THE HASCHISH. No common wrong provoked your The silken gauntlet that is thrown The brave old strife the fathers saw God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, Give ermined knaves their hour of Ye have the future grand and great, The safe appeal of Truth to Time! 243 And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids, Flings back her veil of sand. And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes; And, listening by his Nile, O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks A sweet and human smile. Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call Of death for midnight graves, But in the stillness of the noonday, fall The fetters of the slaves. 244 FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills, With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to-day! The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort Mary's walls; Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and plunged the Saco's falls MARY GARVIN. And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and gusty grew, On the hearth of Farmer Garvin blazed the crackling walnut log; Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside him on her mat, The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty years, to-day, Then they sank into the silence, for each knew the other's thought, 245 "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The door was open thrown; On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and furred, the fire-light shone One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin from his head; "Lives here Elkanah Garvin?" "I am he," the goodman said. "Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night is chill with rain." The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the fire-light glistened fair Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self I see! Dear heart!" she cried, now tell me, has my child come back to me?" "My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger, sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child! "She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day "And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, "When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all. "Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. "Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied ; "And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly mother! thou at least wilt not condemn ! "So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake ; As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her sake. "God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh, and he gives; He woundeth, but he healeth; in her child our daughter lives!" "Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise. But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee, "What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English Christian's home A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?" Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried ' "O, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died! "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall, The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee; "Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one. When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit, Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown, From the pulpit read the preacher, -"Goodman Garvin and his wife "For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child; " And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love." As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood, And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maidenhood. Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is Papist born and bred": Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead!" |