Thistle Down.
I saw a little child one day
Blowing some thistle down away.
How light they flew! The wings of thought
Grew weary as their course was sought,
And e’en the boy, with heart as light,
Sighed when he failed to trace their flight;
But as by chance, out of the air,
One fell upon his sunny hair.
I saw the tiny sail unfurl,
And faintly fan a slender curl.
A fairy’s boat it seemed to be,
And yet a pirate sailed the sea,
And anchored on a golden wave
That hid no evil deed—no grave.
That thought! Did Heaven foresee the doom?
From off his curl I shook the bloom.
I know not where it chanced to fall,
In garden, park, or castle wall;
A desert’s sand may scorch its root,
A crystal brook it may pollute;
A different course from mine it took,
And I the path at once forsook.
I only know that summer day,
Far from the child ’twas blown away.
Bitter Memories.
TO REV. H. T. WILSON.
A picture is haunting my memory to-night,
While I dose in the warmth of an early fire-light.
As we strive to remove from the soul an old strain,
Thus the outline I’ve tried to erase from my brain;
But a specter stands near with sepulchral face.
And over my hearthstone the same scene doth trace—
She colors the landscape and scoffs at my tears,
As I gaze on the wreck of scarce twenty-one years.
’Twas the home of my boyhood. In ruins it stood,
And autumn had saddened the meadow and wood;
The old locust grove, where the crows used to build,
The plowshare and harrow together had tilled.
Not a sprig of broomsedge did the hillside adorn,
But here and there stacked was the newly shocked corn.
Not a wild flower bloomed—through my heart ran a chill,
As I bowed by the spring at the foot of the hill.
No trickle of water fell soft on my ear—
Unless ’twas the sound of a swift falling tear—
For Time in his raving had paused here to drink,
And I found only dregs as I gasped on the brink.
Long I stood, and I gazed like one in a trance,
And I shuddered as toward me the specter advanced;
Did the chill of her hand then my heart penetrate?
Dead, it seemed, as I leaned on the old garden gate.
Where the sweet-william bloomed on the old fashioned walk,
Towered and flourished the rank mullein stalk,
Where the raspberry vines purpled over the fence,
The iron weed stood just as proud as a prince;
But where was the summer-house under whose shade
I had gathered the grapes and my sisters had played?
“Where, oh! where,” I exclaimed (too unnerved then to fear),
“Are the joys of my youth?” “Gone,” was hissed in my ear.
As the blind lead the blind it seemed I was lead
Over stubble and thorns till my feet ached and bled.
Then we stood by a door that had rotted apart—
Here the thistle had broken its soft, downy heart—
I glanced toward the mantel, an owl hooted there,
And a rat made its nest in my mother’s old chair,
“Oh! God,” I repeated, “’tis too hard to bear,”
And I knelt on the threshold in low, fervent prayer.
* * * * *
“Why, papa,” a little voice called soft and clear,
As she climbed on my knee and kissed off a tear,
“What a long nap you’ve had; why mamma’s at tea,
Now, papa, wake up and come on with me.”
“My darling!” I whispered, and pressed to my face
A cheek that was soft as a billow of lace.
“What if the old home can not weather the storms
When a foretaste of Heaven I hold in my arms.”
September 7, 1885.
