POETRY.
THE STRICKEN PEASANT.
DIM twilight here ; and in her singing mind Dim twilight too. Shut in this darkened room, Over whose broad-beamed walls the shadows bloom, All day she lies ;
Yet will her sweet thoughts find Nothing but praise to tell until she dies.
No footstep passes but she knows the tread ; And each some pastoral-memory awakes Within her dreamy head.
Or when the barley-wains Go rumbling past, darkly her old brain tells Of other wagons jolting up the lanes In days long since ; then breaks A tear from shrunken lids and trembling flows, While on those far-off harvest fields she dwell 3.
Sometimes, for hours, no company she knows But chattering birds That rustle in her eaves, when the wind blows Sparrows and starlings, jostling, helter-skelter, To the thatch for shelter : Yet are their pipings plain to her as words.
Or she will turn to the window's leaded panes—
On loved scenes lingering long ; And whether sun makes bright the land, or rains Close it in tremulous veils, one song Is ever at her lips—though mutely thrown To the still air—of love and love alone.
And when the twilight fades and wagons come Wheeling their yellow lights about her room, As to the farm they pass along Their very creaking is an evensong.
So with their little circumstance, the days Draw to a close ; the nights dark vigil keep— Unblessed of sleep : Yet is her every word a meed of praise.
Such peace is hers, no knowledge gives, Who, to no other end than loving, lives : Such faith, no knowledge now can try, With urgent Wherefore, Why, To dim the brightness of her old belief. Out of her vew grief Has grown this rich content, Easing her soul in its lone banishment.
And often, in her dreams, the skies are riven With a great light ; till her accustomed eyes Behold the blaze of heaven.
Upon her ears a singing breaks ; the skies Fold back and ever back ; and flaxen-fair The angels are, moving in beauty there.
The memory is so bright for her That waking, still she fears to stir Lest this her room and these her hands should be A borrowed dream out of Eternity.
C. HENRY WARREN.
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