Morning At Spring Park.
Along the upland swell and wooded lawn
The aged farmer's voice is heard at dawn:
That well-known call across the dewy vale
Calls Spark and Daisy to the milking-pail.
The robin chirps; from farm to farm I hear
The bugle-note of wakeful chanticleer;
And far, far off, through grove and bosky dell,
The dreamy tinkle of sleek Snowflake's bell.
The huddling sheep, just loose from kindly fold,
Their nibbling way along the hill-side hold;
And timid squirrels and shy quails are seen
Flitting, unscared, across the shaded green.
The low horizon's dusky, violet blue
Is tinged with coming daylight's rosy hue,
Till o'er the golden fields of tasselled corn
Breaks all the rapture of the summer morn.
Through forest rifts the level sunbeams dart,
And gloomy nooks to sudden beauty start;
Those long, still lines which through rank foliage steal,
Undreamed-of charms among the woods reveal.
The yellow wheat-stooks catch the early light;
Far-nested homesteads gleam at once to sight;
While, from yon glimmering height, one spire serene
Points duly heavenward this terrestrial scene.
Long may the aged farmer's call be heard.
At dewy dawn, with song of matin bird.
Among his loving flocks and herds of kine,
A guileless master, watchful and benign.
And, when no more his agile footstep roves
These flowery pastures and these pleasant groves,
Good Shepherd, may thy call to fields more fair
Wean every thought from earth, make heaven his care!
Nellie Netterville; Or, One Of The Transplanted.
Chapter III.
"Set is the sun of the Netterville's glory!
Down in the dust its bright banners are trailing!
Hoarse in our anguish we whisper the story,
And men, as they listen, like women are wailing.
"Woe! woe to us—woe! we shall see him no more;
Our tears like the rains of November are flowing;
Woe! woe to us—woe! for the chief we deplore
Alone to his exile of sorrow is going.
"Alone?—not alone! for our dastardly foemen—
As cruel as base in the day of their power—
Have lifted their hands against maidens and women;
Uprooted the tree, and then trampled the flower.
"And so they have sent her to weep by strange waters—
The joy of our hearts and the light of our eyes—
The latest and fairest of Netterville's daughters,
In whom the last link of their destiny lies.
"Sad will be, mother, thy waking to-morrow!
Waking to weep o'er thy dove-rifled nest;
Widowed and childless—two-fold is thy sorrow.
And two-edged the sword that is lodged in thy breast.
"Well may we mourn her—when we too deplore her—
The vassals and serfs of thy conquering race;
If blood could but do it, our blood should restore her—
Restore her to thee and thy loving embrace.
"Yet not for her only, or thee, are we weeping;
We weep for our country, fast bound in that chain
Which in blood from her wrung heart the foeman is steeping,
Till it looks as if reddened and rusted by rain.
"Oh! when shall a leader to true hearts be given.
To fall on the stranger and force him to flee?
And when shall the shackles that bind her be riven?
And Erin stand up in her strength, and be free!"
So sung Hamish, the son of the last of the long line of minstrels who, with harp and voice, had recorded the triumphs of the house of Netterville, or mourned over the death or sorrow of its chieftains. For, in spite of the law by which it was strictly forbidden, the English of the Pale had persisted in the national custom of keeping a bard or minstrel—whose office was always, or almost always, hereditary—attached to their households; and in its palmy days of power the family of Netterville was far too jealous of its own importance not to have been always provided with a similar appendage. Its last recognized minstrel had fallen, however, in the same battle which had deprived Nellie of her father, and, Hamish being then too young to take up his father's office, the harp had ever since, literally as well as figuratively, hung mute and unstrung in the halls of Netterville. But grief and indignation over its utter ruin had unlocked at last the tide of poetry and song, ever ready to flow over in the Celtic breast, and Hamish felt himself changed into a bard upon the spot. Forgetting the presence of the English soldiers, or, more probably, exulting in the knowledge that they did not understand the language in which he gave expression to his feelings, he stepped out into the midst of the people, pouring forth his lamentations, stanza after stanza, with all the readiness and fire of a born improvisatore; and when at last he paused, more for want of breath than want of matter, the keeners took up the tale, and told, in their wild, wailing chant, of the goodness and greatness, the glory and honour of their departed chieftain and his heiress, precisely as they would have done had the twain over whom they were lamenting been that very day deposited in their graves. Up to this moment Mrs. Netterville had preserved in a marvellous degree that statue-like calmness of outward bearing which hid, and even at times belied, the workings of a heart full of generous emotions; but the wild wailing of the keeners broke down the artificial restraint she had put upon her conduct, and, unable to listen quietly to what seemed to her ears a positive prophecy of death to her beloved ones, she hastily reëntered the house and retreated to her own apartment. This was a small, dark chamber, which in happier times had been set apart as a quiet retreat for prayer and household purposes, but which now was the only one the mistress of the mansion could call her own—the soldiers having that very morning taken possession of all the others, devoting some of them to their own particular accommodation and locking up the others. It was, in fact, as a very singular and especial favour, and as some return for the kindness she had shown in nursing one of their number who had been taken suddenly ill on the night of their arrival, that the use even of this small chamber had been allowed her; for it was not the custom of Cromwell's army to deal too gently by the vanquished, and many of the "transplanted," as high-born and well-educated as she was, had been compelled, in similar circumstances, to retire to the outer offices of their own abode, while the rough soldiery who displaced them installed themselves in the luxurious apartments of the interior.