"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door." The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still. "A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. "And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair. "Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay. "No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, "But low of cattle and song of birds, But he thought of his sister, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, And the young girl mused beside the well, He wedded a wife of richest dower, MAUD MULLER. Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, And the proud man sighed with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again! "Free as when I rode that day Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay." She wedded a man unlearned and poor, But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain, And oft, when the summer sun shone hot And she heard the little spring-brook fall In the shade of the apple-tree again And gazing down with a timid grace, Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 151 The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, And for him who sat by the chimney lug, A manly form at her side she saw, Then she took up her burden of life again, Alas for maiden, alas for Judge! God pity them both! and pity us all, For of all sad words of tongue or pen, Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away! JOHN G. WHITTIER. Knight Toggenburg. Vows this heart to thee; Ask no other, warmer feeling— Tranquil would I see thy coming, Tranquil see thee go; What that starting tear would tell me, KNIGHT TOGGENBURG. He with silent anguish listens, Though his heart-strings bleed; Seeks the Holy Tomb. There full many a deed of glory But the pang that wrings his bosom One long year he bears his sorrow, Rest he seeks, but finding never, Sees a ship by Joppa's haven, Which, with swelling sail, At her father's castle-portal Hark! his knock is heard: See the gloomy gate uncloses With the thunder-word: "She thou seek'st is veiled forever, Is the bride of heaven; Yester-eve the vows were plighted— She to God is given." 153 Then his old ancestral castle He forever flees; Battle-steed and trusty weapon From the Toggenburg descending For the frame once sheathed in iron There beside that hallowed region Sat he there alone. Gazing upward to the convent Till that form looked forth so lovely, Till the sweet face smiled Down into the lonesome valley, Peaceful, angel-mild. Then he laid him down to slumber, Thus for days he watched and waited, Thus for years he lay, Happy if he saw the lattice Open day by day |