“For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, It might have been.”
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
1854.
MARY GARVIN.
FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's
intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters
foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
dams, and mills,
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom
of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet
of the loon!
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of
the past.
But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our
own akin;
And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
young.
“No longer forward nor behind, I look in hope or fear; But grateful take the good I find, The best of now and here.”
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
1855.
MY PSALM.
I mourn no more my vanished years
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and, singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope or fear;
But, grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here.
I plough no more a desert land,
To harvest weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff, I lay
Aside the toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn.
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;--
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south-wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,--
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
“Beauty seen is never lost, Gods colors all are fast.”
How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
Is softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no leaf
Of all its elms is twirled
The silence of eternity
Seems falling on the world.
The pause before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this;
Yon miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills
That reach up stair on stair?
What eyes look through, what white wings fan
These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the heavenly heights
To those of earth stoops down?
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods
On Ida's snowy crown!
Slow fades the vision of the sky,
The golden water pales,
And over all the valley-land
A gray-winged vapor sails.
I go the common way of all;
The sunset fires will burn,
The flowers will blow, the river flow,
When I no more return.
No whisper from the mountain pine
Nor lapsing stream shall tell
The stranger, treading where I tread,
Of him who loved them well.
But beauty seen is never lost,
God's colors all are fast;
The glory of this sunset heaven
Into my soul has passed,
A sense of gladness unconfined
To mortal date or clime;
As the soul liveth, it shall live
Beyond the years of time.
Beside the mystic asphodels
Shall bloom the home-born flowers,
And new horizons flush and glow
With sunset hues of ours.
Farewell! these smiling hills must wear
Too soon their wintry frown,
And snow-cold winds from off them shake
The maple's red leaves down.
But I shall see a summer sun
Still setting broad and low;
The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,
The golden water flow.
A lover's claim is mine on all
I see to have and hold,--
The rose-light of perpetual hills,
And sunsets never cold!
1876
THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL.
They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.
Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept--perchance a hunter's tale--
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.
“And a nameless longing filled her breast, - A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known”
The poem had no real
foundation in fact, though a hint of it may have been found in recalling
an incident, trivial in itself, of a journey on the picturesque Maine
seaboard with my sister some years before it was written. We had stopped
to rest our tired horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh
him with water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall
across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest summer attire
was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we noticed that
she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over them, blushing as
she did so, through the tan of her cheek and neck.
MAUD MULLER on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic-health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,--
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
“All the windows of my heart I open to the day.”
Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;
The graven flowers that wreathe the sword
Make not the blade less strong.
But smiting hands shall learn to heal,--
To build as to destroy;
Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;
That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;--
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
1859.
THE WAITING.
I wait and watch: before my eyes
Methinks the night grows thin and gray;
I wait and watch the eastern skies
To see the golden spears uprise
Beneath the oriflamme of day!
Like one whose limbs are bound in trance
I hear the day-sounds swell and grow,
And see across the twilight glance,
Troop after troop, in swift advance,
The shining ones with plumes of snow!
I know the errand of their feet,
I know what mighty work is theirs;
I can but lift up hands unmeet,
The threshing-floors of God to beat,
And speed them with unworthy prayers.
I will not dream in vain despair
The steps of progress wait for me
The puny leverage of a hair
The planet's impulse well may spare,
A drop of dew the tided sea.
The loss, if loss there be, is mine,
And yet not mine if understood;
For one shall grasp and one resign,
One drink life's rue, and one its wine,
And God shall make the balance good.
Oh power to do! Oh baffled will!
Oh prayer and action! ye are one.
“One brave deed makes no hero.”
"Once, when over purple mountains
Died away the Grecian sun,
And the far Cyllenian ranges
Paled and darkened, one by one,--
"Fell the Turk, a bolt of thunder,
Cleaving all the quiet sky,
And against his sharp steel lightnings
Stood the Suliote but to die.
"Woe for the weak and halting!
The crescent blazed behind
A curving line of sabres,
Like fire before the wind!
"Last to fly, and first to rally,
Rode he of whom I speak,
When, groaning in his bridle-path,
Sank down a wounded Greek.
"With the rich Albanian costume
Wet with many a ghastly stain,
Gazing on earth and sky as one
Who might not gaze again.
"He looked forward to the mountains,
Back on foes that never spare,
Then flung him from his saddle,
And placed the stranger there.
"'Allah! hu!' Through flashing sabres,
Through a stormy hail of lead,
The good Thessalian charger
Up the slopes of olives sped.
"Hot spurred the turbaned riders;
He almost felt their breath,
Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down
Between the hills and death.
"One brave and manful struggle,--
He gained the solid land,
And the cover of the mountains,
And the carbines of his band!"
"It was very great and noble,"
Said the moist-eyed listener then,
"But one brave deed makes no hero;
Tell me what he since hath been!"
"Still a brave and generous manhood,
Still an honor without stain,
In the prison of the Kaiser,
By the barricades of Seine.
"But dream not helm and harness
The sign of valor true;
Peace hath higher tests of manhood
Than battle ever knew.
"Wouldst know him now? Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lip language,
The idiot-clay a mind.
"Walking his round of duty
Serenely day by day,
With the strong man's hand of labor
And childhood's heart of play.
"True as the knights of story,
Sir Lancelot and his peers,
Brave in his calm endurance
As they in tilt of spears.
"As waves in stillest waters,
As stars in noonday skies,
All that wakes to noble action
In his noon of calmness lies.
"Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave,--
"Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
"Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
“Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young.”
1854.
MARY GARVIN.
FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's
intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters
foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
dams, and mills,
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom
of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet
of the loon!
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of
the past.
But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our
own akin;
And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
young.
O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks today!
O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's
restless play!
Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand
beguile,
And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or
smile!
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort
Mary's walls;
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and
plunged the Saco's' falls.
And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and
gusty grew,
Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink
blew.
On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed the crackling
walnut log;
Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between
them lay the dog,
Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside
him on her mat,
Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred
the mottled cat.
"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,
Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child
away.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, It might have been.
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
1854.
MARY GARVIN.
FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's
intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters
foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
dams, and mills,
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom
of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet
of the loon!
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of
the past.
But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our
own akin;
And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
young.
“For somehow, not only at Christmas, but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.”
“Somehow, not only for Christmas but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others Is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing The poor and lonely and sad, The more of your hearts possessing Returns to you glad.”
“When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.”
“Somehow, not only for Christmas”
So all night long the storm roared on:The morning broke without a sun;In tiny spherule traced with linesOf Nature’s geometric signs,In starry flake, and pellicle,All day the hoary meteor fell;And, when the second morning shone,We looked upon a world unknown,On nothing we could call our own.Around the glistening wonder bentThe blue walls of the firmament,No cloud above, no earth below,—A universe of sky and snow!
the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you
The tints of autumn...a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
Methinks I see the sunset light flooding the river valley, the western hills stretching to the horizon, overhung with trees gorgeous and glowing with the tints of autumn -- a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.
Peace hath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew.
Our toil is sweet with thankfulness Our burden is our boon The curse of earths gray morning is The blessing of its noon.
Reasons voice and Gods Natures and Dutys never are at odds.
Through the dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking Knowing Gods own time is best In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking!
