“So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother
spake; As we come to do her bidding, So receive us
for her sake.”
“God be praised!” said Goodwife Garvin,
“He taketh, and He gives; He woundeth, but
He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!”
“Amen!” the old man answered, as he brushed
a tear away, And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said,
with reverence, “Let us pray.”
All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer
of love and praise.
But he started at beholding, as he rose from off
his knee, The stranger cross his forehead with the
sign of Papistrie.
“What is this?” cried Farmer Garvin.
“Is an English Christian’s home A chapel
or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?”
Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his
trembling hand, and cried: Oh, forbear to chide
my father; in that faith my mother died!
“On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and
sunshine fall, As they fall on Spurwink’s graveyard;
and the dear God watches all!”
The old man stroked the fair head that rested on
his knee; “Your words, dear child,” he
answered, “are God’s rebuke to me.
“Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our
faith and hope be one. Let me be your father’s
father, let him be to me a son.”
When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still
and frosty air, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point,
called to sermon and to prayer,
To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due
and fit, As by public vote directed, classed and ranked
the people sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire
before the clown, “From the brave coat, lace-embroidered,
to the gray frock, shading down;”
From the pulpit read the preacher, “Goodman
Garvin and his wife
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has
followed them through life,
“For the great and crowning mercy, that their
daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope
in God’s peace), has sent to them her child;
“And the prayers of all God’s people they
ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their
weakness, of such special proof of love.”
As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple
stood, And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden-hood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, “She
is
Papist born and bred;”
Thought the young men, “’T is an angel
in Mary
Garvin’s stead!”
Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the
Old
French War.
Robert Rawlin!—Frosts were falling
When the ranger’s horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.
Gone the winter’s sleet and snowing,
Gone the spring-time’s bud and blowing,
Gone the summer’s harvest mowing,
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he’s away!
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.
