Verses and Rhymes By the Way

by Norah

Rajotte stood spell-bound, and the past
Seemed fading like a horrid dream.
"Marie," he said, "I'm home at last,
Speak, Marie, are you what you seem?
After all these long years of pain,
Art thou love given to me again?"
The maiden stood with wondering eyes,
Silent, because of her surprise,
But the wife Marie gave a cry
Of joy that rose to agony
She rushed the long lost one to meet,
And falling, fainted at his feet
He held the true wife's pallid charms
Slowly reviving in his arms,
And then he surely learned to know
A little of the grand, true heart
That through so many years of woe
Waited, and prayed, and watched apart,
Keeping love's light while he was gone,
Like sacred fire still burning on

While hearts are bargained for and sold,
In fashion's fortune-chasing whirl,
We simply sing the love and faith
Out-living absence strong as death,
Of one low-born Canadian girl.

A LEGEND OF BUCKINGHAM VILLAGE.

PART I

Away up on the River aux Lievres,
That is foaming and surging always,
And from rock to rock leaping through rapids,
Which are curtained by showers of spray;

That is eddying, whirling and chasing
All the white swells that break on the shore;
And then dashing and thundering onward,
With the sound of a cataract's roar.

And up here is the Buckingham village,
Which is built on these waters of strife,
It was here that the minister Babin,
Stood and preached of the Gospel of Life,

Of the message of love and of mercy,
The glad tidings of freedom and peace,
Of help for the hopeless and helpless,
For all weary ones rest and relief.

Was his message all noise like the rapids?
Was it empty and light as the foam?
Ah me! what thought the desolate inmate
Of the still upper room of his home?

One too many, one sad and unwelcome,
That reclined in his invalid's chair,
With her pale, busy fingers still knitting
Yarn mingled with sorrow and care.