Poems by Cecil Frances Alexander :: :: University of Virginia Library

Amid the flowers that decked the mound.
“And dost thou ask me why the ground
Is trimmed, and tended so,
When all around is rough and wild?
'Tis but a peasant's simple child,
That lieth here below.

“Few lines are on the rude head-stone,—
Ay, stranger, trace them every one;
The strength of these old eyes is gone,
But I remember me, there came,
First, rudely carved, a wild-flower wreath,
And then a cross, and then the name
‘Sweet Lilian,’ underneath.

“It is a tale of my young day;
Sir stranger, wilt thou bide a space?
Still hotly falls the sun's bright ray
On the old dial's face.”

The old man's glistening eye is full,
His words are words of grief and love,
The stranger hath a pitying heart;
He sitteth down, but not above
That low green grave; a space apart,
Where some rude hands had dared to pull
A bulwark from the old church wall,
And the hewn stone in fragments fair,
Lay scattered round; he sitteth there:
The old man telleth all.

178

“It was a glorious morn in May,
Like this, whereon we two are met,
The sweet church bells were ringing yet
Chiming our Whitsun holiday.

“I leaned across my cottage gate,
(Down by the laneside dwelt we then,)
There came poor Richard of the glen,
A widowed man, without a mate,
The child that wrought her mother's loss,
He bore her gently in his arm,
To sign her with Christ's Holy Cross,
And bless her in His Name from harm.

“The font, within the Church was dressed,
The solemn Pastor stood thereby,
And the bright gifted water blest,
In Name of the Great Trinity.

“And Richard said into my ear,
‘Come, be thou godsire to the maid,
I have no friend or kinsman near,
The christening must not be delayed.’

“We had been comrades in our youth,
I answered ‘Yes,’ for very shame,
And out of kindliness in sooth.
And too, across my heart it came
'Twere pity the eternal gate
Were shut to one poor desolate,

179

Upon Christ's ransomed earth;
Because no brother of His band,
Would speak her plighting vows, and stand
To witness her new birth.

“So by the font my place I took,
The solemn Priest in snowy vest,
He opened wide the Holy Book;
The child in poor white garments dressed,
The woman gave her tenderly.
Methought that as they gave the child,
Up in my face she looked and smiled,
She looked and smiled at me.

“And when the solemn words were spoken,
The words of love, and hope, and grace,
And her brow bore the sprinkled token,
I looked again into her face,
As almost thinking it would be
Changed with that wondrous mystery:
The large bright drops were hanging o'er
Her eyes, she looked, and smiled at me,
As she had smiled before.

“Because the earthly vessel wears
No sign of that which it enfolds,
Even as the root in winter bears
No semblance to the flower it holds,
And man in faith must labour here,
Till Heaven's light make his vision clear.

180

“But by that faith I knew full well
What spirit in the child did dwell,
How Christ Himself did fill her heart,
For she of His own Church was part,
An heir of Heaven's eternal light,
If she but truly held her plight,
And kept her blood-washed garment white,
With faith, and holy deed.
And at my heart lay heavy still,
How I had vowed God's Holy Will
To teach her, and the Christian Creed,
Whereby the holy fight is fought;
I wended homeward with the crowd,
And pondered in my inmost thought,
On what my lips had vowed.

“Good sir, the morn most dark and grey,
May have its sunny hours ere noon,
And buds that have been late in May,
Have borne their blossoms bright in June.
And soft as sunshine seen through tears,
And slight as spring flowers nursed in dew;
So frail, and fair, through earliest years,
Our Lilian's childhood grew.
The village dames did prophesy,
She would not live out her first spring,
And when the fifth went lingering by,
They vowed it was a marvellous thing,
The like they never knew.

181

“She learned to love me, my sweet charge;
Whene'er I sought the lonely glen,
She knew me from all other men,
Ay, long before she went at large,
And she would gently kiss my cheek,
And stroke it with her fingers weak.

“But I did never meet her eyes,
That were like streams in winter, deep,
And darkly blue, yet full of glee,
Like those same waters, when they leap
Up in the summer sunshine free,
But to my soul that vow would rise.

“Her sire grew reckless, rude, and wild,
He never prayed our prayers at all,
He was not fit to teach the child.
And neighbours whispering, let fall
Strange stories of wild comrades met,
In his lone house when suns were set.

“Thy father must have told thee tales,
Of the wild work in these our dales,
When the good Charles was king.
Ah! how should flowers of faith take root,
Or holiness bear precious fruit,
'Mid them who mocked each holy thing?
Who burst in twain each hallowed tie,
Denying what God's Spirit wrought?
She had her home with such, and I
Was bound to see her taught.

182

“The flower is but a little thing,
It perfumes all the gales of spring,
God feeds it with His dewdrops bright,
And never yet the heart has beat
Too mean, too lowly, too unmeet,
To do its proper part aright;
Nor hand has been too weak, or small,
To work for Him, Who works in all.