cup, though kissed by love away;

       And she will not be near her flower to lay it on her breast—

       'Tis thus—'tis thus the young birds fly, and leave the lonely nest!

      Oh, sister, darling, I shall miss thy footfall on the stair,

       Beside my own, when good-words have followed good-night prayer;

       And miss thee from our pleasant room, and miss thee when I sleep,

       And feel no more thy twining arms and soft breath on my cheek.

      And I shall gaze with tearful eyes upon thy vacant chair—

       Sweet sister, wherefore, wherefore go, 'tis more than I can bear!

       Forgive me, Lizzie, do not weep—I'm strong again, and calm,

       "Our Father" for my aching heart will send a spirit-balm.

      Now let me bind this snowy veil amid thy silken hair,

       The white moss-rose and orange buds upon thy bosom fair;

       How beautiful you are to-night! Does love such charms impart?

       An angel's wing methinks has stirred the waters of your heart;

      So holy seem its outlets blue where sparkle yet the tears,

       Like stars that tremble in the sky when not a cloud appears.

       Art ready now? The evening wanes; the guests will soon be here,

       And the glad bridegroom waits his own. God bless thee, sister dear!

      LOVE vs. HEALTH.

      ABOUT a mile from one of the Berkshire villages, and separated from it by the Housatonic, is one of the loveliest sites in all our old county. It is on an exhausted farm of rocky, irregular, grazing ground, with a meadow of rich alluvial soil. The river, which so nearly surrounds it as to make it a peninsula "in little," doubles around a narrow tongue of land, called the "ox-bow"—a bit of the meadow so smooth, so fantastic in its shape, so secluded, so adorned by its fringe of willows, clematises, grape-vines, and all our water-loving shrubs, that it suggests to every one, who ever read a fairy tale, a scene for the revels of elves and fairies. Yet no Oberon—no Titania dwelt there; but long ago, where there are now some ruinous remains of old houses, and an uncouth new one, stood the first frame house of the lower valley of the Housatonic. It was inhabited by the last Indian who maintained the dignity of a Chief, and from him passed to the first missionary to the tribe. There Kirkland, the late honoured President of Harvard College, was born, and there his genial and generous nature received its first and ineffaceable impressions. Tenants, unknown to fame, succeeded the missionary.

      The Indian dwelling fell to decay; and the property has now passed into the bands of a poet, who, rumour says, purposes transforming it to a villa, and whose occupancy will give to it a new consecration.

      Just before its final high destiny was revealed, there dwelt there a rustic pair, who found out, rather late in life, that Heaven had decreed they should wear together the conjugal yoke. That Heaven had decreed it no one could doubt who saw how well it fitted, and how well they drew together.

      They had one child—a late blossom, and cherished as such. Little Mary Marvel would have been spoiled, but there was nothing to spoil her. Love is the element of life, and in an atmosphere of love she lived. Her parents were people of good sense—upright and simple in their habits, with no theories, nor prejudices, ambitions, or corruptions, to turn the child from the inspirations of Heaven, with which she began her innocent life.

      When little Mary Marvel came to be seven years old, it was a matter of serious consideration how she was to be got to the district school on "the plain" (the common designation of the broad village street), full a mile from the Marvels secluded residence. Mrs. Marvel was far better qualified than the teachers of the said school, to direct the literary training of her child. She was a strong-minded woman, and a reader of all the books she could compass. But she had the in-door farm-work to do—cheese to make, butter to churn, &c. and after little Mary had learned to read and spell, she must be sent to school for the more elaborate processes of learning—arithmetic, geography, &c.

      "Now, Julius Hasen," said Marvel to his only neighbour's son, "don't you want to call, as you go by, days, with your little sister, and take our Mary to school? I guess she won't be a trouble. She could go alone; but, somehow, mother and I shall feel easier—as the river is to pass, &c.—if you are willing."

      A kind boy was Julius; and, without hesitation, he promised to take Marvel's treasure under his convoy. And, for the two years following, whenever the district school was in operation, Julius might be seen conducting the two little girls down the hill that leads to the bridge. At the bridge they loitered. Its charm was felt, but indefinable. It was a spell upon their senses; they would look up and down the sparkling stream till it winded far away from sight, and at their own pretty faces, that smiled again to them, and at Julius skittering the stones along the water, (a magical rustic art!) That old bridge was a point of sight for pictures, lovelier than Claude painted. For many a year, the old lingered there, to recall the poetry of their earlier days; lovers, to watch the rising and setting of many a star, and children to play out their "noon-times" and twilights. Heaven forgive those who replaced it with a dark, dirty, covered, barn-like thing of bad odour in every sense! The worst kind of barbarians, those, who make war—not upon life, but upon the life of life—its innocent pleasures!

      But, we loiter with the children, when we should go on with them through the narrow lane intersecting broad, rich meadows, and shaded by pollard willows, which form living and growing posts for the prettiest of our northern fences, and round the turn by the old Indian burying-ground. Now, having come to "the plain," they pass the solemn precincts of the village Church, and that burying-ground where, since the Indian left his dead with us, generations of their successors are already lain. And now they enter the wide village street, wide as it is, shaded and embowered by dense maples and wide-stretching elms; and enlivened with neatly-trimmed court-yards and flower-gardens, It was a pleasant walk, and its sweet influences bound these young people's hearts together. We are not telling a love-story, and do not mean to intimate that this was the beginning of one—though we have heard of the seeds nature implants germinating at as early a period as this, and we remember a boy of six years old who, on being reproved by his mother for having kept his book open at one place, and his eye fixed on it for half an hour, replied, with touching frankness—

      "Mother, I can see nothing there but Caroline Mitchell! Caroline

       Mitchell!"

      Little Mary Marvel had no other sentiment for Julius than his sister had. She thought him the kindest and the best; and much as she reverenced the village pedagogues, she thought Julius's learning profounder than theirs, for he told them stories from the Arabian Nights—taught them the traditions of Monument Mountain—made them learn by heart the poetry that СКАЧАТЬ