Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

With loud, tumultuous clash and clang,
As though with sudden rapture mad,
Twelve bells congratulation rang,
From that stout belfry of St. Chad:
The rite was o'er, the love-knot tied,
And down the aisle, in trim array,
The bridemaids follow'd, thoughtful-eyed,
Their wedded sister, Alice Gay.

The vestry walls had ears within
For many an old-establish'd jest;
By many a lip of friends and kin
The bride's consenting lips were press'd:
And (all things done in order meet)
Again the fair procession pass'd
Through gazing crowds which lined the street,
And gain'd the festive home at last.

But there flock'd in a gathering host
Of neighbours—some esteem'd through life;
The friend since youth beloved the most,
The college crony with his wife,

216

The school companion of the bride,
The bridegroom's chum of yesterday,
All came to grace in pomp and pride
The nuptial feast of Alice Gay.

Yet mirth came not;—o'er old and young,
Kinsfolk and friends assembled there,
A smile-o'er casting shadow hung,—
A cloudy consciousness of care;
And though the board was richly spread,
And wine its cheering influence lent,
It might on every brow be read
That 'twas no time for merriment.

The bride had still that anxious mien
Which all the previous day she wore;
At wedding feast was seldom seen
A sadder, sweeter face before:
Her father strove with laugh and jest
The deep heart-trouble to disguise
Which yet his faltering tones express'd,
Which glimmer'd in his misty eyes.

I rose (the chaplain of the day)
Obedient to maternal sign,
“A few appropriate words” to say,
And pledge the parting pair in wine;
And half in earnest, half in joke,
In bantering, serio-comic style,
Essay'd a speech which should provoke,
If not a laugh, at least a smile.

But when the laugh was fairly laugh'd,
And other friends had said their say,

217

And toasts been cheer'd and bumpers quaff'd,
And changes rung on ‘grave and gay,’
And, after many a last embrace,
And parting words said o'er and o'er,
The bride had turn'd her tearful face
From that dear home—her home no more;—

While bridemaids doff'd their raiment gay,
And bridemen donn'd their boating gear,
To wile the lagging hours away
On Severn's current brisk and clear,—
We elders in the house alone
Were left, o'er teeming thoughts to brood,
And I held converse with my own
In somewhat of despondent mood.

I saw, as in a wizard's glass,
The generations of our kin
Arise and flourish, fade and pass,
Old interests end and new begin;
I saw the frequent silver streak
Now turning ebon ringlets grey,
Which shaded once the blooming cheek
Of bride as fair as Alice Gay.

I thought how much of life was past,
How little of its duty done;
How friends had dropp'd around us fast,
And still were dropping one by one;
How we ourselves seem'd scarcely more
Than laggards of a troop gone by,
Whose hopes and fears on earth were o'er,—
Whose proper task was now to die.

218

I thought—ah! sisters, ye can think,
How homes and haunts which serv'd for years,
The present with the past to link,
In love which fill'd the eyes with tears,—
The halls in which our kinsmen dwelt,—
The old town house,—the vicarage small,—
Hard by the church in which we knelt
As children,—are deserted all.

And how of ten who used to play,
Long since, around our parents' knees,
Four only are alive to-day,
And one a wanderer even of these.
With fortune and the world at strife,
He roams the wild Australian shore,
An alien now from English life,
An heir of English hope no more.

Or e'er upon our native soil,
We three lay down our load of years,
And cast aside this mortal coil,
With earth's last troubles, hopes, and fears,
'Tis meet we closer draw the chain
Which Nature round our spirits wove,
And cheer the days which yet remain
With fuller intercourse of love.

Our children (God hath blest us all,—
Best blessing in the stores of time,—
With sons and daughters great and small,
From infancy to manhood's prime,)—
Our children sure should not be strange,
Or unfamiliar each with each,
But give and take in free exchange
What heart to kindred heart can teach.

219

Thanks to the world-embracing rail!
No distance of terrestrial span,
Can now, as heretofore avail,
To bar congenial man from man.
O'er Britain hand to hand can reach,
All eyes all faces may behold,
And tongues exchange familiar speech,
Where only spirits could of old.

Those twain abodes by Severn's side,
To us have household thoughts become;
So few the hours which now divide
Your western from our midland home.
For what remains of mortal life,
Nought hinders that henceforth we be,
Child, father, sister, husband, wife,
All fused in one great family.

Meanwhile behold a homely gift,
A sample of the thoughts which flow,
The fancies quaint which change and shift,
As whim directs them, to and fro,—
The graver musings sometimes bred,
Amidst the controversial strife,
And pastoral toil of heart and head,
Which fill my later half of life:

In sooth such trifles suit but ill
The work which hath been mine since youth;
The rhymer's light, fantastic skill
But mars the solid ore of truth;
And we who strive with death and sin,
In ceaseless, never-ending fight,
But rarely time or taste can win
For fancy's dreams of vain delight.

220

Yet like the fitful breeze which sweeps
In gusts across Æolian strings,
And wakes the soul that in them sleeps,
Too deep for Art's solicitings—
From time to time an impulse caught,
I know not whence, I know not how,
Awakes the slumbering soul of thought,
And breathes it into verse, as now.

Nor few the springs of song which well
Beside the pastor's path in life;
No dweller he in monkish cell,
But rich in children, home, and wife.
Now praying in the poor man's cot,
Now wrestling with the Romish lie,
Now solacing the mourner's lot,
Now teaching timid hearts to die.

He lives with men, himself a man,
A husband and a parent, knows,
As none but those who learn it can,
The lore of household joys and woes:
His soul, a human soul, is fed
On food which kindred natures crave;
On him their threefold influence shed
The hearth, the altar, and the grave.

What marvel, if in leisure hours,
When failing health solicits ease,
He feel the stir of dormant powers,
Awaking to such themes as these?
What blame, if out of these he twine
A rainbow-tinted wreath of lays,
Exhaling faintly, line by line,
The fragrance of his fading days?

221

What crime, if he would thus bequeathe,
To flock and fold, to friends and kin,
Some record of the thoughts that seethe
A pastor-poet's breast within;
And when his place is void on earth,
To children's children still declare
What tomb and temple, home and hearth,
To those who went before them were?

Again we met beside the sea,
And bride and bridegroom join'd us there;
In all the world could scarcely be
A calmer, yet a happier pair.
A month its due effect had wrought
On either heart, and hope and fear,
And joy and grief, and anxious thought,
Were merged in love profoundly dear.

A cheerful party were we now,—
The bridegroom had grown sober-eyed,
And whoso look'd upon her brow
Might read contentment in the bride:
We wander'd on the wild sea shore,
We breathed the breezes pure and free,—
The breezes which so oft restore
Departed health and strength to me.

They came—they went—that youthful pair,—
The husband to his flock—the wife
With woman's love to soothe and share
The labours of a pastor's life;
And I—what less could poet give
Than this to speed them on their way,
And bring to mind, while both shall live,
The Honey Moon of Alice Gay?