"My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing wild; "Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!"
"She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away.
"And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong, She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.'
"'When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother's call, I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all.
"'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart; Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.
"'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied;
"'And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them, Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!'
"So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake; As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her sake."
"God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh, and He gives; He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!"
"Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away, And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, "Let us pray."
All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase, Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise.
But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee, The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie.
"What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English Christian's home A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?"
Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried: Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died!
"On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall, As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the dear God watches all!"
The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee; "Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's rebuke to me.
"Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one.
Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son."
When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer,
To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit, As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown, "From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray frock, shading down;"
From the pulpit read the preacher, "Goodman Garvin and his wife Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life,
"For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child;
"And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love."
As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple stood, And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden- hood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is Papist born and bred;"
Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary Garvin's stead!"
THE RANGER.
Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the Old French War.
ROBERT RAWLIN!--Frosts were falling When the ranger's horn was calling Through the woods to Canada.
Gone the winter's sleet and snowing, Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing, Gone the summer's harvest mowing, And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he's away!
Faint and fainter hope is growing In the hearts that mourn his stay.
Where the lion, crouching high on Abraham's rock with teeth of iron, Glares o'er wood and wave away, Faintly thence, as pines far sighing, Or as thunder spent and dying, Come the challenge and replying, Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying In their red graves far away.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers, Homeward faring, weary strangers Pass the farm-gate on their way; Tidings of the dead and living, Forest march and ambush, giving, Till the maidens leave their weaving, And the lads forget their play.
"Still away, still away!"
Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, "Why does Robert still delay!"
Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, Does the golden-locked fruit bearer Through his painted woodlands stray, Than where hillside oaks and beeches Overlook the long, blue reaches, Silver coves and pebbled beaches, And green isles of Casco Bay; Nowhere day, for delay, With a tenderer look beseeches, "Let me with my charmed earth stay."
On the grain-lands of the mainlands Stands the serried corn like train-bands, Plume and pennon rustling gay; Out at sea, the islands wooded, Silver birches, golden-hooded, Set with maples, crimson-blooded, White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, Stretch away, far away.
Dim and dreamy, over-brooded By the hazy autumn day.
Gayly chattering to the clattering Of the brown nuts downward pattering, Leap the squirrels, red and gray.
On the grass-land, on the fallow, Drop the apples, red and yellow; Drop the russet pears and mellow, Drop the red leaves all the day.
And away, swift away, Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow Chasing, weave their web of play.
"Martha Mason, Martha Mason, Prithee tell us of the reason Why you mope at home to-day Surely smiling is not sinning; Leave, your quilling, leave your spinning; What is all your store of linen, If your heart is never gay?
Come away, come away!
Never yet did sad beginning Make the task of life a play."
Overbending, till she's blending With the flaxen skein she's tending Pale brown tresses smoothed away From her face of patient sorrow, Sits she, seeking but to borrow, From the trembling hope of morrow, Solace for the weary day.
"Go your way, laugh and play; Unto Him who heeds the sparrow And the lily, let me pray."
"With our rally, rings the valley,-- Join us!" cried the blue-eyed Nelly; "Join us!" cried the laughing May, "To the beach we all are going, And, to save the task of rowing, West by north the wind is blowing, Blowing briskly down the bay Come away, come away!
Time and tide are swiftly flowing, Let us take them while we may!
"Never tell us that you'll fail us, Where the purple beach-plum mellows On the bluffs so wild and gray.
Hasten, for the oars are falling; Hark, our merry mates are calling; Time it is that we were all in, Singing tideward down the bay!"
"Nay, nay, let me stay; Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin Is my heart," she said, "to-day."
"Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin Some red squaw his moose-meat's broiling, Or some French lass, singing gay; Just forget as he's forgetting; What avails a life of fretting?
If some stars must needs be setting, Others rise as good as they."
"Cease, I pray; go your way!"
Martha cries, her eyelids wetting; "Foul and false the words you say!"