THE LADY'S YES.
"Yes!" I answered you last night—
"No'!" this morning, sir, I say;
Colors seen by candlelight,
Cannot look the same by day.
When the tabors played their best,
And the dancers were not slow,
"Love me" sounded like a jest,
Fit for "yes" or fit for "no."
Thus the sin is on us both;
Was the dance a time to woo?
Wooer light makes fickle troth—
Scorn of me recoils on you.
Learn to win a lady's faith
Nobly, as the thing is high—
Bravely, as in fronting death,
With a virtuous gravity.
Lead her from the painted boards—
Point her to the starry skies—
Guard her by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.
By your truth she shall be true—
Ever true, as wives of yore,
And her "yes" once said to you,
Shall be yes for evermore.
THE RECORD OF DECEMBER.
BY HENRY MORFORD.
Write—with the finger of the angel-born,
Upon the tablet of the human soul,
That old December, wearied and outworn,
Drags on his failing footsteps to the goal.
Write—that the Christmas bells ring on till morn
Peace and eternal pardon to the whole,
And I, before I drop my farewell tear,
Must lay December's closing record here.
Write—for I weary; Age with failing thought
Forgets the triumph of his younger days—
Forgets the changes that himself has wrought—
Forgets the lip that tuned to woman's praise—
Forgets in summer how his fingers brought
Fresh flowers in olden time for manhood's ways,
Forgets all pleasure save an old man's word,
To think of bygone sorrows and record.
Write—ere he passes—even now they come
With wailing harps and wreaths of withered flowers,
To bind his brows and bear him to his home
Amid the multitude of buried hours—
A moment's respite ere his senses numb
And the death throe seals up his mental powers;
He shall not die, e'en in his age and dearth,
Without a legacy of good to earth.
His course has been with manhood, and his name
Has changed with human years—we yet recall
How bounding onward at the first he came,
And trembled wearily unto his fall—
How in his noon of life his strength was flame,
Spurning the very hand that gave him all,
How day by day and month by month he changed,
Till Time on old December is avenged.
The air he breathes is but ingratitude
From each unto the other—from the air
Unto the Giver of Eternal Good,
And from man to the years unceasing care.
Spirit to spirit on the moving flood,
And demon unto demon in his lair,
Jarring with discord, scarcely yet set free
From the kind measure of God's harmony.
And so he gave unto the sons of men
Last winter, snow, and ice, and driving sleet,
And the cold winds, each from his northern den,
Strewed wrecks of forest branches at our feet.
Old trees all naked shivered in the glen,
And houseless wretches shivered in the street—
It was the time when poor and cold mankind
Should know the welcome of a generous mind.
Few read the lesson—there was passing by
Of squalid poverty by gilded pride,
Wealth from the needy turned away his eye,
Rich doors to richer guests were opened wide—
Pity sought out a fancy scene to sigh
And gave not burial to the poor who died—
Beside the gourmand with his food opprest,
Mothers hugged starving infants to the breast.
Oh, not for this came winter, not for this
Rolled out the storm clouds from the northern zone,
There was a hope that gay luxurious bliss
Would not be happy in itself alone:
There was a hope that wealth might stoop to kiss
Lips paler with cold sorrow than its own—
There was a hope that severed things might blend,
And man, the selfish, soften to the friend.
The old man was but young, but thankless hearts
They say are "sharper than the adder's tooth,"
And ere the Spring came, by inhuman arts
The marble forehead was no longer smooth;
Cold blasts of scorn repaid him his deserts,
Bitter forebodings grew too often sooth,
At twenty years, they say, who knew him then,
He had grown sadder than old withered men.
Spring lay upon the garden—from his hand
Showered the blossoms and the springing buds,
The songsters sang tales of a summer land,
And a new music lived upon the floods:
And o'er the scene there waved a magic wand,
And watched the spirit of the fields and woods,
Laying in golden promise on the earth
Beauties that mocked him in their very birth.
The buds of spring grew withered in his grasp,
The thorns lay hid beneath the rose's leaf,
Leaving a poison deeper than the asp,
Long as the memory of corroding grief.
Rude hands tore off the petals, to unclasp
Too soon the fullness of a lot so brief—
There was ingratitude in bud and flower,
And rude unkindness in man's thankless power.
And all the summer long the rays he gave,
To cheer the weary sons of sweat and toil,
Flashed back with blistering brightness from the wave,
And burned like molten lava from the soil.
And vainly oft the giver came to crave
A shelter from the burning heat the while,
Beneath the bending vines the welcome fled,
And yellow harvest seldom crowned his head.
They knew not, as he pressed the table seat,
That he alone had spread the groaning board,
They cared not that the master came to eat
Where one small blessing glittered from his hoard;
They knew not, cared not, how the angel's feet
Have trodden in the steps of good restored—
The furrows deepened on the old man's brow,
And sadly humankind had sped the plough.
Autumn grew brown upon the teeming zone,
Lo! here at last he should forget his pain
Amid the mellow fruits around them thrown,
With garners brimful of the golden grain,
Men should look smiling to the giver's throne,
And gentle peace sit on the loaded wain—
There was a discord when the year began,
That jarred the wider as the circle ran.
The wheat-sheaf grew into the curse of life,
And from the stalk the burning pain distilled—
The orchard mast with the dark bane was rife,
Pouring out poison as the master willed.
The purple wine-grape reddened into strife,
And in its shadow man by man was killed—
Poison, dark poison, rankled in the cup,
Pressed to his lips foredoomed to drink it up.
So should the blessing of the fields and woods
Be moulded into curses? think it not!
Cold and unfeeling man's ingratitude,
Who to the season gave back such a lot,
To drink the cup gemmed with a poison flood,
And bitter with the felon's loathsome blot;
Oh deeply on our bosoms rests the stain
That never years shall wash away again.
The wail of autumn winds was on the air,
That played with forest trunks as little things;
The demons of the storm, each from his lair,
Shot forth and hissed upon the tempest wings;
Rent from the old man's head the scanty hair,
Sung on the north wind as the cordage sings:
Little they spared him in their giant course,
The whirling winds that owed him all their force.
Again 't is winter, to the sons of men
Come forth the snow and wind and driving sleet—
Again the storm-cloud lowers o'er the glen.
Again the branches shiver at our feet.
Faint and uncovered, over moor and fen,
The weary man has come his doom to meet,
The storms of winter beat upon his head,
The record of his failing time is read.
Chill to his heart strikes in the northern blast,
Ending the season as the year began;
December hastens to his final rest,
Friendless by the dark cruelty of man.
E'en now, while to his death-couch he is prest,
A wail rings round his head so pale and wan,
And withered flowers are ready for his bier,
That mock the dying with his past career.
His course has been with manhood, and his end
Is fitting for a type of humankind,
Around whose heavy head the laggard friend
The veil of useless pity comes to bind.
The dirge of his departure shall ascend
From those who scarce recalled his life to mind,
The tide of life above his grave rolls on,
And few remember he is dead and gone.
December passes, in the opening sky
Of the new year's first morning breaks a star,
The record he has left us here shall lie
Beside us when his form is borne afar.
Bending above his last farewell, I sigh
That he has left us, ingrate as we are,
And turning to the New Year, I behold
A new-born spirit throned upon the old.
