University of Virginia Library

MARYANNE.

I.Age—Eight Years.

The lark unseen, o'er the village spire,
Sings like an echo from the sky.
“Let us go, Mother! the first bell has rung;
The second rings hastily now,”
Said little Maryanne,
As she ran to the door and looked over the fields,
Standing still in the Sunday air,
With their patches of meadow and tall dry corn,
And hedges sharp between.
Her cautious mother shuts the door,
And leads her forth to the belfry's call;
So little Maryanne,
With her knitted nankeen bonnet on,
That shaded half her face, went by
Each cottage with a sober smile.
The bell chimed louder as they walked;
In folded stillness white, the clouds
Seem cradled by the sound.
“Mother,” said she, “will father sing
Psalms by himself upon the hills?
Or do the sheep as well as I
Know Sunday from the common days?”
They pass into the churchyard now,
A pigmy hunch of sward,
All rank and long, with sunken stones
Looking up here and there;
But quite a strange great wilderness
To little Maryanne;
And the old men, in sauntering groups,
Who gossiped o'er their staves to her
Were grave and kingly patriarchs.
The laird has come to church to-day:
How glad is Maryanne—
She will look at him all the while!
Now hear the text—
In the days of thy youth remember God.
And when old thou wilt not forget him.

II.Age—Sixteen Years.

III.Age—Seventeen.

“Your mother tells me, simple girl,
You are to be a semstress now;
I like to see a blush: take off
Your shapeless cap. Do you read and write?—
And dance and sing, perhaps, as well?
The freshness of new hay is on your hair,
And the withdrawing innocence of home
Within your eyes, indeed
You are as pretty a child as I have seen.
If your new world shall wed you as the old
Seems to have wooed, you're fortunate:
You have a throng of comrades here,”
Said a well-bedizened dame,
While timid Maryanne
She led to a long chamber, where
Her thimbled girls with needles and shears
Were trimming silks with gimp and lace.
Anon the dragon leaves the cell,
And about the stranger girl they press!
“Sit here, young rose,”—“Nay, Catherine;
How to turn her smiles to use,
And braid fair locks unbound before,
I know the best: her looks refresh
Like oranges in a theatre.”
But timid Maryanne—
Both no and yes she feared to say;
She knew not what they meant;
And aye she cast a wondering glance
At every one that spoke;
But Joan withdrew her from them all,
And leaning o'er her, whispered, “Sweet,
None may hear us; tell me true,
Have you left a lover-lad
Behind you, by the plough?”
“I never thought of such a thing,”
Said timid Maryanne—
As amidst their smothered laughter
A glorious crimson spread
Over her forehead, over her cheeks,
And brightened round her neck.

IV.Age—Eighteen.

V.Age—Nineteen.

In a neat suburban room
Songs of pleasant liberty
Sang careless Maryanne.
Who would dream that such a change
Could fall in one short year!
And Joan was also there,
Busily laughing, laughing loud.
But Maryanne sat still and sang;
Or with head askance at the window pane
She looked for Archer along the road;
And every morn, and noon, and night,
She would dance acrosss the room for joy.
O would it were not so intense!
She was happier than a wife could be,
Thought careless Maryanne.
Her mother told her not to look
Towards strangers, nor to speak too loud
To her sister-semstresses, until
She knew them well,—to rise betimes,
To dress quite plain, to lace her shoes
As she had learnt of old,—a long
Unmentionable creed she taught
Of best advices: Maryanne
Believed some punishment would follow
If in aught she disobeyed:—
Yet had she dared! the bond was burst!
No lightning flashed, but all at once
A new sun seemed to smile on her,
And a new moon, more earnest than the old,
And stars more numerous; and kindly lips
Seemed ever smiling on her from that day,
And merry voices sounded merrier.
For the first time free will seemed hers:—
While her mother like a prophetess,
Whose oracle by adverse fate
Had been annulled, sank from her trust
Altogether,—altogether!
Who would dream that such a change
Could come in a year like leaves in spring!

VI.

VII.Age—Twenty.

VIII.Age—Twenty-one.

IX.Age—Twenty-three.

X.

XI.Age—Twenty-four.

XII.

XIII.Age—Twenty-five.

Down the wet pavement gleam the lamps,
While the wind whistles past them shrill;
A distant heel rings hurrying home,
It lessens into stillness now,
And she is left alone.
The rain-drops from the eves are blown
Against her face: she turns;
The wind lifts up her dripping scarf,
Faded now with its ragged fringe,
And flings it over her head.
Her lips are sharp, as if a scorn
Of our humanity had shrunk
And bitten them; her eyes—
They are not sunk, for generous care
Is not her misery,
They never weep, for she can think
Of her childhood while she laughs,
But they are blind and insolent.
And is this Maryanne the mild?
Can it indeed be she?
What is sin and what is shame?
The brutish and the ignorant
Say she hath borne them both.
But why measure blood in a carved wine-cup,
Or blame the blind altho' he laugh
While funeral mutes pass by?
Then whose the sin and whose the shame
That the ignorant say are hers?
Can the outcast retrace her steps;
Would any mourn with her, although
She washed the earth with tears
From a rent and festering heart?
The human voice no music brings
To her, and the sun but shines
That the shadow where she sits may be
More dense, that she may feel the light
In which the spider spins,
Can unenlivening fall on such
As have a soul. Yet hark! she sings,
She sings as she wanders by.

XIV.

XV.Age—Unknown.