246
MARY.
That, taught in our first childhood, we remember
When many a thing between escapes for ever.
Mary. Nay, not in childhood only, but in youth,—
The things that happened then so sweetly cross
Our spirits, that I sometimes think they lie
Within the heart, as when I was a girl
I used to lay the things I treasured most,
Strewed o'er with lavender and withered rose-leaves;
There was a hymn-tune that but yesternight
You hummed above my grandchild in its cradle,
The good old Psalm, " How sweet to dwell as Brethren
In kindness and in offices of love,"—
Oh! how it brought the pleasant Sundays back,
The Sundays when I used to sing it, sitting
By William, looking both on the same book:—
Here, one may say, 'tis evermore a Sabbath,
Like the World's first One, when its Maker looked
Upon his work and saw that it was good;
There are no work- day sounds within these woods;
Yet not so dear their deep unbroken silence,
As was the quiet of the Christian Sabbath:
The sweet unwonted stillness of the air
When those sounds ceased awhile, and man with them
Ceased from his labours, resting in the sight
Of Him that gave that blessed breathing time.
My father was a strict man in his duties;
Careful, it might be, anxious overmuch
For this world's substance, yet forgetting not
To seek the truer riches, well he wrought
When many a thing between escapes for ever.
Mary. Nay, not in childhood only, but in youth,—
The things that happened then so sweetly cross
Our spirits, that I sometimes think they lie
Within the heart, as when I was a girl
I used to lay the things I treasured most,
Strewed o'er with lavender and withered rose-leaves;
There was a hymn-tune that but yesternight
You hummed above my grandchild in its cradle,
The good old Psalm, " How sweet to dwell as Brethren
In kindness and in offices of love,"—
Oh! how it brought the pleasant Sundays back,
The Sundays when I used to sing it, sitting
By William, looking both on the same book:—
Here, one may say, 'tis evermore a Sabbath,
Like the World's first One, when its Maker looked
Upon his work and saw that it was good;
There are no work- day sounds within these woods;
Yet not so dear their deep unbroken silence,
As was the quiet of the Christian Sabbath:
The sweet unwonted stillness of the air
When those sounds ceased awhile, and man with them
Ceased from his labours, resting in the sight
Of Him that gave that blessed breathing time.
My father was a strict man in his duties;
Careful, it might be, anxious overmuch
For this world's substance, yet forgetting not
To seek the truer riches, well he wrought
