Paul' S History

"Captain, I hear the cheers. My soul is glad. My days are numbered, but this glorious day-- Like some far beacon on a shadowy cape That cheers at night the storm-belabored ships-- Will light the misty ages from afar. This field shall be the Mecca. Here shall rise A holier than the Caaba where men kiss The sacred stone that flaming fell from heaven. But O how many sad and aching hearts Will mourn the loved ones never to return! Thank God--no heart will hope for my return! Thank God--no heart will mourn because I die! Captain, at life's mid-summer flush and glow, For him to die who leaves his golden hopes, His mourning friends and idol-love behind, It must be hard and seem a cruel thing. After the victory--upon this field--For me to die hath more of peace than pain; For I shall leave no golden hopes behind, No idol-love to pine because I die, No friends to wait my coming or to mourn. They wait my coming in the world beyond; And wait not long, for I am almost there. 'Tis but a gasp, and I shall pass the bound 'Twixt life and death--through death to life again-- Where sorrow cometh never. Pangs and pains Of flesh or spirit will not pierce me there; And two will greet me from the jasper walls-- God's angels--with a song of holy peace, And haste to meet me at the pearly gate, And kiss the death-damp from my silent lips, And lead me through the golden avenues-- Singing Hosanna--to the Great White Throne."

So there he paused and calmly closed his eyes, And silently I sat and held his hand. After a time, when we were left alone, He spoke again with calmer voice and said: "Captain, you oft have asked my history, And I as oft refused. There is no cause Why I should longer hold it from my friend Who reads the closing chapter. It may teach One soul to lean upon the arm of Christ-- That hope and happiness find anchorage Only in heaven. While my lonesome life Saw death but dimly in the dull distance My lips were sealed to the unhappy tale; Under my pride I hid a heavy heart.

"I was ambitious in my boyhood days, And dreamed of fame and honors--misty fogs That climb at morn the ragged cliffs of life, Veiling the ragged rocks and gloomy chasms, And shaping airy castles on the top With bristling battlements and looming towers; But melt away into ethereal air Beneath the blaze of the mid-summer sun, Till cliffs and chasms and all the ragged rocks Are bare, and all the castles crumbled away.

"There winds a river 'twixt two chains of hills-- Fir-capped and rugged monuments of time; A level vale of rich alluvial land, Washed from the slopes through circling centuries, And sweet with clover and the hum of bees, Lies broad between the rugged, somber hills. Beneath a shade of willows and of elms The river slumbers in this meadowy lap. Down from the right there winds a babbling branch, Cleaving a narrower valley through the hills. A grand bald-headed hill-cone on the right Looms like a patriarch, and above the branch There towers another. I have seen the day When those bald heads were plumed with lofty pines. Below the branch and near the river bank, Hidden among the elms and butternuts, The dear old cottage stands where I was born. An English ivy clambers to the eaves; An English willow planted by my hand Now spreads its golden branches o'er the roof Not far below the cottage thrives a town, A busy town of mills and merchandise-- Belle Meadows, fairest village of the vale. Behind it looms the hill-cone, and in front The peaceful river winds its silent way. Beyond the river spreads a level plain-- Once hid with somber firs--a tangled marsh-- Now beautiful with fields and cottages, And sweet in spring-time with the blooming plum, And white with apple-blossoms blown like snow. Beyond the plain a lower chain of hills, In summer gemmed with fields of golden grain Set in the emerald of the beechen woods. In other days the village school-house stood Below our cottage on a grassy mound That sloped away unto the river's marge; And on the slope a cluster of tall pines Crowning a copse of beech and evergreen. There in my boyhood days I went to school; A maiden mistress ruled the little realm; She taught the rudiments to rompish rogues, And walked a queen with magic wand of birch. My years were hardly ten when father died. Sole tenants of our humble cottage home My sorrowing mother and myself remained; But she was all economy, and kept With my poor aid a comfortable house. I was her idol and she wrought at night To keep me at my books, and used to boast That I should rise above our humble lot. How oft I listened to her hopeful words-- Poured from the fountain of a mother's heart Until I longed to wing the sluggard years That bore me on to what I hoped to be.

"We had a garden-plat behind the house-- Beyond, an orchard and a pasture-lot; In front a narrow meadow--here and there Shaded with elms and branching butternuts. In spring and summer in the garden-plat I wrought my morning and my evening hours And kept myself at school--no idle boy.

"One bright May morning when the robins sang There came to school a stranger queenly fair, With eyes that shamed the ethereal blue of heaven, And golden hair in ringlets--cheeks as soft, As fresh and rosy as the velvet blush Of summer sunrise on the dew-damp hills. Hers was the name I muttered in my dreams. For days my bashful heart held me aloof Although her senior by a single year; But we were brought together oft in class, And when she learned my name she spoke to me, And then my tongue was loosed and we were friends. Before the advent of the steeds of steel Her sire--a shrewd and calculating man-- Had lately come and purchased timbered-lands And idle mills, and made the town his home. And he was well-to-do and growing rich, And she her father's pet and only child. In mind and stature for two happy years We grew together at the village school. We grew together!--aye, our tender hearts There grew together till they beat as one. Her tasks were mine, and mine alike were hers; We often stole away among the pines-- That stately cluster on the sloping hill-- And conned our lessons from the selfsame book, And learned to love each other o'er our tasks, While in the pine-tops piped the oriole, And from his branch the chattering squirrel chid Our guileless love and artless innocence. 'Twas childish love perhaps, but day by day It grew into our souls as we grew up. Then there was opened in the prospering town A grammar school, and thither went Pauline. I missed her and was sad for many a day, Till mother gave me leave to follow her. In autumn--in vacation--she would come With girlish pretext to our cottage home. She often brought my mother little gifts, And cheered her with sweet songs and happy words; And I would pluck the fairest meadow-flowers To grace a garland for her golden hair, And fill her basket from the butternuts That flourished in our little meadow field. I found in her all I had dreamed of heaven. So garlanded with latest-blooming flowers, Chanting the mellow music of our hopes, The silver-sandaled Autumn-hours tripped by. And mother learned to love her; but she feared, Knowing her heart and mine, that one rude hand Might break our hopes asunder. Like a thief I often crept about her father's house, Under the evening shadows, eager-eyed, Peering for one dear face, and lingered late To catch the silver music of one voice That from her chamber nightly rose to heaven. Her father's face I feared--a silent man, Cold-faced, imperative, by nature prone To set his will against the beating world; Warm-hearted but heart-crusted.