Читать книгу Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing - Arthur Timothy Shay - Страница 11

HER words were few, without pretence

To tricks of courtly eloquence,

But full of pure and simple thought,

And with a guileless feeling fraught,

And said in accents which conferred

Poetic charm on household word.

She needed not to speak, to be

The best loved of the company—

She did her hands together press

With such a child-like gracefulness;

And such a sweet tranquillity

Upon her silent lips did lie,

And such unsullied purity

In the blue heaven of her eye.

She moved among us like to one

Who had not lived on earth alone;

But felt a dim, mysterious sense

Of a more stately residence,

And seemed to have a consciousness

Of an anterior happiness—

To hear, at times, the echoes sent

From some unearthly instrument

With half-remembered voices blent—

And yet to hold the friendships dear,

And prize the blessings of our sphere—

In sweet perplexity to know

Which of the two was dreamy show,

The dark green earth, the deep blue skies,

The love which shone in mortal eyes,

Or those faint recollections, telling

Of a more bright and tranquil dwelling.

We could not weep upon the day

When her pure spirit passed away;

We thought we read the mystery

Which in her life there seemed to be—

That she was not our own, but lent

To us little while, and sent

An angel child, what others preach

Of heavenly purity, to teach,

In ways more eloquent than speech—

And chiefly by that raptured eye

Which seemed to look beyond the sky,

And that abstraction, listening

To hear the choir of seraphs sing.

We thought that death did seem to her

Of long-lost joy the harbinger—

Like an old household servant, come

To take the willing scholar home;

The school-house, it was very dear,

But then the holidays were near;

And why should she be lingering here?

Softly the servant bore the child

Who at her parting turned and smiled,

And looked back to us, till the night

For ever hid her from our sight.