Читать книгу Carols of Canada, Etc., Etc - E. S. MacLeod - Страница 14

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The light of love o'er her features played,

The silver streaks through her bright hair strayed.

Her noble mien and her gentle hand

Proclaimed her daughter of no mean land.

Voice and action attested her birth,

Better than mere gilt baubles of earth.

Winter had folded its shroud and fled;

The daisies peeped from their grassy bed.

The dark mounds rose from their circling green;

Young plants smiled back to the bright'ning sheen.

No wealth of splendor, yet choice as gold

Those gifts from hands of the loved of old.

Hands which will clasp my hand nevermore

Till feet stand firm on the tideless shore.

Careless young Playful had oped the gate;

Hastening footsteps, that could not wait,

Had sped where playtime and boyhood meet;

The gate, forgot, swung ope from the street,

From the highway where the cattle roam,

And Arabs find their kindliest home.

The gate might swing till the twilight hours;

Meantime, alack for the tender flowers!

II.

Came she, 'mid the many passers by;

Quick of the wit and clear of the eye.

She, of the high-bred, Christian school,

Soul-lit and sunned of the golden rule.

Questioned she whether! halted she long!

Qualms of propriety right no wrong.

Yield form and fashion their fitting place;

Yet, cramp not the soul in meaner space.

Hence to marauders, and riskings of fate,

She quietly closed—then latched the gate.

Trumpet bequests of the miser-mind,

Who spreads abroad when he cannot bind.

Boast ye those deeds which blazon the name,

Lofty as adamant heights of Fame.

Dawning of glory! the world's great heart

Throbs not its truest response to art.

Nor skill, nor fame, nor glamour of gold;

Only Love's chain doth the world enfold.

And those who will soar on angel wings,

Are the generous even in smaller things.

Generous when shadows darken fate,

To close 'gainst evil a neighbor's gate.