"On either hand
Rose steep and barren mountains—mighty cliffs
Cragged and chasm'd and over-grown with thorns;
And on the topmost peak a golden throne
Blazoned with burning characters that read—
'Climb'—it is yours.' Not far above the vale
I saw a youth, fair-browed and raven-haired,
Clambering among the thorns and ragged rocks;
And from his brow with torn and bleeding hand
He wiped great drops of sweat. Down through the vale
I saw a rapid river, broad and deep,
Winding in solemn silence to the sea—
The sea all mist and fog. Lo as I stood
Viewing the river and the moaning sea,
A sail—and then another—flitted down
And plunged into the mist. A moment more,
Like shapeless shadows of the by-gone years,
I saw them in the mist and they were gone—
Gone!—and the sea moaned on and seemed to say—
'Gone—and forever!'—So I gladly turned
To look upon the throne—the blazoned throne
That sat upon the everlasting cliff.
The throne had vanished!—Lo where it had stood,
A bed of ashes and a gray-haired man
Sitting upon it bowed and broken down.
And so the vision passed.
"The rising sun
Beamed full upon my face and wakened me,
And there beside me lay my pet—the lamb—
Gazing upon me with his wondering eyes,
And all the fields were bright and beautiful,
And brighter seemed the world. I rose resolved.
I let the cottage and disposed of all;
The lamb went bleating to a neighbor's field;
And oft my heart ached, but I mastered it.
This was the constant burden of my brain—
'Beggar!'—I'll teach him that I am a man;
I'll speak and he shall listen; I will rise,
And he shall see my course as I go up
Round after round the ladder of success.
Even as the pine upon the mountain-top
Towers o'er the maple on the mountain-side,
I'll tower above him. Then will I look down
And call him Father:—He shall call me Son.'
"Thus hushing my sad heart the day drew nigh
Of parting, and the promised sign was given.
The night was dismal darkness—not one star
Twinkled in heaven; the sad, low-moaning wind
Played like a mournful harp among the pines.
I groped and listened through the darkling grove,
Peering with eager eyes among the trees,
And calling as I peered with anxious voice
One darling name. No answer but the moan
Of the wind-shaken pines. I sat me down
Under the dusky shadows waiting for her,
And lost myself in gloomy reverie.
Dim in the darksome shadows of the night,
While thus I dreamed, my darling came and crept
Beneath the boughs as softly as a hare,
And whispered 'Paul'—and I was at her side.
We sat upon a mound moss-carpeted—
No eyes but God's upon us, and no voice
Spake to us save the moaning of the pines.
Few were the words we spoke; her silent tears,
Our clasping, trembling, lingering embrace,
Were more than words. Into one solemn hour,
Were pressed the fears and hopes of coming years.
Two tender hearts that only dared to hope
There swelled and throbbed to the electric touch
Of love as holy as the love of Christ.
She gave her picture and I gave a ring—
My mother's—almost with her latest breath
She gave it me and breathed my darling's name.
I girt her finger, and she kissed the ring
In solemn pledge, and said:
"'I bring a gift—
The priceless gift of God unto his own:
O may it prove a precious gift to you,
As it has proved a precious gift to me;
And promise me to read it day by day—
Beginning on the morrow—every day
A chapter—and I too will read the same.'
"I took the gift—a precious gift indeed—
And you may see how I have treasured it.
Here, Captain, put your hand upon my breast—
An inner pocket—you will find it there."
I opened the bloody blouse and thence drew forth
The Book of Christ all stained with Christian blood.
He laid his hand upon the holy book,
And closed his eyes as if in silent prayer.
I held his weary head and bade him rest.
He lay a moment silent and resumed:
"Let me go on if you would hear the tale;
I soon shall sleep the sleep that wakes no more.
O there were promises and vows as solemn
As Christ's own promises; but as we sat
The pattering rain-drops fell among the pines,
And in the branches the foreboding owl
With dismal hooting hailed the coming storm.
So in that dreary hour and desolate
We parted in the silence of our tears.
"And on the morrow morn I bade adieu
To the old cottage home I loved so well—
The dear old cottage home where I was born.
Then from my mother's grave I plucked a rose
Bursting in bloom—Pauline had planted it—
And left my little hill-girt boyhood world.
I journeyed eastward to my journey's end;
At first by rail for many a flying mile,
By mail-coach thence from where the hurrying train
Leaps a swift river that goes tumbling on
Between a village and a mountain-ledge,
Chafing its rocky banks. There seethes and foams
The restless river round the roaring rocks,
And then flows on a little way and pours
Its laughing waters into a bridal lap.
Its flood is fountain-fed among the hills;
Far up the mossy brooks the timid trout
Lie in the shadow of vine-tangled elms.
Out from the village-green the roadway leads
Along the river up between the hills,
Then climbs a wooded mountain to its top,
And gently winds adown the farther side
Unto a valley where the bridal stream
Flows rippling, meadow-flower-and-willow-fringed,
And dancing onward with a merry song,
Hastes to the nuptials. From the mountain-top—
A thousand feet above the meadowy vale—
She seems a chain of fretted silver wound
With artless art among the emerald hills.
Thence up a winding valley of grand views—
Hill-guarded—firs and rocks upon the hills,
And here and there a solitary pine
Majestic—silent—mourns its slaughtered kin,
Like the last warrior of some tawny tribe
Returned from sunset mountains to behold
Once more the spot where his brave fathers sleep.
The farms along the valley stretch away
On either hand upon the rugged hills—
Walled into fields. Tall elms and willow-trees
Huge-trunked and ivy-hung stand sentinel
Along the roadway walls—storm-wrinkled trees
Planted by men who slumber on the hills.
Amid such scenes all day we rolled along,
And as the shadows of the western hills
Across the valley crept and climbed the slopes,
The sunset blazed their hazy tops and fell
Upon the emerald like a mist of gold.
And at that hour I reached my journey's end.
The village is a gem among the hills—
Tall, towering hills that reach into the blue.
One grand old mountain-cone looms on the left
Far up toward heaven, and all around are hills.
The river winds among the leafy hills
Adown the meadowy dale; a shade of elms
And willows fringe it. In this lap of hills
Cluster the happy homes of men content
To let the great world worry as it will.
The court-house park, the broad, bloom-bordered streets,
Are avenues of maples and of elms—
Grander than Tadmor's pillared avenue—
Fair as the fabled garden of the gods.
Beautiful villas, tidy cottages,
Flower gardens, fountains, offices and shops,
All nestle in a dreamy wealth of woods.
"Kind hearts received me. All that wealth could bring—
Refinement, luxury and ease—was theirs;
But I was proud and felt my poverty,
And gladly mured myself among the books
To master 'the lawless science of the law.'
I plodded through the ponderous commentaries—
Some musty with the mildew of old age;
And these I found the better for their years,
Like olden wine in cobweb-covered flasks.
The blush of sunrise found me at my books;
The midnight cock-crow caught me reading still;
And oft my worthy master censured me:
'A time for work,' he said, 'a time for play;
Unbend the bow or else the bow will break.'
But when I wearied—needing sleep and rest—
A single word seemed whispered in my ear—
'Beggar,' it stung me to redoubled toil.
I trod the ofttimes mazy labyrinths
Of legal logic—mined the mountain-mass
Of precedents conflicting—found the rule,
Then branched into the exceptions; split the hair
Betwixt this case and that—ran parallels—
Traced from a 'leading case' through many tomes
Back to the first decision on the 'point,'
And often found a pyramid of law
Built with bad logic on a broken base
Of careless 'dicta;'—saw how narrow minds
Spun out the web of technicalities
Till common sense and common equity
Were strangled in its meshes. Here and there
I came upon a broad, unfettered mind
Like Murray's—cleaving through the spider-webs
Of shallower brains, and bravely pushing out
Upon the open sea of common sense.
But such were rare. The olden precedents—
Oft stepping-stones of tyranny and wrong—
Marked easy paths to follow, and they ruled
The course of reason as the iron rails
Rule the swift wheels of the down-thundering train.
"I rose at dawn. First in this holy book
I read my chapter. How the happy thought
That my Pauline would read—the self-same morn
The self-same chapter—gave the sacred text,
Though I had heard my mother read it oft,
New light and import never seen before.
For I would ponder over every verse,
Because I felt that she was reading it,
And when I came upon dear promises
Of Christ to man, I read them o'er and o'er,
Till in a holy and mysterious way
They seemed the whisperings of Pauline to me.
Later I learned to lay up for myself
'Treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust
Corrupteth, and where thieves do not break through,
Nor steal'—and where my treasures all are laid
My heart is, and my spirit longs to go.
O friend, if Jesus was but man of man—
And if indeed his wondrous miracles
Were mythic tales of priestly followers
To chain the brute till Reason came from heaven—
Yet was his mission unto man divine.
Man's pity wounds, but Jesus' pity heals:
He gave us balm beyond all earthly balm;
He gave us strength beyond all human strength;
He taught us love above the low desires;
He taught us hope beyond all earthly hope;
He taught us charity wherewith to build
From out the broken walls of barbarism,
The holy temple of the perfect man.
"On every Sabbath-eve I wrote Pauline.
Page after page was burdened with my love,
My glowing hopes of golden days to come,
And frequent boast of rapid progress made.
With hungry heart and eager I devoured
Her letters; I re-read them twenty times.
At morning when I laid the Gospel down
I read her latest answer, and again
At midnight by my lamp I read it over,
And murmuring 'God bless her,' fell asleep
To dream that I was with her under the pines.