Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1873-02-24
S'd1TSdH w
THE WIFE.
BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

D1 ". NhllIAHh'
An Idyl Of Bearcamp Water.
From school, and ball, and rout, she came,
The city's fair, pale daughter,
10 drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Beareamp Water.
Her step grew frmer on the hills
That watch our homesteads over;
On cheek and lip, from summer fields,
Z She caught the bloom of clover.
For health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Chocorua stealing,
There's iron in our northern winds.
Our pines are trees of healing.
She sat beneath the broad armed elms
That skirt the moving meadow, A ~ ~-
And watched the gentlewest wind weave
!Phe grass with shine and shadow. 4
Beside her, from the summer heat
TO share her grateful screening, d.
With forehead barred, the farmer stood,
Upon his pitchfork leaning.
Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face
Had nothing mean or common
Strong, manly, true, the tenderness
And pride beloved of woman.
She looked up, glowing with the health
The country air had brought her,
And, laughing said "You lack wife,
Your mother lacks daughter.
''To mend your frock and bake your bread
You do not need lady:
Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready
''Some fair, sweet girl, with skillful hand
And cheerful heart to treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's measure %
He benthis black brows to a frown. 7
He set his white teeth tightly.
"'Tis we'll, he said, ''for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.
You think, because my life is rude,
take no note Of sweetness;
tell you love has naught to do
WIN neeCnCSS or uQmCeUnCSS.
"Itself its best excuse, it asks
No leaf of pride or fashion,
When silken zone or homespun sfrock
1t stirs with throbs of passion.
"You think me deaf and blind you bring
Your winning graces hither,
AS free as if from cradle time,
We two had played together.
y "You tempt me with your laughing eyes
Your cheeks with sundown's bushes,
A motion as of waving grain,
A music as of thrushes. yvs ~ 4 ~
The plaything of your summer. sport,
THE spells you weave around me,
You cannot at your will undo,
Nor leave me as you found me.
"You go as lightly as you came,
Your life is we'll without me;
What care you that these hills will clos
! Like prison-walls about me?
''No mood is mine to seek wife,
Or daughter for, my mother ),
| w uO 1ONCS yOu lOoCS ULdU 1OVC
{ All power to love another
! 81 dare your pity or your scorn,
With pride your own exceeding;
l fling my heart into your lap
Without a word of pleading
5 She looked up in his face of pain,
So archly, yet so tender: -,
"And ifaI lend you mine, 'Nshe said,
"Will you forgive the lender?
"Nor frock nor tan can hide the man
g And see you not, my farmer,
How weak and fond woman waits
Behind this silken >armor?
, love you: on that love alone,
And not my worth presuming.
viii you not trust for summer fruit
The tree in May-day blooming %
Alone the hangbird overhead,
His hair-swing cradle straining,
I Looked down to see loves miracle
+. eHhe giving that is gaining vry
s. And so the farmer found wife, wv
His mother found daughter
There looks no happier home than her
On pleasant Bearcamp Water.
Flowers spring to blossom where she wa
The careful ways of duty
Our hard, stiff lines Of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.
5 Our homes are cheerier for her sake,
Our door-yards brighter blooming,
And all about, the social air
g Is sweeter for her coming.
2 We send the squire to general Court
He takes his young, wife thither:g
No@prouder man election-day 1>S S-A-
Rides through the sweet June wealth
Thus spake our landlord as we drove
Beneath the decp, hill shadows.
Below us wreathes Of white fog walk
Like ghosts the haunted meadows
Until, at last, beneath its bridge,
We heard the Bearcamp flowing,
fall And saw across the mapled lawn
The welcome home-lights glowing
,. And musihg on theltale iheard,A / =
% 'Twere wen. thought I, if often y
To rugged faph-life came the gift
are are = To hafmorize and soften -
our If more and more we found the troth
OF fact and fancy plighted,
a. And culture charm and labor's siren.
In rural homes united
The simple life. the homely hearth,
With beauty's sphere surrounding
.. And blessing toll where toll abo9plds
ON, With graces more aboundlng.
q A most atrocious and cold bloc,
!, !, murder was perpetrated in Brockton,
the ON tha 10Th Thomac Elan6