University of Virginia Library

Ah! Yes. You know that Erwin, who was wrung
With early hardships, gather'd wisdom young.
His life, awhile so hopeful, seem'd but doom'd
To open fair, and wither while it bloom'd;
For ere his thirteenth summer yet had shed
Its heat upon his young cheeks' downy red,
The while his mother's bidding, heard with awe
And done with love, was yet his only law;
She—who had still'd upon her rocking breast
His wailings when they broke her midnight rest;
And, when his span-wide footsteps took their way
To mother-dreaded perils of the day,
Had watch'd him where the airs of sunlight came
O'er ruffled waters or the twisted flame;—
By daily teachings brought him up to trust
In God the hope of ev'ry child of dust,
And died; and left him sadden'd for a while
To miss her playful fondlings and her smile,
Though never feeling fully all the gloom
That lingers in a missing mother's room.
And then for years,—for time will never stay,
And even years of sorrow wear away,—
The slowly-climbing suns went slowly down
And burnt young Erwin's flaxen hair to brown;
And warm-air'd springs set free from winter's bonds
Of ice the curling streams and rippled ponds;
And winds still whirl'd the dust of summer's heat,
And roll'd their weight o'er autumn's stagg'ring wheat;
And he his mother wept to leave so small,
Grew on to manhood; and so good and tall
That neighbours griev'd to think she never knew
How handsome and how noble-soul'd he grew.
But while his life, so like the bright'ning air
Of slowly-clearing skies, seem'd growing fair,
With heavy heart he hung his lonesome head
In bitter sorrow for his father dead.

Now while, with flitting soul, his father lay
Pale in the sunlight of his dying day,
Two witnesses, not three, stood side by side
Before his bed, close-lipp'd, and steadfast-eyed,
To see him set, with weakly-holden quill
And wasted arm, his name upon his will;
By which he left, in Mr. Wingreed's hands,
His worldly wealth, in money and in lands,
To Erwin and his elder son, to share
Between them equally, as seem'd but fair.
So when the longsome days of sadden'd life
No longer kept him from his dearest wife,
And evenings shed their grass-bespangling dew
Upon their green twin-graves below the yew;
The two good witnesses came forward, both,
And made before their God their faithful oath,
They saw the dying father set his hand
To that his will that gave both sons his land;
But others found that, as the law then stood,
It took three witnesses to make it good:
And he, whom Erwin's father left in trust
To do his will when he was in the dust,
Although he made him, openly, in sight
Of God and man, his vow to do it right,
Advised the elder brother, as the heir
To all the land, to keep poor Erwin's share;
And so withheld his dying father's gift
Against his will, and let him go adrift.
So far they gained their end, but what befel
Them in the sequel some of you may tell.