The fair of face, and the stout of limb,
Meek maids and grandsires hoary,
Who have sung on the cross their rapturous hymn,
As they passed to their doom of glory;
Their radiant fame is never dim,
Nor their names erased from story.
Time spares the stone where sleep the dead
With angels watching round them;
The mourner’s grief is comforted
As he looks on the chains that bound them;
And peace is shed on the murderer’s head,
And he kisses the thorns that crowned them
Such tales he told; and the pilgrim heard
In a trance of voiceless pleasure;
For the depths of his inmost soul was stirred
By the sad and solemn measure:
“I give thee my blessing,” was his word,
“It is all I have of treasure!”—
A little child came bounding by;
And he, in a fragrant bower,
Had found a gorgeous butterfly,
Rare spoil for a nursery dower,
Which with fierce step and eager eye
He chased from flower to flower.
“Come hither, come hither,” ’gan Florice call;
And the urchin left his fun:
So from the hall of poor Sir Paul
Retreats the baffled dun;
So Ellen parts from the village ball,
Where she leaves a heart half won.
Then Florice did the child caress,
And sang his sweetest songs:
Their theme was of the gentleness
Which to the soul belongs,
Ere yet it knows the name or dress
Of human rights and wrongs;
And of the wants which make agree
All parts of this vast plan;
How life is in whate’er we see,
And only life in man;
What matter where the less may be,
And where the longer span?
And how the heart grows cold without
Soft Pity’s freshening dews;
And how when any life goes out
Some little pang ensues:—
Facts which great soldiers often doubt,
And wits who write reviews.
Oh, song hath power o’er Nature’s springs,
Though deep the Nymph has laid them!
The child gazed—gazed on gilded wings
As the next bright breeze displayed them;
But he felt the while that the meanest things
Are dear to Him that made them!
The sun went down behind the hill,
The breeze was growing colder;
But there the Minstrel lingered still,
And amazed the chance beholder,
Musing beside a rippling rill
With a harp upon his shoulder.