Recitations for the Social Circle Part 24

Let us proceed in the settlement of the unfortunate controversies in which we find ourselves involved, in a spirit of mutual conciliation and concession:--let us invoke fervently upon our efforts the blessings of that Almighty Being who is "the author of peace and lover of concord:"--and we shall still find order springing out of confusion, harmony evoked from discord, and peace, union and liberty, once more rea.s.sured to our land!

THE WOMEN OF MUMBLES HEAD.

BY CLEMENT SCOTT.

Bring, novelist, your note-book! bring, dramatist, your pen!

And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.

It's only a tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead, Of the terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head!

Maybe you have traveled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south; Maybe you are friends with the "natives" that dwell at Oystermouth; It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way, And have sailed your yacht in the summer in the blue of Swansea Bay.

Well! it isn't like that in the winter, when the lighthouse stands alone, In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone; It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew, and the storm-bell tolled, or when There was news of a wreck, and the lifeboat launched, and a desperate cry for men.

When in the world did the c.o.xswain shirk? a brave old salt was he!

Proud to the bone of as four strong lads as ever had tasted the sea, Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about that coast, 'twas said, Had saved some hundred lives apiece--at a shilling or so a head!

So the father launched the lifeboat, in the teeth of the tempest's roar, And he stood like a man at the rudder, with an eye on his boys at the oar.

Out to the wreck went the father! out to the wreck went the sons!

Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns; Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors love, Going to death for duty, and trusting to G.o.d above!

Do you murmur a prayer, my brothers, when cozy and safe in bed, For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?

It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!

And it snapped the rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew; And then the anchor parted--'twas a tussle to keep afloat!

But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.

Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!

"G.o.d help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye!"

Half of the crew swam sh.o.r.eward, half to the sheltered caves, But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.

Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm, And saw in the boiling breakers a figure,--a fighting form; It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath; It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death, It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.

They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and more, Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse, straight to sh.o.r.e.

There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand, Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.

'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave, But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?

What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men Who stood by the sh.o.r.e with chattering teeth, refusing to stir--and then Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent, Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!

"Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper, "For G.o.d's sake, girls, come back!"

As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.

"Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea, "If the waves take you, my darlings, there's n.o.body left to me!"

"Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale, "You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall if you brave the gale!"

"_Come back!_" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town, We'll lose our lives, G.o.d willing, before that man shall drown!"

"Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch of your hand!

Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll bring him safe to land!

Wait for the next wave, darling! only a minute more, And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him to the sh.o.r.e."

Up to the arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast, They caught and saved a brother alive. G.o.d bless them! you know the rest-- Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed, And many a hearty cheer was raised for "The Women of Mumbles Head!"

A REASONABLE REQUEST.

MR. DARNELLE ASKS HIS FIANCEE A FAVOR, AFTER THEIR ENGAGEMENT.

"It is so sudden, Mr. Darnelle."

"I know it is," responded the young man gently.

He stood before her with his weight resting easily on one foot, his left elbow on the mantel-piece, his right arm behind him, and his whole att.i.tude one of careless, unstudied ease and grace, acquired only by long and patient practice.

"I know it is," he repeated. "Measured by ordinary standards and by the cold conventionalities of society, it is indeed sudden. We have known each other only twenty-four hours. Until 8.25 o'clock last night neither of us had ever heard of the other. Yet with the heart one day is as one hundred years. Could we have known one another better, darling," he went on, with a tremor in his cultivated B flat baritone voice, "if we had attended the theatre, the concert, the church and the oyster parlor together for a dozen seasons? Does not your heart beat responsive to mine?"

"I will not pretend to deny, Mr. Darnelle," replied the young lady, with a rich blush mantling her cheek and brow, "that your avowal moves me strangely."

"I know it--I feel it," he responded eagerly. "Love is not the slow, vegetable-like growth of years. It does not move in its course with the measured, leisurely step of a man working by the day. It springs up like a mushr--like an electric flash. It takes instant possession. It does not need to be jerked in, as it were. It needs not the agonized coaxing of--of a young man's first chin whiskers, my darling. It is here! You will forgive my presumption, will you not, and speak the words that tremble on your lips--the words that will fill my cup of joy to overflowing?"

The evening had pa.s.sed like a beautiful dream. Mr. Darnelle, admonished by the clock that it was time to go, had risen reluctantly to his feet, and stood holding the hand of his beautiful betrothed.

"My love," he said, in eager pa.s.sionate accents, "now that you have blessed my life with a measureless, ineffable joy, and made all my future radiant with golden hope, you will not think I am asking too much if I plead for just one favor?"

"What is it?" shyly responded the lovely maiden.

"Will you please tell me your first name?"

RESIGNATION.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside howso'er defended, But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying; And mournings for the dead; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying.

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions a.s.sume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,--the child of our affection,-- But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.