MARY.
249
Old friends as we had known each other all our lives;
And if you still will talk to me like one,
I will put off my journey till to-morrow,
Just for the sake of hearing you: for I
Had once a home like yours, and there is still
A chain between my heart and it that seems
To tighten with each word that you are speaking.
Mary. Ours was a pleasant farm: a sudden turning
In a deep lane of hawthorn, white in summer
With flowering elder, brought you where it lay
Shut in among its close-clipped beechen hedges,
Just like a place forgotten by the world;
It was a sunny spot, and all around it
A kind of cheerful stillness, broken only
By noises that had in their very sound
A sort of quietness, because they told
That there were none but harmless creatures near;
And all without us, all within, was quiet,
For ours was a grave house; my mother died
When we were young; my father, as I said,
Was a strict man, though kind, or meaning kindly,
Yet in his serious aspect and slow speech
Was something that rebuked our childish mirth.
We loved him as he loved his heavenly Father,
Not with the perfect love that casts out fear.
God's word was honoured in our house; we came,
My father loved to tell us, of a stock
That prized it so, they left their homes that were
In foreign parts, and gave up trades and calling,
Going, like Abraham, they knew not whither,
And if you still will talk to me like one,
I will put off my journey till to-morrow,
Just for the sake of hearing you: for I
Had once a home like yours, and there is still
A chain between my heart and it that seems
To tighten with each word that you are speaking.
Mary. Ours was a pleasant farm: a sudden turning
In a deep lane of hawthorn, white in summer
With flowering elder, brought you where it lay
Shut in among its close-clipped beechen hedges,
Just like a place forgotten by the world;
It was a sunny spot, and all around it
A kind of cheerful stillness, broken only
By noises that had in their very sound
A sort of quietness, because they told
That there were none but harmless creatures near;
And all without us, all within, was quiet,
For ours was a grave house; my mother died
When we were young; my father, as I said,
Was a strict man, though kind, or meaning kindly,
Yet in his serious aspect and slow speech
Was something that rebuked our childish mirth.
We loved him as he loved his heavenly Father,
Not with the perfect love that casts out fear.
God's word was honoured in our house; we came,
My father loved to tell us, of a stock
That prized it so, they left their homes that were
In foreign parts, and gave up trades and calling,
Going, like Abraham, they knew not whither,
