It was only a simple ballad,
Sung to a careless throng;
There were none that knew the singer,
And few that heeded the song;
Yet the singer's voice was tender
And sweet as with love untold;
Surely those hearts were hardened
That it left so proud and cold.
She sang of the wondrous glory
That touches the woods in spring,
Of the strange, soul-stirring voices
When "the hills break forth and sing;"
Of the happy birds low warbling
The requiem of the day,
And the quiet hush of the valleys
In the dusk of the gloaming gray.
And one in a distant corner—
A woman worn with strife—
Heard in that song a message
From the spring-time of her life.
Fair forms rose up before her
From the mist of vanished years;
She sat in a happy blindness,
Her eyes were veiled in tears.
Then, when the song was ended,
And hushed the last sweet tone,
The listener rose up softly
And went on her way alone
Once more to her life of labor
She passed; but her heart was strong;
And she prayed, "God bless the singer!
And oh, thank God for the song!"
THE BICYCLE RIDE.
BY JAMES CLARENCE HARVEY.
[Whether bicycle riding on Sunday be sinful or not, depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is done and the associations of the ride.]
You have read of the ride of Paul Revere,
And of Gilpin's ride, so fraught with fear;
Skipper Ireson's ride in a cart,
And the ride where Sheridan played a part;
Calendar's ride on a brazen hack,
And Islam's prophet on Al Borak;
The fateful ride to Aix from Ghent,
And a dozen others of like portent,
But you never have heard of a bicycle spin
Which was piously ended, though started in sin.
Tom was a country parson's son,
Fresh from college and full of fun,
Fond of flirting with bright-eyed girls,
Raving, in verse, over golden curls,
Sowing a wild oat, here and there,
In a way that made the parson stare
And chide him sternly, when face to face,
While, in private, he laughed at the young scape-grace.
But the wildest passion the boy could feel
Was the love he bore for his shining wheel.