“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.
Where the lion, crouching high on
Abraham’s rock with teeth of iron,
Glares o’er wood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
Or as thunder spent and dying,
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
Homeward faring, weary strangers
Pass the farm-gate on their way;
Tidings of the dead and living,
Forest march and ambush, giving,
Till the maidens leave their weaving,
And the lads forget their play.
“Still away, still away!”
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,
“Why does Robert still delay!”
Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer,
Does the golden-locked fruit bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray,
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook the long, blue reaches,
Silver coves and pebbled beaches,
And green isles of Casco Bay;
Nowhere day, for delay,
With a tenderer look beseeches,
“Let me with my charmed earth stay.”
