The Home Book of Verse Volume I Part 64

DUTY

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is G.o.d to man, When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"

The youth replies, "I can."

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

LUCY GRAY Or Solitude

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray: And, when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see, at break of day, The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wide moor, The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play, The hare upon the green; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night,-- You to the town must go; And take a lantern, Child, to light Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father, will I gladly do: 'Tis scarcely afternoon,-- The minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the moon!"

At this the Father raised his hook, And snapped a f.a.got-brand.

He plied his work;--and Lucy took The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe: With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time: She wandered up and down: And many a hill did Lucy climb: But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide.

At daybreak on the hill they stood That overlooked the moor; And thence they saw the bridge of wood, A furlong from their door.

They wept,--and, turning homeward, cried, "In heaven we all shall meet;"

When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge They tracked the footmarks small: And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, And by the low stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed-- The marks were still the same-- They tracked them on, nor ever lost; And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank Those footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank; And further there were none!

--Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Emmie

Our doctor had called in another, I never had seen him before, But he sent a chill to my heart when I saw him come in at the door, Fresh from the surgery-schools of France and of other lands-- Harsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big merciless hands!

Wonderful cures he had done, O yes, but they said too of him He was happier using the knife than in trying to save the limb, And that I can well believe, for he looked so coa.r.s.e and so red, I could think he was one of those who would break their jests on the dead, And mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawned at his knee-- Drenched with the h.e.l.lish oorali--that ever such things should be!

Here was a boy--I am sure that some of our children would die But for the voice of love, and the smile, and the comforting eye-- Here was a boy in the ward, every bone seemed out of its place-- Caught in a mill and crushed--it was all but a hopeless case: And he handled him gently enough; but his voice and his face were not kind, And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen it and made up his mind, And he said to me roughly "The lad will need little more of your care."

"All the more need," I told him, "to seek the Lord Jesus in prayer; They are all His children here, and I pray for them all as my own:"

But he turned to me, "Ay, good woman, can prayer set a broken bone?"

Then he muttered half to himself, but I know that I heard him say, "All very well--but the good Lord Jesus has had his day."

Had? has it come? It has only dawned. It will come by and by.

O, how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the world were a lie?

How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome smells of disease But that He said "Ye do it to me, when ye do it to these"?

So he went. And we pa.s.sed to this ward where the younger children are laid: Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling, our meek little maid; Empty you see just now! We have lost her who loved her so much-- Patient of pain though as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch; Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to tears, Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a child of her years-- Nay you remember our Emmie; you used to send her the flowers; How she would smile at 'em, play with 'em, talk to 'em hours after hours!

They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are revealed Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field; Flowers to these "spirits in prison" are all they can know of the spring, They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an angel's wing; And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crossed on her breast-- Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we thought her at rest, Quietly sleeping--so quiet, our doctor said, "Poor little dear, Nurse, I must do it to-morrow; she'll never live through it, I fear."

I walked with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair, Then I returned to the ward; the child didn't see I was there.

Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and so vexed!

Emmie had heard him. Softly she called from her cot to the next, "He says I shall never live through it; O Annie, what shall I do?"

Annie considered. "If I," said the wise little Annie, "was you, I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie, you see, It's all in the picture there: 'Little children should come to Me.'"-- (Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about His knees.) "Yes, and I will," said Emmie, "but then if I call to the Lord, How should He know that it's me? such a lot of beds in the ward?"

That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she considered and said: "Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave 'em outside on the bed-- The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it Him plain, It's the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane."

I had sat three nights by the child--I could not watch her for four-- My brain had begun to reel--I felt I could do it no more.

That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it never would pa.s.s.

There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the gla.s.s, And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tossed about, The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without; My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife And fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would escape with her life; Then in the gray of the morning it seemed she stood by me and smiled, And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see the child.

He had brought his ghastly tools: we believed her asleep again-- Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counterpane;-- Say that His day is done! Ah, why should we care what they say?

The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had pa.s.sed away.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

"IF I WERE DEAD"

"If I were dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child!"

The dear lips quivered as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled.

Poor Child, poor Child!

I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song.

It is not true that Love will do no wrong.

Poor Child!

And did you think, when you so cried and smiled, How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake, And of those words your full avengers make?

Poor Child, poor Child!