Hesperus by Charles Sangster (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

a chatterer tongue-tied,
Lo, the wheel is placed aside!--
Not from indolence or pride--
Mariline must be a Bride!

Fairest maid of maids terrene!
Bride of Brides, dear Mariline!


VII.

Up the meditative air
Passed the smoke-wreaths, white and fair,
Like the spirit of the prayer
Mariline now offered there:

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Passed behind the cottage eaves,
Curling through the maple leaves:

Through the pines and old elm trees,
Belies of past centuries,
Hardy oaks, that never breeze
Humbled to their gnarly knees:

Forest lords, beneath whose sheen
Flowers bloomed for Mariline.

Round the cottage, fresh and green,
Climbed the vine, the scarlet bean,
Morning-glories peeped between,
Looking out for Mariline.

Odours never felt before
Tranced the locust at the door,

Vieing with the mignonette
Bound the garden parapet,
Whose rare fragrances were met
By rich perfumes, rarer yet,

Stealing from the garden walks,
Sentineled with hollyhocks.


VIII.

What a heaven the cottage seemed!
Love's own temple, where Faith dreamed
Of the coming years that beamed
On them, as pale stars have gleamed

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Through unnavigated seas,
To which the prophetic breeze

Whispered of a future day,
When swift fleets would urge their way,
Through the waters cold and gray,
Like the dolphins at their play.

There the future Bride, and he,
Prince of love's knight-errantry,

Whose good shepherd arms must hold
This pet yeanling of the fold,
Gift of God so long foretold,
Gift beyond the price of gold.

There the parents, aged and hale,
Passing down life's autumn vale,

With a joy as rare and true
As their daughter's eye of blue,
With such hopes as reach up to
Heaven's gate, when, passing through,

Peris, bound for higher skies,
Win the Celestial Paradise.


IX.

Thoughtfully stood Mariline,
Whitely veiled, and soul-serene;
Love's fair world for her demesne,
Never looked she more a queen--

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With her maidens by her side,
Smiling on the coming bride.

Her pet lamb, with comic mirth,
Licked her hand and scampered forth;
The fine sheep-dog, on the hearth,
Kindly eyed her for her worth.


X.

Up the air, across the moor,
As they left the cottage door,

Chimed the merry village-hells,
Music-wrapt the neighbouring fells,
Stirred the heart's awakened cells,
Like fine strains from fairy dells.

Past the orchard, down the lane,
By fresh wavy fields of grain,

By the brook, that told its love
To the pasture, glen, and grove--
Sacred haunts, that well could prove
Vows enregistered above.

By the restless mill, where stood,
Bowing in his amplest mood,

The old miller, hat in hand,
Rich in goodness, rich in land,
On whose features, grave and bland,
Glowed a blessing for the band.

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Through the village, where, behind
Many a half-uplifted blind,

Eyes, that might have lit the skies
Of Mahomet's Paradise,
Flashed behind the curtains' dyes,
With a cheerful, half-surprise.

Through the village, underneath,
Many a blooming flower-wreath,

Garlanding the arches green
Beared in honour of the queen
Of this day of days serene,
Day of days to Mariline.

To the church, whose cheering bells
Told the tale in music-swells--

Told it to the country wide,
With an earnest kind of pride--
Something not to be denied--
"Mariline must be a Bride!"


XI.

Up the aisle with solemn pace,
Meeting God there, face to face.

Never Bride more chaste or fair
Stood before His altar there,
Her ripe heart aflame with prayer,
Blessing Him for all His care:

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Every earthly promise given,
Registered with joy in heaven.

From the galleries looked down,
Village belle and country clown,
Men with honest labour brown,
Far removed from mart or town:

Smiling with a zealous pride
On the shepherd and his bride--

Playmates of their early days;
For their walks in wisdom's ways,
Ever crowned with honoured bays
Of esteem and ardent praise.


XII.

Well done, servant of the Lord!
Grave expounder of His Word,

Who in distant Galilee
Graced the marriage feast, that He,
With all due solemnity,
Might commission such as thee

To do likewise, and unite
Souls like these in marriage plight.

With what manly, gentle pride,
The glad Shepherd clasps his Bride!
Love like theirs, so true and tried,
Ever true love must abide!

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XIII.

Ye whose souls are strong and firm,
In whom love's electric germ

Has been fanned into a flame
At the mention of a name;
Ye whose souls are still the same
As when first the Victor came,

Stinging every nerve to life,
In the beatific strife,

Till the man's divinest part
Ruled triumphant in the heart,
And, with shrinking, sudden start,
The bleak old world stood apart,

Periling the wild Ideal
By the presence of the Real:

Ye, and ye alone, can know
How these twain souls burn and glow,
Can interpret every throe
Of the full heart's overflow,

That imparts that light serene
To the brow of Mariline.


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THE HAPPY HARVESTERS.

A CANTATA.

I.

Autumn, like an old poet in a haze
Of golden visions, dreams away his days,
So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear
The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere;
Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales
Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales,
Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood
That haunt the forest's social solitude.
His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife
With the calm wisdom of that inner life
That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown,
All space his empire, and the sun his throne.
As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers,
So into autumn's variegated hours
Is hived the Hybla richness of the year;
Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer,
As autumn, seated on the highest hills,
Gleans honied secrets from the passing rills;
While from below, the harvest canzonas
Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.
Foremost among the honoured sons of toil
Are they who overcome the stubborn soil;
Brave Cincinnatus in his country home
Was even greater than when lord of Rome.
Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines
That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines

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Of Ceres' army looking from the height
On the dim lowlands deepening into night;
Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze,
Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze;
Through all the vales the vespers of the birds
Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds;
And the stout axles of the heavy wain
Creak 'neath the fulness of the ripened grain,
As the swarth builders of the precious load,
Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.


AUTUMN ODE.

God of the Harvest! Thou, whose sun
Has ripened all the golden grain,
We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store,
The cup of Plenty running o'er,
The sunshine and the rain.

The year laughs out for very joy,
Its silver treble echoing
Like a sweet anthem through the woods,
Till mellowed by the solitudes
It folds its glossy wing.

But our united voices blend
From day to day unweariedly;
Sure as the sun rolls up the morn,
Or twilight from the eve is born,
Our song ascends to Thee.

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Where'er the various-tinted woods,
In all their autumn splendour dressed,
Impart their gold and purple dyes
To distant hills and farthest skies
Along the crimson west:

Across the smooth, extended plain,
By rushing stream and broad lagoon,
On shady height and sunny dale,
Wherever scuds the balmy gale,
Or gleams the autumn moon:

From inland seas of yellow grain,
Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest,
With willing hands and keen-edged scythe,
And accents musically blythe,
Reveals its lordly crest:

From clover-fields and meadows wide,
Where moves the richly-laden wain
To barns well-stored with new-made hay,
Or where the flail at early day
Rolls out the ripened grain:

From meads and pastures on the hills,
And in the mountain valleys deep,
Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine
Of famous Ayr or Devon's line,
And shepherd-guarded sheep:

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The spirits of the golden year,
From crystal caves and grottoes dim,
From forest depths and mossy sward,
Myriad-tongued, with one accord
Peal forth their harvest hymn.


II.

Their daily labour in the happy fields
A two-fold crop of grain and pleasure yields,
While round their hearths, before their evening fires,
Whore comfort reigns, whence weariness retires,
The level tracts, denuded of their grain,
In calm dispute