I WAIT.
I wait—watching and weary, I wait;
You wander from the way!
My heart lies open, however late,
However you delay!
I wait—watching and weary, I wait;
But day must dawn at last!
Together, beyond the reach of fate,
Love shall redeem my past.
I wait, ah! forever I can wait;
Forever? I am brave:
Time can not fathom a love so great—
It waits beyond the grave!
TAKING THE CENSUS.
Moses Grant sat in his vine-grown arbor one fine afternoon in August. A fine afternoon, I call it—a little sultry, to be sure, which made Moses Grant's eyes heavy; but the hum of the bees that played around the white clover-blossoms, and the sound of the leaves as they rustled in the warm wind, and the richly colored clouds that floated around in the deep, deep blue of the summer sky, and a thousand other things which I will not pause to note, but which every observing reader has noted on many an August day, made the afternoon I speak of as glorious as any afternoon could be in all our glorious summer.
Moses Grant's eyes were heavy—or eye-lids, if the reader should be a critic. He had brought a book from his daughter's book-case. He remembered the volume—it was called A Book of a Thousand Stories—as the one his daughter Mary read aloud one evening, when the witty turns of speech put all the company into the best of humor. But, somehow, the wit had now lost its point—the joke had lost its zest—and let him try as he would to collect his scattered thoughts, and let him set his eyes on his book never so firmly, his fancy would go on long journeys into the past, and come back again, wearied more and more with each journey, till at last it had sunk to rest, and Moses Grant's eyes were closed. The bees buzzed on, the leaves quivered as before, and the great world moved in its wonted way, yet our hero did not heed it; the world moved on just the same, O reader! as it will one day move—one long, long day—when you and I will not heed it.
Suddenly Moses Grant heard his name spoken. When aroused, he saw his neighbor, Johnson, seated in the rustic chair that mated the one in which he himself sat.
'Good-day, neighbor Johnson,' said Moses Grant. 'What in the world are you doing with that great book?'
'I am taking the census.' And he began turning the leaves as if searching for a lost place, remarking, laconically: 'Sultry.'
'Yes, a very close afternoon. But is it ten years since the census was taken? It seems but as many months. Oh! well, time flies!'
And he looked at the beautiful sky and at the beautiful landscape, and lingeringly at his own stately mansion, guarded by venerable trees that his own hand had transplanted from the forest—and the great truth, half-realized, yet almost as common as our daily life, that time was sweeping all things into the dead past, day by day and year by year, gave him a passing thought of how much he loved them.
The name of Moses Grant was duly inscribed in the book. Then the question was asked by neighbor Johnson:
'When were you born?'
'In the year 1800—sixty years ago the day before yesterday—though I declare I forgot all about my birthday.'
'Well, how much real estate shall I set down to you?'
'I have said that I owned about fifty thousand dollars in that kind of property, perhaps a little more, but not half as much as some persons estimate.'
'Well, how much personal property?'
'I guess about twenty thousand will not go far out of the way, reckoning mortgages and all.'
After a few minutes, which neighbor Johnson occupied by telling how Sime Jones tried to get the appointment of census-taker by wriggling about in an undignified way, and in talking about the prospects of his political party, the visitor left the old man, (such we have a right to call him since he has confessed his age,) and the old man (he would not thank us for using the term so often, for he tries to think he is still young—the old man, I must again repeat) fell a thinking. His eyes were no longer closed, although his book was; he leaned forward in his rustic chair, and commenced to talk aloud—which is said to be a growing habit with most old men:
'Sixty years of human life!' The words were uttered slowly, as though their full meaning were felt in the speaker's heart. After a little while they were repeated: 'Sixty years of human life!' There was a mournfulness in his voice now; it had sunk to the low, tender tones that, years before, when his faithful wife vanished from earth, revealed to all his friends that there was sadness in his heart, while there seemed cheerfulness in his words. 'Welladay!' he continued; 'I have, at any rate, been a successful man. My business has prospered beyond my expectations, and I am what people call a rich man. There was a time when I feared I should come to want; but now, if I could but think so, I have enough. And mine has been an industrious life. When I was elected to the State Senate wasn't my name held up in the newspapers as an example for young men? Wasn't my reputation admitted to be spotless? Yes, I have been a successful man—more successful than nearly all who started with me.'
And he began to look more cheerful and contented. He again looked at his mansion and broad fields, and again he opened his book. The jokes were better now than a little while before.
But the bees buzzed on; the trees sang their old soothing song; the air remained warm; and soon Moses Grant began to nod assent to his book, though the matters it contained were not of opinion, but of fancy. By which I mean that he grew sleepy.
Sudden darkness fell upon the earth. The sun, after sending its rays to glitter in the river so brightly that Moses Grant put his hand over his eyes as he looked from his arbor-door, went out, and the blackness of night wrapped itself about the world. The elms, that had rattled their deep green leaves in the wind, and the birch, that had so gracefully bowed its slender, yellowish head, were all colorless now. There was no storm-cloud to veil the heavens, and yet the sad-faced moon came not out to remind the world of their lost loves and deferred hopes—nor the stars, to twinkle in their silence, as though there were a great Soul in the skies that longed to speak to men, but had no utterance save a thousand love-lit eyes. All was darkness—dense, universal.
Yet Moses Grant had sat unmoved in his vine-grown arbor. His soul was passionless, his face was calm. His book had fallen to the ground, and his head rested on the back of his chair.
Suddenly there came a visitor to the arbor. Moses raised his head and saw a being—whether man or woman I can not tell—with a face, oh! so bright and calm, with eyes that looked from the deepest soul, and a pure forehead that spoke of unworldly rest—a face that shone in its own vista of light when all around was dark. The Presence bore an open book in its hands, and came and stood before Moses Grant and looked earnestly into his face.
'Who are you?' he cried, half in fear, before the calm look of his visitor, and half in confidence, because of the look of love.
'I am the census-taker.'
'No, no; it was he who came a little while ago.'
'He was one census-taker—he came to learn how much you seemed to possess; I come to learn your real possessions. I am the real census-taker.'
Moses Grant knew not what it meant; he sat speechless, in wonder. He would have fled, but he knew not where he could flee in the darkness; he must remain with his strange visitor, as all men must one day stand alone with an awakened Conscience.
'When were you born?' asked the Presence.
'Sixty years ago,' answered Moses.
'You understand me not. I do not ask for the time when you were born into your outward show of life, but when you commenced to live.'
'Still I do not know your meaning,' said Moses.
'Then you have not yet been born. You exist—you do not live. Say not again that you have lived sixty years, for your being has not yet expanded into life.'
Oh! what great thoughts and dark memories came into the mind of Moses Grant! Great thoughts of a nobler life of love than he had ever known—of realities to which he was fast approaching—and a thousand dark memories that he had often tried to obliterate from his mind. A little while before, he thought he possessed a spotless reputation—and so he did possess a spotless reputation when judged by human law. No man ever knew him to steal; no man ever knew him to transgress any important law. Nevertheless, he had had his own ends to gain, and he had gained them. Yes—we might as well confess it—Moses Grant had lived a selfish life. He knew how to take advantage of the technicalities of law, and he knew how to be severe and unmerciful toward the poor. He remembered how, years before, his son had longed for an education, and how the mother had pleaded that he might go to school and to college, and how sternly he said, 'No, I want him in my business;' and he remembered how he kept him slaving at his uncongenial tasks, how he scolded because he still pored over his books, until at last the mother had laid the poor boy in the grave before he had attained to manhood. He remembered how the mother grew paler day by day—she who had been such a help-meet in all his selfish schemes of hoarding and saving; how she had talked more and more about her 'dear lost boy,' till he, Moses Grant, commanded her never to utter that name again in his presence; how the mother still faded and faded, till at last she too, was laid in a quiet grave beside her boy. All this came into the mind of Moses Grant. And then he remembered how he had taken a poor widow's cottage, because his mortgage-deed gave him the privilege—he never thought the right—to take it; he remembered her sad face, that told of silent suffering, when she moved with her children from the cottage her husband had built. 'How,' he asked, in the silence of his own mind, 'oh! how could they say my reputation was unspotted?' Yet he had transgressed no outward law, had forged no mortgage-deed. He only acted like a man who thought that this world could only be enjoyed when he possessed a title-deed to it all; like one who thought that above and beyond this world there was nothing.
All this time has the Presence stood before Moses Grant, looking into his troubled face with its piercing eyes, and reading his every thought.
'Answer me now,' it said, 'have you yet begun to live?'
Then there was another and greater struggle in the mind of Moses. Pride said to him: 'Send this intrusive visitor away, or flee yourself.' But still the visitor stood there, waiting so calmly, and again Moses realized that the great world had faded from his vision; so he could neither send away the intruder, nor fly himself. Still those calm eyes looked into his inmost soul.
'Oh!' he cried at last, 'you have searched me through and through. No, I have not lived—I have not been born, I have no life for you to record in your book. Now, pray leave me—leave me in peace!'
'That were impossible,' said the Presence, 'you know not peace. You pride yourself on your possessions; but how can you have life or possessions, if they are not recorded in my book? The earth, that you love so well, has faded away. It will return to you for a brief moment, and then it will fade forever. What you now possess is but a shadow, like a sun-gilt cloud in a summer sky—changing and changing, and fading and fading, till at last it disappears. You have, if God wills, a few more years of mortal existence, and then, oh! then, you must exchange shadows for realities.'
'Leave me, oh! leave me!' cried Moses.
'Not yet; my mission is not fulfilled. Here in this book your name was written sixty years age, as one to be born. Here your ledger has been kept, though you knew it not. Read the pages with your soul, and see how your account stands.'
Oh! how dark the page. A line was drawn through the middle, from top to bottom, and the good deeds were recorded on one side, in letters of gold, and the bad deeds on the other side in letters of ink. As the pages were turned, Moses looked eagerly for the bright letters, but they were few—too few; while every page was almost filled with the black records of selfish and sinful deeds. Every page made Moses Grant sicker at heart, and he would gladly have withdrawn his eyes from the book, but they were riveted, and he could not.
'O poor man!' exclaimed the Presence, in pity; 'how poor do you find yourself, you who were a little while ago so rich! But you must read no more, lest you sink in despair.'
And the book was closed. Moses Grant said not a word; his heart was too full to speak—too full of grief—too empty of hope.
'Despair not,' continued the strange Presence. 'Your record is not yet completed. You may yet cancel all those black letters by writing golden ones over them—which is to pray with your remaining strength and days for forgiveness. You have been a hard, selfish man, for sixty years. Men, for their own interests, have called you respectable; but before God you have merited displeasure and disapprobation. In the little time you have left, perhaps you may not be able to leave the world as pure as you began it; but you may hope for wonderful mercy and forbearance from God our Father. Have courage, and faith, and hope, and you will yet be rich indeed—rich in love and joy and peace undefiled, that fadeth not away.'
Then the Presence vanished. Still Moses sat in his chair. But a hand was laid on his forehead, and he awoke as he heard Mary say: 'Father, supper is ready.' He drew his hand across his eyes, and arose from his chair. He looked from his arbor-door. The world was all bathed in the light of the declining sun. As he came out and looked on the landscape, he thought that never before had he seen it so dreamy—never before had he seen it so beautiful and so glorious, for never before had he so felt the use of this world as a place in which to attain to the good and to shun the evil, to overcome temptation and to aspire to life.
His daughter wondered what caused his tone to be so tender that night; the next day his neighbors wondered that he visited a certain poor, struggling widow, and gave her the house her husband once owned; and in the months that have since passed, many a poor family has wondered what has turned their former oppressor into such a provident friend.
I only wonder that so old and selfish a man could have had so bright and heavenly a dream.