"Can I go up to Miss Axtell now?" I asked.
"In a moment, when Kate has shown Doctor Eaton out."
I picked up my powders and my illustrious book, and waited.
Kate came.
"The doctor says there's no need," she said, in her laconic way.
Kate, I afterwards learned, was the daughter of the farmer that Sophie heard Miss Axtell consoling for the loss of his wife, one day.
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MY DAPHNE.
My budding Daphne wanted scope To bourgeon all her flowers of hope. She felt a cramp around her root That crippled every outmost shoot. I set me to the kindly task; I found a trim and tidy cask, Shapely and painted; straightway seized The timely waif; and, quick released From earthen bound and sordid thrall, My Daphne sat there, proud and tall. Stately and tall, like any queen, She spread her farthingale of green; Nor stinted aught with larger fate, For that she was innately great. I learned, in accidental way, A secret, on an after-day,-- A chance that marked the simple change As something ominous and strange. And so, therefrom, with anxious care, Almost with underthought of prayer, As, day by day, my listening soul Waited to catch the coming roll Of pealing victory, that should bear My country's triumph on the air,-- I tended gently all the more The plant whose life a portent bore. The weary winter wore away, And still we waited, day by day; And still, in full and leafy pride, My Daphne strengthened at my side, Till her fair buds outburst their bars, And whitened gloriously to stars! Above each stalwart, loyal stem Rested their heavenly diadem, And flooded forth their incense rare, A breathing Joy, upon the air! Well might my backward thought recall The cramp, the hindrance, and the thrall, The strange release to larger space, The issue into growth and grace, And joyous hail the homely sign That so had spelled a hope divine! For all this life, and light, and bloom, This breath of Peace that blessed the room, Was born from out the banded rim, Once crowded close, and black, and grim, With grains that feed the Cannon's breath, And boom his sentences of death! |