Part 18

The trees fold their green arms round it,-- The trees a century old; And the winds go chanting through them, And the sunbeams drop their gold.

The cowslips spring in the marshes, The roses bloom on the hill, And beside the brook in the pasture The herds go feeding at will.

Within, in the wide old kitchen, The old folk sit in the sun, That creeps through the sheltering woodbine, Till the day is almost done.

Their children have gone and left them; They sit in the sun alone! And the old wife’s ears are failing As she harks to the well-known tone

That won her heart in her girlhood, That has soothed her in many a care, And praises her now for the brightness Her old face used to wear.

She thinks again of her bridal,-- How, dressed in her robe of white, She stood by her gay young lover In the morning’s rosy light.

O, the morning is rosy as ever, But the rose from her cheek is fled; And the sunshine still is golden, But it falls on a silvered head.

And the girlhood dreams, once vanished, Come back in her winter time, Till her feeble pulses tremble With the thrill of spring-time’s prime.

And looking forth from the window, She thinks how the trees have grown Since, clad in her bridal whiteness, She crossed the old door-stone.

Though dimmed her eyes’ bright azure, And dimmed her hair’s young gold, The love in her girlhood plighted Has never grown dim or old.

They sat in peace in the sunshine Till the day was almost done, And then, at its close, an angel Stole over the threshold stone.

He folded their hands together,-- He touched their eyelids with balm, And their last breath floated outward, Like the close of a solemn psalm!

Like a bridal pair they traversed The unseen, mystical road That leads to the Beautiful City, Whose “builder and maker is God.”

Perhaps in that miracle country They will give her lost youth back, And the flowers of the vanished spring-time Will bloom in the spirit’s track.

One draught from the living waters Shall call back his manhood’s prime; And eternal years shall measure The love that outlasted time.

But the shapes that they left behind them, The wrinkles and silver hair,-- Made holy to us by the kisses The angel had printed there,--

We will hide away ’neath the willows, When the day is low in the west, Where the sunbeams cannot find them, Nor the winds disturb their rest.

And we’ll suffer no telltale tombstone, With its age and date, to rise O’er the two who are old no longer, In the Father’s house in the skies.

A STORY OF ST. MARK’S EVE.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

St. Mark’s Day is a festival which has been observed on the 25th of April, in Catholic countries, from time immemorial. The superstition alluded to in the following story was formerly very generally believed, and vigils in the church-porch at midnight were common.

“I hope it’ll choke thee!” said Master Giles, the yeoman; and, as he said it, he banged his big red fist on the old oak table. “I do say I hope it’ll choke thee!”

The dame made no reply. She was choking with passion and a fowl’s liver, which was the cause of the dispute. Much has been said and sung concerning the advantage of congenial tastes amongst married people; but the quarrels of this Kentish couple arose from too great coincidence in their tastes. They were both fond of the little delicacy in question, but the dame had managed to secure the morsel to herself. This was sufficient to cause a storm of high words, which, properly understood, signifies very low language. Their meal times seldom passed over without some contention of this sort. As sure as the knives and forks clashed, so did they; being in fact equally greedy and disagreedy; and when they did pick a quarrel, they picked it to the bone.

It was reported that, on some occasions, they had not even contented themselves with hard speeches, but had come to scuffling; he taking to boxing and she to pinching, though in a far less amicable manner than is practised by the taker of snuff. On the present difference, however, they were satisfied with “wishing each other dead with all their hearts”; and there seemed little doubt of the sincerity of the aspiration, on looking at their malignant faces; for they made a horrible picture in this frame of mind.

Now it happened that this quarrel took place on the morning of St. Mark; a saint who was supposed on that festival to favor his votaries with a peep into the book of fate. For it was the popular belief in those days, that, if a person should keep watch at midnight beside the church, the apparitions of all those of the parish who were to be taken by death before the next anniversary would be seen entering the porch. The yeoman, like his neighbors, believed most devoutly in this superstition; and in the very moment that he breathed the unseemly aspiration aforesaid, it occurred to him that the eve was at hand, when, by observing the rite of St. Mark, he might know to a certainty whether this unchristian wish was to be one of those that bear fruit. Accordingly, a little before midnight, he stole quietly out of the house, and set forth on his way to the church.

In the mean time, the dame called to mind the same ceremonial; and, having the like motive for curiosity with her husband, she also put on her cloak and calash, and set out, though by a different path, on the same errand.

The night of the Saint was as dark and chill as the mysteries he was supposed to reveal; the moon throwing but a short occasional glance, as sluggish masses of cloud were driven slowly from her face. Thus it fell out that our two adventurers were quite unconscious of being in company, till a sudden glimpse of moonlight showed them to each other, only a few yards apart. Both, through a natural panic, became pale as ghosts; and both made eagerly toward the church porch. Much as they had wished for this vision, they could not help quaking and stopping on the spot, as if turned to stones; and in this position the dark again threw a sudden curtain over them, and they disappeared from each other.

The two came to one conclusion; each conceiving that St. Mark had marked the other to himself. With this comfortable knowledge, the widow and widower elect hied home again by the roads they came; and as their custom was to sit apart after a quarrel, they repaired to separate chambers, each ignorant of the other’s excursion.