Who, through long days of labour, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.
A weary lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, And press the rue for wine! A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green,-- No more of me you knew, My love! No more of me you knew.
'This morn is merry June, I trow, The rose is budding fain; But she shall bloom in winter snow, Ere we two meet again.' He turn'd his charger as he spake, Upon the river shore, He gave his bridle-reins a shake, Said, 'Adieu for evermore, My love! And adieu for evermore.'
We walked along, while bright and red Uprose the morning sun: And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said, 'The will of God be done!'
A village schoolmaster was he, With hair of glittering grey; As blithe a man as you could see On a spring holiday.
And on that morning, through the grass, And by the steaming rills, We travelled merrily, to pass A day among the hills.
'Our work,' said I, 'was well begun; Then, from thy breast what thought, Beneath so beautiful a sun, So sad a sigh has brought?'
A second time did Matthew stop; And fixing still his eye Upon the eastern mountain-top, To me he made reply:
'Yon cloud with that long purple cleft Brings fresh into my mind A day like this which I have left Full thirty years behind.
'And just above yon slope of corn Such colours, and no other, Were in the sky, that April morn, Of this the very brother.
'With rod and line I sued the sport Which that sweet season gave, And, to the church-yard come, stopped short Beside my daughter's grave.
'Nine summers had she scarcely seen, The pride of all the vale; And then she sang;--she would have been A very nightingale.
'Six feet in earth my Emma lay; And yet I loved her more, For so it seemed, than till that day I e'er had loved before.