What wonder, then, though that you see,
Upon my head, white hairs to be?
Where wretched woe will weave her web,
Where care the clue can catch, and dust;
And floods of joy are fallen to ebb,
So low, that life may not long last;
What wonder, then, though that you see,
Upon my head, white hairs to be?
These hairs of age are messengers
Which bid me fast, repent, and pray;
They be of death the harbingers,
That doth prepare and dress the way;
Wherefore I joy that you may see,
Upon my head, such hairs to be.
They be the lines that lead the length,
How far my race is yet to run:
They show my youth is fled with strength,
And how old age is weak begun:
The which I feel, and you may see,
Upon my head, such lines to be.
They be the strings of sober sound,
Whose music is harmonical:
Their tunes declare what time from ground
I came, and how thereto I shall:
Wherefore I joy that you may see,
Upon my head, such strings to be.
God grant to those that white hairs have,
No worse them take than I have meant:
That, after they be laid in grave,
Their souls may joy their lives well spent:
God grant likewise that you may see,
Upon your head, such hairs to be.
MOURNFUL office is thine, old Bell,
To ring forth nought but the last sad knell Of the coffined worm, as he passeth by;
And thou seem'st to say, "Ye all must die!"
No joyful peal dost thou ever ring;
But ever and aye, as hither they bring
The dead to sleep 'neath the greenwood tree,
Thy sound is heard, pealing mournfully.
No glad occasion dost thou proclaim;
Thy mournful tone is ever the same-
The slow-measured peal that tells of woe,
Such as hearts that feel it, may only know.
Hadst thou the power of speech, old Bell,
Methinks strange stories thou 'dst often tell;
How some are brought here with tear and moan,
While others pass by unmourned, alone;
How strangers are hither brought to sleep,
Whose home, perhaps, was beyond the deep;
Who, seeking our shores, come but to die,
And here, in this hallowed spot, to lie;
How a wife hath followed a husband's bierHow a husband hath followed a wife most dearHow brother and sister have come in turn,
To shed their tears o'er a parent's urn;
How father and mother, in accents wild,
Have bewailed the loss of a darling child;
How a friend o'er a friend hath shed the tear,
As he laid him down to slumber here;
* A beautiful cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
How the victim of sorrow's ceaseless smart
Hath given up life with a willing heart,
And thought of this spot with a smiling face,
Glad, at last, to find him a resting-place.
I wonder if thou dost ring, old Bell,
For the rich man, a louder, longer knell,
Than thou dost for the poor who enter here,
Or the humble and unpretending bier:
And dost thou ring forth a peal less sad
For the pure and the good, than for the bad?
Or dost thou toll the same knell for all
The rich and the poor, the great and the small?
Oh, a mournful office is thine, old Bell!
To ring forth nought but the last sad knell
Of the coffined worm, as he passeth by;
And thou seem'st to say, "Ye all must die!"
THEN the lessons and tasks are all ended, And the school for the day is dismissed, And the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed:
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
My neck in a tender embrace!
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face!
And when they are gone I sit dreaming
Of my childhood, too lovely to last:
Of love that my heart will remember
When it wakes to the pulse of the past,
Ere the world and its wickedness made me.
A partner of sorrow and sin;
When the glory of God was about me,
And the glory of gladness within.
Oh! my heart grows weak as a woman's,
And the fountains of feeling will flow,
When I think of paths steep and stony,
Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
Of the tempest of fate blowing wild;
Oh! there is nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child.
They are idols of hearts and of households:
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
His glory still beams in their eyes.
Oh! those truants from home and from heaven,
They have made me more manly and mild,
And I know how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.
I ask not a life for the dear ones,
All radiant, as others have done,
But that life may have just enough shadow
To temper the glare of the sun:
I would pray God to guard them from evil,
But my prayer would bound back to myself;
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
But a sinner must pray for himself.
The twig is so easily bended,
I have banished the rule and the rod; I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, They have taught me the goodness of God; My heart is a dungeon of darkness,
Where I shut them from breaking a rule;
My frown is sufficient correction;
My love is the law of the school.
I shall leave the old home in the autumn,
To traverse its threshold no more;
Ah! how shall I sigh for the dear ones
That meet me each morn at the door!
I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses, And the gush of their innocent glee, The group on the green, and the flowers That are brought every morning to me.
I shall miss them at morn and at eve,
Their song in the school and the street;
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,
And the tramp of their delicate feet.
When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And death says, "The school is dismissed!
May the little ones gather around me,
To bid me good-night and be kissed!
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