SPRING IN THE ALLEY.
She stooped and told him that the Spring was born;
A ring of triumph in her fresh young voice;
For she, poor child, was in her life’s glad morn,
And the soft sunshine made her heart rejoice.
‘Wert thou not longing for the Spring?’ she said;
But the pale sufferer sadly shook his head,
And gazed with sunken eyes upon her face,
Till its pure beauty filled his soul with peace,
Then smoothed her locks, and in a fond embrace,
Clasping her slender form, he whispered: ‘Cease
To sing the praises of the young Spring flowers;
Child of the narrow court! they are not ours!’
O’er the despondent sufferer bending low,
Till her fair tresses swept his throbbing brow,
With tender glistening eyes, and cheeks aglow
With joy and hope, she softly told him how,
Not very far away, the golden bees
Wooed the white clusters of the hawthorn trees.
She spoke of twittering birds, and raised her eyes,
Bright with the glory of poetic thought,
To the dark ceiling that shut out the skies,
And lowered upon her, as she vainly sought,
With words of loving sympathy, to cheer
The flickering life that suffering made so dear.
For oh, that life, unlovely though it seemed,
Was the dear object of her fondest love;
Volumes of witching poesy she dreamed,
Morn, noon, and evening, as she bent above
His weary form, yet neither light nor bloom
Could tempt her footsteps from that dingy room.
Oft, when she heard his hollow cough, she wept
In the still midnight—how it wrung her heart!
Yea, she could hear it even when she slept,
And often wakened with a feverish start,
Beseeching God, in many a tearful prayer,
To ease the pain that she so longed to share.
Blithely she carolled when the morning sun
Rose o’er the alley like a blushing bride;
Or grave and silent, like some meek-faced nun,
Plied she her needle by the sufferer’s side—
And oh, it was so sweet to toil for him
Till her hands trembled, and her eyes grew dim!
Till from those weary hands her work would fall,
And her dim vision could distinguish nought
Save the black spiders crawling on the wall,
And the dead violets she herself had bought
With the few coppers she had stored away
From her poor scanty earnings day by day.
For when before the market-stall she stood,
Her little purse clasped tightly in her hand,
She needs must purchase—for each dewy bud
Seemed like a messenger from fairyland;
And well her fine poetic fancy knew
The sheltered places where the violets grew.
And when she raised them to her eager lips
With the pure rapture of a little child,
The dewdrops twinkled on their azure tips,
Till the young dreamer bent her face and smiled
With the sweet consciousness that they would bring
Into the meanest slum a breath of Spring.
Returning home, her joyous footsteps fell
Like the soft patter of the summer rain;
And oh, one weary sufferer knew it well,
And moaned a welcome from his bed of pain!
Close to his breast she crept, and kneeling there,
He twined the violets in her sunny hair.
Charmed from his fretful mood, the sufferer laid
One thin white hand upon her worn gray dress;
‘Dear child!’ he murmured, while the sunbeams played
At hide-and-seek amid each wandering tress,
‘Withdraw the blind—let in the rosy morn;
I too am grateful that the Spring is born!’
Fanny Forrester.
Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.
All Rights Reserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] We not unfrequently hear persons speaking of the House of Commons as though that assembly alone constituted the parliament of these realms. It should be borne in mind that parliament consists of the sovereign and both Houses of legislature.
[2] The union of the crowns of England and Scotland by the accession of James VI. of that country to the English throne as James I. in 1603, must not be confounded with the union of the two kingdoms themselves, one hundred and four years afterwards.
[3] In heraldry, the terms dexter and sinister are used for right and left; and the right of a shield is that which is on the left of the person looking at it, and vice versâ.
[4] Concluded from [page 156].