 | The select poems of Dr. Thomas Dunn English (exclusive of the "Battle lyrics") |  |
HERE AND THERE.
From its snood fell one of her tresses
To the side of her snowy neck,
Where jewels of price and laces
Her delicate throat bedeck,
As she swept with garments trailing
The carpeted floor that night,
Through the wide and lofty parlors,
In the bright and glaring light.
And she was a beautiful lady
As ever the eye might see,
With a dainty step and modest,
And a manner both frank and free;
And the lovers who gathered around her,
And strove for her favor there,
For a smile, or a glance of kindness,
Were ready to do or dare.
But, when the guests departed,
The lady, so courted and blest,
Ascended the stairs to her chamber
That wooed her to pleasant rest.
Disrobed, at the bedside kneeling,
She prayed that the Christ who died
Might her from all ill deliver
And the snares of earthly pride.
To the side of her snowy neck,
Where jewels of price and laces
Her delicate throat bedeck,
As she swept with garments trailing
The carpeted floor that night,
Through the wide and lofty parlors,
In the bright and glaring light.
And she was a beautiful lady
As ever the eye might see,
With a dainty step and modest,
And a manner both frank and free;
And the lovers who gathered around her,
And strove for her favor there,
For a smile, or a glance of kindness,
Were ready to do or dare.
394
The lady, so courted and blest,
Ascended the stairs to her chamber
That wooed her to pleasant rest.
Disrobed, at the bedside kneeling,
She prayed that the Christ who died
Might her from all ill deliver
And the snares of earthly pride.
Another, alone in her garret,
So chilly and dreary and damp,
Slow plying her busy needle,
By the light of a glimmering lamp,
Haggard of look and weary,
And scantily clad and fed,
With the past a hopeless struggle
And hope for the future dead.
There stood on the rickety table
Remains of the poor repast—
The meal that labor had brought her—
And each was the same as the last.
Breakfast and dinner and supper
Alike on the board were spread,
And her bread and tea were followed
By a diet of tea and bread.
Far down in the midnight sombre
She nodded and stitched away,
Then snatched some hours of slumber,
To be up at the morning grey.
But ere she sank on her pallet
She thanked the Giver of Good,
Who had blest her weary labor
With shelter and rest and food.
So chilly and dreary and damp,
Slow plying her busy needle,
By the light of a glimmering lamp,
Haggard of look and weary,
And scantily clad and fed,
With the past a hopeless struggle
And hope for the future dead.
There stood on the rickety table
Remains of the poor repast—
The meal that labor had brought her—
And each was the same as the last.
Breakfast and dinner and supper
Alike on the board were spread,
And her bread and tea were followed
By a diet of tea and bread.
Far down in the midnight sombre
She nodded and stitched away,
Then snatched some hours of slumber,
To be up at the morning grey.
But ere she sank on her pallet
She thanked the Giver of Good,
Who had blest her weary labor
With shelter and rest and food.
A year had passed, and the mourners
Bore slow to her place of rest
The lady whom kindly fortune
With beauty and wealth had blest;
And there at the churchyard portals
A funeral entered in
Of the seamstress poor who struggled
Her needs of life to win.
One borne in a rosewood casket,
With many a nodding plume,
With a lengthened train of coaches
And the pomp of grief and gloom;
And one, by a few attended,
In a coffin of pine was brought;
And both lay down in the chambers
By the spade and mattock wrought.
But ere those bodies were buried,
And the clay to clay was given,
Two fleshless forms soared upward
And met at the gate of Heaven.
Freed of the flesh those spirits
And purged of all earthly sin,
What mattered their once condition,
As to glory they entered in?
Bore slow to her place of rest
395
With beauty and wealth had blest;
And there at the churchyard portals
A funeral entered in
Of the seamstress poor who struggled
Her needs of life to win.
One borne in a rosewood casket,
With many a nodding plume,
With a lengthened train of coaches
And the pomp of grief and gloom;
And one, by a few attended,
In a coffin of pine was brought;
And both lay down in the chambers
By the spade and mattock wrought.
But ere those bodies were buried,
And the clay to clay was given,
Two fleshless forms soared upward
And met at the gate of Heaven.
Freed of the flesh those spirits
And purged of all earthly sin,
What mattered their once condition,
As to glory they entered in?
| The select poems of Dr. Thomas Dunn English (exclusive of the "Battle lyrics") | |