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 | An idyl of work |  |
A smile from Esther answered. She began
Where her eyes fell. Laodamia's tale
It chanced to be, with its heroic thoughts
Climbing sharp crags of sorrow to high faith.
Ruth listened, musing, till she heard the words,
“Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend,
Seeking a higher object.” Then she sobbed.
“It is too hard, too hard! Read something else;
A song, a ballad, anything!”
“Dear child,
The time will come for this too,” Esther said;
“But now your nerves are strained, and you are ill;
Of that I was too thoughtless.”
And she took
Another volume from the hanging shelf,
The three girls' library.
The one she chose
Was a strange medley-book of prose and rhyme
Cut from odd magazines, or pages dim
Of yellow journals, long since out of print;
And pasted in against the faded ink
Of an old log-book, relic of the sea,
And mostly filled with legends of the shore
That Esther loved, her home-shore of Cape Ann.
“Here is a doggerel tale of witchcraft-time
Some one has reeled off since they laid the rails
From Boston eastward. Ruth, you need not try
To hear it; let it croon you off to sleep.”
Where her eyes fell. Laodamia's tale
It chanced to be, with its heroic thoughts
Climbing sharp crags of sorrow to high faith.
Ruth listened, musing, till she heard the words,
“Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend,
Seeking a higher object.” Then she sobbed.
“It is too hard, too hard! Read something else;
A song, a ballad, anything!”
“Dear child,
36
“But now your nerves are strained, and you are ill;
Of that I was too thoughtless.”
And she took
Another volume from the hanging shelf,
The three girls' library.
The one she chose
Was a strange medley-book of prose and rhyme
Cut from odd magazines, or pages dim
Of yellow journals, long since out of print;
And pasted in against the faded ink
Of an old log-book, relic of the sea,
And mostly filled with legends of the shore
That Esther loved, her home-shore of Cape Ann.
“Here is a doggerel tale of witchcraft-time
Some one has reeled off since they laid the rails
From Boston eastward. Ruth, you need not try
To hear it; let it croon you off to sleep.”
| An idyl of work | |