BLANK VERSE

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CHILDHOOD.

  In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse
  Upon the days gone by; to act in thought
  Past seasons o’er, and be again a child;
  To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope,
  Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers,
  Make posies in the sun, which the child’s hand
  (Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled,)
  Would throw away, and straight take up again,
  Then fling them to the winds, and o’er the lawn
  Bound with so playful and so light a foot,
  That the press’d daisy scarce declined her head.

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THE GRANDAME.

                          On the green hill-top,
  Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
  And not distinguish’d from its neighbor-barn,
  Save by a slender-tapering length of spire,
  The Grandame sleeps.  A plain stone barely tells
  The name and date to the chance passenger. 
  For lowly born was she, and long had eat,
  Well-earn’d, the bread of service:—­hers was else
  A mountain spirit, one that entertain’d
  Scorn of base action, deed dishonorable,
  Or aught unseemly.  I remember well
  Her reverend image; I remember, too,
  With what a zeal she served her master’s house;
  And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age
  Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
  Or anecdote domestic.  Wise she was,
  And wondrous skill’d in genealogies,
  And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
  Of births, of titles, and alliances;
  Of marriages, and intermarriages;
  Relationship remote, or near of kin;
  Of friends offended, family disgraced—­
  Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying
  Parental strict injunction, and regardless
  Of unmix’d blood, and ancestry remote,
  Stooping to wed with one of low degree. 
  But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
  Thy honor’d memory, recording chiefly
  Things light or trivial.  Better ’twere to tell,
  How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love,
  She served her heavenly Master.  I have seen
  That reverend form bent down with age and pain,
  And rankling malady.  Yet not for this
  Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew
  Her trust in Him, her faith, an humble hope—­
  So meekly had she learn’d to bear her cross—­
  For she had studied patience in the school
  Of Christ; much comfort she had thence derived,
  And was a follower of the NAZARENE.

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THE SABBATH BELLS.

  The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
  Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
  Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
  Tidings of good to Zion:  chiefly when
  Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear
  Of the contemplant, solitary man,