Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

On my bended knee,

I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown;
My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see
Thyself Thyself alone.

I have nought to fear;

This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred,-here
Can come no evil thing.

Oh! I seem to stand

Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been,
Wrapped in the radiance of Thy sinless land
Which eye hath never seen.

Visions come and go,

Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow
Of soft and holy song.

It is nothing now,

When heaven is ripening on my sightless eyes,
When airs from Paradise refresh my brow,
That earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime,

My being fills with rapture,-waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit,-strains sublime
Break over me unsought.

Give me now my lyre!

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine;
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire,
Lit by no skill of mine.

THE CID AND BAVIECA.

The king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true;
Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due,
"O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside
The liege lord of Castile himself, should Bavieca ride:

"For neither Spain nor Araby could another charger bring
So good as he, and certes, the best befits my king."
But, that you may behold him, and know him to the core,
I'll make him go as he was wont when his nostrils smelt the
Moor."

With that the Cid, clad as he was, in mantle furred and wide, On Bavieca vaulting, put the rowel in his side;

And up and down, and round and round, so fierce was his

career,

Streamed like a pennon on the wind, Ruy Diaz' minivere.

And all that saw them praised them,-they lauded man and horse,

As matched well, and rivals for gallantry and force;
Ne'er had they looked on horseman might to this knight

come near,

Nor on other charger worthy of such a cavalier.

Thus, to and fro a-rushing, the fierce and furious steed,
He snapped in twain his nether rein :-" God pity now the
Cid!-

God pity Diaz!" cried the lords, but when they looked again,

They saw Ruy Diaz ruling him with the fragment of his rein;
They saw him proudly ruling with gesture firm and calm,
Like a true lord commanding, and obeyed as by a lamb.

And so he led him foaming and panting to the king,
But, "No," said Don Alphonso, it were a shameful thing,
That peerless Baviera should ever be bestrid

By any mortal but Bivar,-mount, mount again, my Cid!”

SOCKS FOR JOHN RANDALL.-MRS. P. H. PHELPS.

It was a matter of talk that Widow Randall knit so many socks for the soldiers. She was a poor woman, and had little to do with; but she must have spent a great deal of money for yarn, buying so much of the best at war prices. Knitting seemed almost a mania with her. She was sometimes seen knitting before breakfast. No sooner was her housework done, than out came her knitting, and her needles flew, click, click, click, faster even than they did when her fingers were young and supple; while her pale, sad face bending above them made one almost weep to look at her. She was one of those who do not weep, but who ever carry a full fountain of tears sealed up within them.

Not a box in all the country near was sent to the soldiers

that did not contain a pair of Widow Randall's socks; and box after box from the Sanitary Commission carried her contributions. Always welcome,-so soft, so warm, so nice were her socks. The appreciative could not help unrolling them, feeling their softness and speaking their praise; and always carefully stitched within them they found a letter. Sometimes it was only, "To my dear son, John Randall, from his ever-loving mother;" sometimes it told of her love, and hope, and earnest prayer; sometimes it implored him to write to her, and tell her that he lived, and tell her of his welfare if he lived.

How many soldiers were blessed through her love for one! How many felt a glow of thanks as they drew her comforting socks over their benumbed feet, and dropped a tear upon her tender letter to the son who might then be perishing uncared for, unknowing how a mother's love had sought for him, prayed for him, unceasingly.

A pair of "socks for John Randall" once fell into the hands of a poor motherless English boy. His lone, yearning, orphan heart responded to the maternal tenderness which he had missed and mourned for in his own life; and with the instincts of a son, he wrote the widowed mother a letter of love and thanks in the name of all the absent and wandering sons, and sent her gold, and offered to be her son, if God had bereaved her of her own.

A pair of "John Randall's socks" worked their way into a Kentucky regiment at the west. There a rough, hard old soldier got possession of them, and found the note within them, and read it aloud to the silent group around him. In that group was a lone youth who had come a stranger into the regiment, and who never spoke of his home or friends. No one listened to the note so intently as he, and it was strange to see how his color came and went as he listened. Then the tears rolled fast down his cheeks.

"Give me the letter," he said; "it is from my mother. The letter and the socks are mine."-" Yours! is your name John Randall?"-"Yes." A hearty laugh. "Randall! You can't come that game so easy, Boy George."

"Boy George," as the youth was familiarly called, colored deeper than before, but persisted. "My real name is John

Randall, and the letter and socks are mine."

"Yours when

you get 'em, and not much before," answered the man who had them. "If you've changed your name once, you may change it a dozen times, but that won't give you my socks."

"Boy George" said no more about the socks, but again asked for and received the letter. He sought a quiet place and read it, and read it again. "My dearest son, dearest beyond all expression, if you are still living, write to me and tell me so; if you love me still, be a good boy, and try to meet me in heaven."

This was all; but it was enough for the heart of that undutiful and suffering son. Wild and adventurous, and failing to obtain his mother's consent, he had gone to the war without it, changing his name, and enlisting in a regiment of a distant State. He had taken care that none of his early friends should know where he was, and he knew little of them. He had in some way heard that his mother was dead, and he feared that his own misconduct had broken her heart.

Thank God that in his mercy this bitterness was spared from his cup! His mother still lived, still loved him as of old. He would write to her, would tell her all, all his sins, his sorrows,―would ask her forgiveness, her blessing. He kissed his mother's letter, read it again, and then lifted up his heart to God, the first time for long years.

He sought the soldier to whom had fallen his mother's socks, offering his own and money for them. “Then it was your mother that knit them, was it?" questioned the rough soldier when he heard the strong desire of "Boy George" to obtain them. "Well, you shall have them: give me your duds, and take them."

How precious those socks seemed to him! Every stitch wrought by his mother's kind hand; and with every stitch a sigh heaved or a prayer breathed. He seemed to hear the sighs and prayers; he held the socks in his hand, and dropped tear after tear upon them, until his heart was moved, and so softened, that he fell upon his knees, as he had not done since he was a child, and prayed, "God forgive me!"

It was broad daylight, and no work to be done in the house, when Widow Randall dropped her knitting-work just

as she was binding off the heel, never taking care to fasten her needles, and letting her ball roll on the floor. One of her neighbors had brought her a letter which he said "had come from the war," and he "mistrusted that it might be from John, or might tell something about him." No wonder, then that the mother dropped her needles quickly and forgot her · ball. News from John! John alive!

She read, "Dear Mother-How shall I write you! I am alive, but I shall never see you again, never hear you speak my forgiveness. I am mortally wounded, and have not long to live. The socks with your note in them came just before the battle. They broke me all up, and sent me to my knees before God. Bless you, mother, that you never forgot me, never forgot to pray for me; and it is your prayers that have led me to pray at last. How I have mourned for you, mother! I heard you were dead, and feared it was my unkindness that caused your death. May God and you both forgive your repentant and dying son."

The

Joy,

The full fountain so long sealed is at last opened. eyes that have not wept for many a year weep now. grief, which is uppermost? Which is strongest? Widow Randall knows that she is childless, but she knows that her son died repentant and prayerful. She knows, too, that her labor has not been in vain in the Lord; not in vain the bread cast on the wide waters; not in vain her hope, and patience, and prayer. Never, never is prayer in vain when prompted by love, and winged by faith.

JOHN GILPIN.-COWPER.

John Gilpin was a citizen of credit and renown;

A train-band captain eke was he, of famous London town. John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, "Though wedded we have been

These twice ten tedious years, yet we no holiday have seen.

"To-morrow is our wedding-day, and we shall then repair Unto the Bell at Edmonton, all in a chaise and pair.

WW*

« ElőzőTovább »