Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-04-23
poftrY.
The Psalm-Book in the Garret,

BY BENJAMIN f. TAYLOR.
A aARRET grows a human thing
With lonely oriental eyes,
To whom eonfding fingers bring
The world in yesterdays disguise
All. rich er far than noontide blaze
The soft grey silence of the air.
As II long years of ended days
Had garnered all their twilights there.
The heart can see so clear and far
In such place with such a light
God counts His heavens star by star,
And rains them down unclouded night.
Where rafters set their cobwebbd feet
Upon the rugged Oaken ledge,
found flock Of singers sweet,
Like snow-bound sparrows in hedge.
In silk of spiders spinning hid,
long and narrow Psalm-book lay;
wrote a name upon the lid,
Then brushed the Idle dust away.
All, dotted tribe with ebon heads
That climb the slender fence along
As black as ink, as thick as weeds.
Ye little Africans OF song
Who wrote upon this page Forget
Me Not ?" These cruel leaves Of old
Have crushed to death a violet
See here its specters pallid gold
A peneiled whisper during prayer
Is that poor dim and girlish word,
But ah. linger longest where
1t opens o. its own accord.
These spotted leavesl How they once basked
Beneath the glance Of girlhood's eyes
And parted TO the gaze unasked,
As spread the wings OF butterflies
The book falls open where it will
Broad on the page runs Silver Street
That shining way to lions Hill
Where base and treble used TO meet
shake the leaves, They part at Near
Again they strike the good old tune;
The vii sc church is builded here;
Thetwilight turns TO afternoon.
Old house of Puritanie wood,
Through whose paint ted windows streamed
On seats as primitive and rude
As Jacobs pillow when he dreamed,
The white and undiluted day
Thy naked aisle no roses grace
That bOssomed at the shuttle's play
Nor saints distempeTed bless the place.
Like feudaI castles, front to front,
In timbered oak OF Saxon Thor
To brave the siege and bear the brunt
OF Bunyan's endless Holy War,
The pulpit and the gallery stand
Between the twain peaceful space.
The prayer and praise on either hand,
And girls and Gospel face to face.
hear the reverend Elder say,
hear the Psalm books huttered play
Like hocks OF sDarrows taking sing
Armed with fork to pitch the tune,
hear the Deacon call Dundee /"
And mount as brisk as Bonny Doom
His " ia, sol, la, " and scent the key.
lie trees " the note for sister Gray;
The old Scotch warbling strains begin:
The bass of Bashan leads the way,
And all the girls fall sweetly in.
How sweIls the hymn of heavenly love,
As Use the tides in Fundy's Bay
Till all the air below, above.
Is sweet with song and caraway
fugue let loose cheers up the place
With base and tenor alto, air.
The parts strike in with measured grace.
And something sweet is everywhere
AS ifsome warbling brood should build
Of bits of tunes singing nest,
Each bringing that with which it thrilled
And weaving 1t with all the rest
The congregation rise and stand
Old hundreds rolling thunder comes
In heavy surges, slow and grand,
AS beats the surf its solemn drums;
Now come the time when China's wall
Is blended with the faint perfume
Of whispering Grape and cloudy veil,
That told within their rustling gloom
Some wounded human mourning dove,
And fall around some striken one
With nothing left alive TO love
Below the unregarded sun
And now they sing a star in sight,
The blessed Star of Bethlehem;
And now the air is royal bright
With COrOnation's diadem.
They show me spots of dimpled sod.
They say the girls of old are there
Oh, no, they swell the choirs of God
The dear old Songs are everywhere
-Scribner for April