While over the mountains that proudly rise
Like castle with turrets high,
The clouds, like banners with billowy fold,
Shaded with crimson and wrought with gold,
Are floating across the sky..
In a shaded room, whose casement low
Looks out on the western skies,
Where woodbines cling to the moss-grown eaves,
And the sunlight creeps through sheltering leaves,
An aged man wearily lies.
Scattered and thin from the bloodless brow
Fall locks of silvery white.
The wasted fingers nerveless lie,
And the light is dim in the faded eye
That watches the sunset bright.
He heeds not the loved ones gathering near,
With voices hushed and low,
He sees not the present, he feels not his pain
In fancy a child he wanders again
Through scenes of the long ago.
He hears the honey-bee's drowsy hum,
And watches the swallow's flight;
Laughing aloud in his childish glee,
When floating down from the laden tree
Fall feathery blossoms white.
Like a weary child, the worn old man
Lays down his weight of care,
And softly, as in days of yore,
With reverent lips repeats once more
His childhood's evening prayer:
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
May I be kept and blessed;
If I should die". the voice sinks low,
For the soul still green 'neath winter's snow
Has found he wished for rest.
How sweet the chime of the Sabbath bells!
Each one its creed in music tells,
In tones that float upon the air,
As soft as song and pure as prayer;
And I will put in simple rhyme
The language of the golden chime.
My happy heart with rapture swells
Responsive to the bells-sweet bells.
"In deeds of love excel excel,"
Chimed out from ivied towers a bell;
"This is the church not built on sands,
Emblem of one not built with hands;
Its forms and sacred rites revere,
Come worship here, come worship here!
In ritual and faith excel,"
Chimed out the Episcopalian bell.
"Oh, heed the ancient landmarks well,"
In solemn tones exclaimed a bell,
"No progress made by mortal man
Can change the just eternal plan.
Do not invoke the avenging rod;
Come here, and learn the way to God.
Say to the world farewell! farewell!"
Pealed out the Presbyterian bell.
"Oh, swell, ye cleansing waters, swell,"
In mellow tones rang out a bell;
66 Though faith alone in Christ can save,
Man must be plunged beneath the wave,
To show the world unfaltering faith
In what the sacred Scripture saith;
Oh, swell, ye rising waters, swell,"
Pealed out the clear-toned Baptist bell
"Not faith alone, but works as well,
Must test the soul," said a soft bell.
"Come here, and cast aside your load,
And work your way along the road,
With faith in God, and faith in man,
And hope in Christ, where hopes began
Do well do well do well do well,"
Pealed forth the Unitarian bell.
Pumpkins and turnips adorned the room,
Cabbages weighted the furniture,
While cereals hung in a gay festoon
An agricultural garniture.
Soberly sat those farmers gray,
And solemnly did they cogitate,
How best in a scientific way,
Their fellowship they should designate.
Then up rose Farmer Hill in his turn,
A man renowned for his piety:
"I move," he said, "we call this concern
The Pomological S'iety."
Swiftly sprang Farmer Jones to his feet:
"The point in that name ain't visible,
For it doesn't cover 'taters nor wheat,
The idee is simply risible.
"That word," he argued, " refers to fruit,
And only fruit will it represent"
But a turnip took him upon the snoot
And stopped the flow of his argument.
Then wrath gleamed wildly from Jones's eye, And his nose blushed like a geranium, While, lifting a monstrous pumpkin high, He dropped it on Hill's bald cranium.
A dozing delegate blinked his eyes
And laughed, "Ha, ha! what a hearty joke;"
So he picked out a man about his size,
And blazed away with an artichoke.
Then all the Society took a hand,
From Secretary to President;
Never was seen a rumpus so grand
In the time of the oldest resident.
And so, while tubers filled all the air,
And fruit flew around in variety,
They settled their cognomen then and there
As the Pummel-logical S'iety.
IN the ages of faith, before the day
When men were too proud to weep or pray,
There stood in a red-roofed Breton town,
Snugly nestled 'twixt sea and down,
A chapel for simple souls to meet,
Nightly, and sing with voices sweet,
There was an idiot, palsied, bleared,
With unkempt locks and a matted beard,
Hunched from the cradle, vacant-eyed.
And whose head kept rolling from side to side;
Yet who, when the sunset glow grew dim,
Joined with the rest in the twilight hymn,
But when they got up and wended home,
Those up the hillside, those to the foam,
He hobbled along in the narrowing dusk,
Like a thing that is only hull and husk ;
On as he hobbled, chanting still,
Now to himself, now loud and shrill,
When morning smiled on the smiling deep,
And the fisherman woke from dreamless sleep,
And ran up his sail and trimmed his craft,
While his little ones leaped on the sand and laughed,
The senseless cripple would stand and stare,
Then suddenly holloa his wonted prayer,
Others might plough, and reap, and sow,
Delve in the sunshine, spin in the snow,
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