They were footsteps on her Jacob's ladder
Angels to her were the loves and hopes
Which had left her purified, but sadder,
And they lured her to the emerald slopes
Of that heaven where anguish never flashes
Her red fire-whips, happy land, where flowers Bloom over the volcanic ashes
Of this blighting, blighted world of ours!
All her power was a love of goodness;
All her wisdom was a mystic faith
That the rough world's jargoning and rudeness
Turns to music at the gate of death.
So she walked while feeble limbs allowed her,
Knowing well that any stubborn grief
She might meet with could no more than crowd her
To that wall whose opening was relief.
So she lived, an anchoress of sorrow,
Lone and peaceful, on the rocky slope,
And, when burning trials came, would borrow
New fire of them for the lamp of hope.
When at last her palsied hand, in grasping,
Rattled tremulous at the grated tomb,
Heaven flashed round her joys beyond her asking,
And her young soul gladdened into bloom.
WHAT do people think of her,
Our Cousin Jane?
With a sallow, sunken cheek;
Hair with many a silver streak;
Features never made for show;
Eyes that faded long ago;
Brows no longer smooth and fair;
Form bent o'er with pain and care;
Sad to be so old and plain-
Slighted Cousin Jane!
What do we all think of her,
Our Cousin Jane?
Quieting the children's noise;
Mending all the broken toys;
Doing deftly, one by one,
Duties others leave undone ;
Gliding round the sick one's bed,
With a noiseless foot and tread, -
Who like her can soothe in pain,
Useful Cousin Jane?
What do angels think of her,
Our Cousin Jane?
Bearing calmly every cross,
Finding gain through seeming loss,
And a beauty ever bright
In the rigid line of right;
Self-forgetting, free from art,
With a loving, Christ-like heart;
Living aye for others' gain-
Saintly Cousin Jane!
Would that thinking oft of her
Our Cousin Jane
Might our inward vision clear,
To behold the "unseen " near,
And in forms of dullest hue,
Heaven's own beauty shining through.
Reached that land of purest day;
Passed-misjudging earth away;
What radiance will she then attain-
Star-crowned Cousin Jane!
LET'S wait a little longer, Tom,
Before we westward go;
Let's wait for old Aunt Hannah's sake,
"Twould break her heart, I know.
Look at her in her corner there,
Her head as white as snow,
The last leaf of the good old tree
We cannot leave her so!
In this old mansion was she born;
Her joys and griefs were here;
How well she loved and nursed us all
Through many a changing year!
See how she's smiling at the fire,
And whispering something low!
She's thinking of the Christmas times,
O, long and long ago!
Beside yon crumbling garden wall
Our gallant father lies,
Our good old mother at his side
Aunt Hannah closed their eyes! She was the playmate of them both, Some fifty years ago
To leave those dear old graves behind, "Twould break her heart, I know.
When the old soldier parcelled out
His treasures, great and small,
Aunt Hannah he would give to none,
He gave her to us all.
We laid his good sword on his breast,
For he had charged us so —
Whilst old Aunt Hannah knelt in tears—
Ah, Tom, we cannot go !
Her falling sands will soon be out,
The kindly angel come,
And lead the good old faithful soul
To our great Master's home.
And when we've marked her simple grave,
And dropped a tear or so,
We'll urn the ashes of the past,
And gayly westward go!
A WONDERFUL stream is the river Time,
As it runs through the realm of years,
With a faultless rhyme and a musical chime,
And a broader sweep and a surge sublime,
And blends with the ocean of tears.
|