Down come the houses! each drunk as a
king—
Can’t say I fancy much this sort
of thing;
Inside the bar it was safe and all right,
I shall go back there, and stop for the
night.
KARL, THE MARTYR.
BY FRANCES WHITESIDE.
It was the closing of a summer’s
day,
And trellised branches from
encircling trees
Threw silver shadows o’er
the golden space.
Where groups of merry-hearted
sons of toil
Were met to celebrate a village
feast;
Casting away, in frolic sport,
the cares
That ever press and crowd
and leave their mark
Upon the brows of all whose
bread is earned
By daily labour. ’Twas
perchance the feast
Of fav’rite saint, or
anniversary
Of one of bounteous nature’s
season gifts
To grateful husbandry—no
matter what
The cause of their uniting.
Joy beamed forth
On ev’ry face, and the
sweet echoes rang
With sounds of honest mirth
too rarely heard
In the vast workshop man has
made his world,
Where months of toil must
pay one day of song.
Somewhat apart
from the assembled throng
There sat a swarthy giant,
with a face
So nobly grand that though
(unlike the rest)
He wore no festal garb nor
laughing mien,
Yet was he study for the painter’s
art:
He joined not in their sports,
but rather seemed
To please his eye with sight
of others’ joy.
There was a cast of sorrow
on his brow,
As though it had been early
there.
He sat In listless attitude,
yet not devoid
Of gentlest grace, as down
his stalwart form
He bent, to catch the playful
whisperings,
And note the movements of
a bright-hair’d child
Who danced before him in the
evening sun,
Holding a tiny brother by
the hand.
He was the village
smith (the rolled-up sleeves
And the well-charred leathern
apron show’d his craft);
Karl was his name—a
man beloved by all.
He was not of the district.
He had come
Amongst them ere his forehead
bore one trace
Of age or suffering.
A wife and child
He had brought with him; but
the wife was dead.
Not so the child—who
danced before him now
And held a tiny brother by
the hand—
Their mother’s last
and priceless legacy!
So Karl was happy still that
those two lived,
And laughed and danced before
him in the sun.
Yet sadly so.
The children both were fair,
Ruddy, and active, though
of fragile form;
But to that father’s
ever watchful eye,
Who had so loved their mother,
it was plain
That each inherited the wasting
doom
Which cost that mother’s
life. ’Twas reason more
To work and toil for them
by night and day!
Early and late his anvil’s
ringing sound