Читать книгу Once Upon a Time and Other Child-Verses - Freeman Mary Eleanor Wilkins - Страница 10

BONNY sweet-marjoram was in flower,

The pinks had come with their spices

sweet;

Thro' the village sounded the Sabbath-bell,

And the reverent people flocked down the

street.

Little Elizabeth, prim and pale,

A decorous little Puritan maid,

Walked soberly up the meeting-house hill,

With a look on her face as if she prayed.

Her catechism was in her hand,

Unvexed was she by the scholar's art;

Her simple lesson she simply learned,

And loved the Father with all her heart.

Her little kerchief was white as snow,

Like a rose she looked in her Sunday gown

As she soberly climbed the meeting-house

hill,

With her pretty eyes east meekly down.

Little Elizabeth sat alone

In the queer old-fashioned oaken pew,

And earnestly on the parson bent

Her modest, innocent eyes of blue.

But, ah! the sermon was deep and long,

The parson spoke with a weary drone;

And she heard the honey-bees out of doors

Hum, in a drowsy monotone;

The very wind had a sleepy sound —

Little Elizabeth began to nod,

Though she told herself 'twas a dreadful thing

To fall asleep in the house of God.

"My fourthly is," the parson droned; —

"I pray the Lord my soul to keep,"

Mused little Elizabeth in a maze —

And then – ah me! she fell asleep.

The tithing-man crept down the aisle

In solemn state, with his awful rod,

To chide the folk in the meeting-house

Who dared to whisper, or smile, or nod.

Little Elizabeth soundly slept,

All by herself, in the oaken pew,

With the heavy gold-fringed eyelids drooped

Over her innocent eyes of blue.

Close to her tiptoed the tithing-man,

And over her reached his awful rod,

And poked the little Puritan maid

For falling asleep in the house of God.

Dear little Elizabeth, prim and pale!

How her poor heart jumped when she

woke and found

The dreaded tithing-man at her side,

And the queer poke-bonnets all turning

round!

Then she sat straight up in the old oak pew,

Grave and pale as a lily-flower;

But she thought the people all looked at her,

While all their eyes did lower and glower;

And, going home, she fancied the birds

Called back and forth, with a knowing nod:

"There's the little maid whom the tithing-

man

Caught fast asleep in the house of God."