Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Marriage Vow

The Marriage Vow.

Speak it not lightly!—'tis a holy thing, A bond enduring through long distant years,When joy o'er thine abode is hovering, Or when thine eye is wet with bitterest tears,Recorded by an angel's pen on high,And must be questioned in eternity!

Speak it not lightly!—though the young and gay Are thronging round thee now with tones of mirth,Let not the holy promise of to-day Fade like the clouds that with the morn have birth;But ever bright and sacred may it be,Stored in the treasure-cell of memory.

Life will not prove all sunshine—there will come Dark hours for all—oh, will ye, when the nightOf sorrow gathers thickly round your home, Love, as ye did in times when calm and brightSeemed the sure path ye trod, untouched by care,And deemed the future, like the present, fair?

Eyes that now beam with health may yet grow dim, And cheeks of rose forget their early glow;Languor and pain assail each active limb, And lay, perchance, some worshipped beauty low:Then will ye gaze upon the altered browAnd love as fondly, faithfully, as now?

Should Fortune frown on your defenceless head, Should storms o'ertake your bark on life's dark sea,Fierce tempests rend the sail so gaily spread, When Hope her syren strain sang joyously:Will ye look up, though clouds your sky o'ercast,And say, Together we will bide the blast?

Age with its silvery locks comes stealing on, And brings the tottering step, the furrowed cheek,The eye from which each lustrous gleam hath gone, And the pale lip, with accents low and weak.Will ye then think upon your life's gay prime,And, smiling, bid Love triumph over Time?

Speak it not lightly! Oh! beware, beware! 'Tis no vain promise, no unmeaning word,Lo! men and angels list the faith ye swear, And by the High and Holy One 'tis heard.Oh then kneel humbly at His altar now,And pray for strength to keep the marriage vow!