Beechenbrook eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 68 pages of information about Beechenbrook.

Beechenbrook eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 68 pages of information about Beechenbrook.

    “Why harrow your heart with the grief and the pain? 
    Why paint you the picture that’s scorching my brain? 
    Why speak of the night when I stood on the lawn,
    And watched the last flame die away in the dawn? 
    ’Tis over,—­that vision of terror,—­of woe! 
    Its horrors I would not recall;—­let them go! 
    I am calm when I think what I suffered them for;
    I grudge not the quota I pay to the war!

    “But, Douglass!—­deep down in the core of my heart,
    There’s a throbbing, an aching, that will not depart;
    For memory mourns, with a wail of despair,
    The loss of her treasures,—­the subtle, the rare,
    Precious things over which she delighted to pore,
    Which nothing,—­ah! nothing, can ever restore!

    “The rose-covered porch, where I sat as your bride—­
    The hearth, where at twilight I leaned at your side—­
    The low-cushioned window-seat, where I would lie,
    With my head on your knee, and look out on the sky:—­
    The chamber all holy with love and with prayer,
    The motherhood memories clustering there—­
    The vines that your hand has delighted to train,
    The trees that you planted;—­Oh! never again
    Can love build us up such a bower of bliss;
    Oh! never can home be as hallow’d as this!

    “Thank God! there’s a dwelling not builded with hands,
    Whose pearly foundation, immovable stands;
    There struggles, alarms, and disquietudes cease,
    And the blissfulest balm of the spirit is—­peace! 
    Small trial ’twill seem when our perils are past,
    And we enter the house of our Father at last,—­
    Light trouble, that here, in the night of our stay,
    The blast swept our wilderness lodging away!

“The children—­dear hearts!—­it is touching to see My Beverly’s beautiful kindness to me; So buoyant his mein—­so heroic—­resigned—­ The boy has the soul of his father, I find!  Not a childish complaint or regret have I heard,—­ Not even from Archie, a petulant word:  Once only—­a tear moistened Sophy’s bright cheek:  ’Papa has no home now!’—­’twas all she could speak.

    “A stranger I wander midst strangers; and yet
    I never,—­no, not for a moment forget
    That my heart has a home,—­just as real, as true,
    And as warm as if Beechenbrook sheltered me too. 
    God grant that this refuge from sorrow and pain—­
    This blessedest haven of peace, may remain! 
    And, then, though disaster, still sharper, befall,
    I think I can patiently bear with it all: 
    For the rarest, most exquisite bliss of my life
    Is wrapped in a word, Douglass ...  I am your wife!”

IX.

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Project Gutenberg
Beechenbrook from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.