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REVERIES.
A Girl! Yes, young and pretty, with the life-blood fairly
dancing in my veins, and heart and eyes all a-glow with
hopes!
Hopes! and why not hopes, I pray? What if I be young,
and weak, and a woman? Why not hope? Is there not enough
within me to beautify my future? Am I not loved? Is not
Ernest good and noble, and is not his fate mine?
Beloved! Yes, I am; and already into my soul steals some
of the quiet holiness belonging to the tie of a betrothed wife.
Yes, beloved! I am ambitious for myself no longer. Indeed, I
doubt sometimes whether I have any individual existence.
My plans are all for him. What care I for fame now — for
glory, save the glory of being his? But I would have men bow
before him whom I delight to honor. I would have palms of
victory and glory rustle over his noble brow, and shine myself in
the lesser light reflected from his name. Ah, yes, I love and am
loved! — O, Heaven, how fondly!
A Bride! What dreams, what visions, have already met their
fulfilment! What other and still more glorious visions are
stretching onward into futurity?
How strange it seems to hear them call me by his name!
they called me so for the first time!
I am his now forever. I do not tremble; I am calm and
glad, for I love him and he loves me. How pleasant it seems
to have him take care of me! How kind and tender he is;
how observant of my every wish! What a joy to feel that the
arm on which I lean is my own forever; that not even time or
death can take him from me, for our union shall be truer still,
and more enduring, in the skies!
A Wife! What has become of the wild gladness of my bridal
days, the fairy visions of my girlhood? Ah me! they are all
pressed down in graves, with the flowers growing over them.
My life now is different from anything I had dreamed, or
hoped!
We are one too wholly to say “I love.” We would as soon
think of saying to each other, “I love myself,” as to say those
words so pleasant in the olden time, “I love you.”
O, how the ties which bind our hearts have strengthened since
then, till they have grown so firm and strong, no words can
undo, no deeds can break them! O, none but a happy wife can
realize the full beauty of that almost prophetic declaration, —
“And they twain shall be one flesh.” We are not one flesh
only, but one soul! Our hearts thrill to the same hopes and
dreams; — we do not talk to each other any more, we only
think aloud. All that is Ernest's, his life, his hopes, his dreams,
ay, and his very beauty, is in another and a dearer sense
mine.
Truly, if ever hearts were wedded, with the Eternal for the
priest, and angels for witnesses, ours are so wedded, and I am
blest!
A Mother now! O, this young and beautiful part of myself,
this sweet new life that is resting on my bosom! God be
praised that he has given me work, — an angel to train for
heaven. What a soul looks forth from those violet eyes! My
child, my holy one, my God-given! I wonder if ever there was
another baby like my baby! What eyes it has — its father's
eyes; and the little hand that rests upon my bosom, — did ever
another mother's heart thrill to touch, so soft, so fairy-like, so
dear! What pretty little ways it has! How it winds its arms
around my neck, and laughs till its cheeks dimple and flush like
the hearts of the June roses!
But it has come into a weary world, my little pilgrim from
the Eden-land. God help me to guard it from care and sorrow,
and from sin! Stoop from thy heavenly throne, O Saviour of
men, and hallow my baby with the baptism of thy divine love!
Gone to sleep now! It must be an enchanted sleep, my
dearest one, for the smile brightens round thy rose-bud mouth,
as if at pleasant dreams.
Childless! Alas for it! O, my beautiful one, how still
thou liest! Scarcely does the summer wind lift thy fair curls,
O, my own life!
Dearest half of my being, — baby that I have borne beneath
my heart! How can I give thee up? O, my precious! I
grow above thy head. I shall clasp my arms about thee in
dreams, and wake to find them empty, with the moonbeams on
my bosom, where the shadow of thy hair was wont to float.
Speak to me but once, my darling, and then I can say, God's
will be done!
Kiss me but once — once more, ere they nail down thy coffin-lid!
Cold and silent, still. O God, how can I bear this agony?
My child, my child! What have you gone to sleep for there
in the sunshine?
You are not dead! no, indeed, you can't be! What a bitter
mockery it was when they told me my beautiful baby was dead!
Did I not know better? Dead, indeed, with that sweet smile on
her lips!
But wake up, darling; you 've slept long enough. Here 's your
little rattle, the pretty silver one that mother would n't let you
play with. You shall have it now, little one! What! you don't
wake — not when your mother kisses you? — Then you are dead,
my precious!
O God! cannot I come too? I can hold her more gently
than the angels, for is n't she mine?
They shall not put her in the ground! I will hold her on my
bosom! The whole world is empty!
Forgive me, O Father, it is not empty! I can say “Thy
will be done,” for Ernest is by my side. He is holding me on
his heart, — weeping with me, for me, — his tears are hot and
burning, but they cool the fever of my soul. I can bear to have
them put my baby in the ground now, for Ernest tells me she
will be mine still in heaven. I can live, for his life would be
thy mother loves thee. But I will not call thee back; I will
not grieve that thy home is on thy Saviour's breast, and over
thy pure heart grow sweet-breathed flowers, brightening in the
shine and shower of the summer. Permitted to be the mother
of an angel in heaven, I will not go mourning among the graves
of earth.
Widowed! Dead! dead! Can it be, — strong, true heart?
Is there no more a breast where I can weep, an arm to shelter
me, a voice to call me darling? Dead! Then God be merciful,
for all is gone! O, speak to me but once, only one little time,
to say that you forgive me!
O, Ernest, did I not love you? What have I done, that you
should go away and leave me here alone? Do you not feel me?
See, I am lying upon your breast! Awake! arise! What!
cold and silent still, when such tears fall from my eyes!
Did you not promise to love me always? — and you are gone!
What am I saying — forgive me!
See, I am kneeling to you, my own beloved! Look at me!
Not one glance, — dead, dead!
You loved me once, I know you did. They cannot take away
that, if they do put you down in the grave-yard.
How the clock ticks! How the carriages rattle! and I hear
people laugh on the side-walk! Cruel! I will shriek it into
them, so they will hear it forever, that fierce word — Dead!
Kiss me. I never kissed those lips before that they did not
thrill at my touch. Cold and stark!
The sun does n't shine any more. Ah, yes it does; it is
mocking me.
The sun shines, and the birds sing. Birds that he used to
feed. The world goes on as gay as ever. How I long to tear
the mask off, and see if other hearts are never scorched, and
seared, and branded with that wild word — Dead!
A Pilgrim! At last, O Father in heaven, I can say, “Thy
will be done!”
Thou hast taken all, and given me a double portion in Thyself.
I walk in the shadow of Thy Cross now, for my loves and hopes
are in heaven.
Three winters the snow has woven shrouds over my baby's
grave; three summers the flowers have blossomed there, and the
stars smiled on them.
Twelve long and weary months I have walked alone to the
grave-yard, where they wrote my husband's name on the
marble!
He has slept well. At first, I used to clasp him to my heart,
in feverish dreams. My head used to lie upon his bosom, and I
would wake and weep that I was alone. But I am only on a
journey.
I am contented, now that they have gone home before me —
Ernest and little Carrie. I loved them, and I dare not weep
when I think they are borne on angels' pinions through the
gates over which I must climb in toil and sorrow.
It chokes my heart with tears, sometimes, when I see some
happy mother lay her child's head on her breast, and watch the
other days into my own, and hair that streamed like moonlight
over my bosom; but I dash the tears away, for the angels are
nursing Carrie for me in heaven, and by and by they will put
her in my arms. Downward from the invisible country fall the
sun-rays on those two dear graves, making a shining path of light,
wherein one day my feet shall tread; for, God be praised, I can
go to them, though they can never come to me!
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