The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-02-17
The Wife.



From school, and ball. and rout she came,
The city's fair, pale daughter.
To drink tho wine of mountain air,
Besides the Bearcamp Water
Her step grew flrmer on the hills
That watch our homesteads over;
On cheek and lip, from summer fields.
She caught the bloom of clover,
For health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Green Mountains stealing
There's iron in our northern winds,
Our pines are trees of healing.
She sat beneath the broad armed Gins
That skirt the moving meadow,
And watched the gentle west wind weave
The grass with shine and shadow.
Beside her from the summer heat,
To share her grateful screening,
With forehead bare, the farmer stood,
Upon his pitchfork leaning.
Framed in its damp dark locks, his face
Had nothing mean OF 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 q Wifi.
Your mother lacks daughter.
ITO mend your frock and bake your bread
You do not need lady;
he sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting, really
Some, fair, sweet girl, with skillNii hand
And cheerful heart for treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys,
Or danced the polka's measure"
lie bent his black brows TO a irown,
And set his white teeth tightly,
"'Tis well, ;" he said, "for one like you
To choose for me so lightly,
"You think, because my life il rude
take no note Of sweetness;
tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmectncs7.
Itself its best excuse, IL asks
No leave of pride or fashion
When silkcn zone or homespun :rock
Ii etirs with throhs of asson.
you think me deaf and blind you bring
Your winning graces hithcr
AS free As il flom cradle time
We two had played together.
"You tempt me with your laughing eyes,
Your cheek of sundown's bushes,
\ motion as of waving grain,
music as of thrushes.
"The plaything of your summer sport,
The spell you weave around me
You cannot of your will undo,
Nor leave me as you found me.
''You go as lightly as you came
Your life Ia well without me
What care you that these hills will close
Like prison walls about me?
"No mood is mine 10 seek wife,
Or daughter for my mother;
Who loves you, loses in that love
All power to love another,
II dare your pity or your scorn
With pride your own exceeding;
fling my heart into your lap,
Without word of pleading"
She looked up from the waving grass
SO archly yet so tender
"And IL give you mine" she SALT
"Will you forgive the lender"
''Nor frock nor tan can hide the man:
And see You not my farmer,
How weak and fond q woman Waiia
Behind this silken armour?
II love YOU on that love alone,
And not my worth presuming,
viii you not trust for summer NUT
The tree in May-day blooming"
Alone the hangbird overheard,
His hair.swung cradle strainins
Looked down to see loves miracle
The giving that is gaining.
And so the farmer found wife,
His mother found daughter;
There looks no happier home than hers
On pleasant Bcarcamp Water.
Flowers spring 10 blossom where she walks
The careful way of duty;
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
Arc flowing curves of beauty.
Our homes are cheerier for her sake
Our dooryards brighter blooming,
And all about the social air
Is swceter for her coming.
-IAtlantic Monthly