To send him from our bedside prayer.”
Then stole we lightly up above,
And knelt by Mary, child of love;
"Perhaps for her it would better be,"
I said to John, quite silently.
He lifted up a curl that lay
Across her cheek in willful way,
And shook his head, "Nay, love, not thee;"
The while my heart beat audibly.
Only one more, our oldest lad,
Trusty and truthful, good and glad,
So like his father, "No, John, no:
I can not, will not, let him go."
And we wrote in courteous way,
We would not give one child away;
And afterward toil brighter seemed,
Thinking of that of which we dreamed,
Happy, in truth, that not one face,
We missed from its accustomed place;
Thankful to work for all of the seven,
Trusting then to One in heaven.
BOVE a checkered table they bent--
A man in his prime and a maiden fair,
Over whose polished and blue-veined brow
Rested no shadowy tinge of care.
Her eyes were fountains of sapphire light;
Her lips wore the curves of cheerful thought;
And into her gestures and into her smile
Grace and beauty their spell had fraught.
Above the checkered table they bent,
Watching the pieces, red and white,
As each moved on in appointed course
Through the mimic battle's steady fight-
The queen, in her stately, regal power;
The king, to her person friendly shield;
The mitred bishop, with his support,
And the massive castle across the field;
The pawn, in his slow and cautious pace,
A step at a time; and the mounted knight,
Vaulting, as gallant horseman of old,
To the right and left, and left and right.
But a single word the silence broke,
As they cleared aside the ruin and wreck Of the battle's havoc; and that word
Was the little monosyllable "Check!"
Pawns, and bishops, and castles, and knights
Trembled together in sad dismay,
While a pair of hearts were pulsing beside
To a deeper, wilder, sweeter play.
Yet the gaze of each-the man and the maid-
On the board was fastened for turn of fate,
When she archly whispered, with radiant glance,
And a sparkling smile: "If you please, sir, mate!"
And gently her fluttering triumph-hand,
As white as a flake of purest pearl,
She laid on the crown of her victor-king,
While the other toyed with a wanton curl.
He lifted the first to his smiling lips
And on it imprinted a trembling kiss;
And he murmured softly: "I should not care
For losing the game could I win but this!"
What the maiden answered 'twere treason to tell,
As her blushes deepened to crimson glow,
Mounting like lightning flashes quick
Till they burned on cheeks, and ears and brow.
And in three months' time the church-bells rang,
And the parson finished the game begun,
When both wore the conqueror's triumph-smile,
And both were happy, for both had won.
See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design!
What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.
The tiny cell is forlorn,
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Thro' his dim water-world?
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