  Drawn by horses with decorous feet, A carriage for one went through the street, Polished as anthracite out of the mine, Tossing its plumes so stately and fine, As nods to the night a Norway pine. The passenger lay in Parian rest, As if, by the sculptor's hand caressed, A mortal life through the marble stole, And then till an angel calls the roll It waits awhile for a human soul. He rode in state, but his carriage-fare Was left unpaid to his only heir; Hardly a man, from hovel to throne, Takes to this route in coach of his own, But borrows at last and travels alone. The driver sat in his silent seat; The world, as still as a field of wheat, Gave all the road to the speechless twain, And thought the passenger never again Should travel that way with living men. Not a robin held its little breath, But sang right on in the face of death; You never would dream, to see the sky Give glance for glance to the violet's eye, That aught between them could ever die. A wain bound east met the hearse bound west, Halted a moment, and passed abreast; And I verily think a stranger pair Have never met on a thoroughfare, Or a dim by-road, or anywhere: The hearse as slim and glossy and still As silken thread at a woman's will, Who watches her work with tears unshed, Broiders a grief with needle and thread, Mourns in pansies and cypress the dead; Spotless the steeds in a satin dress, That run for two worlds the Lord's Express,— Brief as the Publican's trying to pray, No other steeds by no other way Could go so far in a single day. From wagon broad and heavy and rude A group looking out from a single hood; Striped with the flirt of a heedless lash, Dappled and dimmed with many a splash, "Gathered" behind like an old calash. It made you think of a schooner's sail Mildewed with weather, tattered by gale, Down "by the run" from mizzen and main,— That canvas mapped with stipple and stain Of Western earth and the prairie rain. The watch-dog walked in his ribs between The hinder wheels, with sleepy mien; A dangling pail to the axle slung; Astern of the wain a manger hung,— A schooner's boat by the davits swung. The white-faced boys sat three in a row, With eyes of wonder and heads of tow; Father looked sadly over his brood; Mother just lifted a flap of the hood; All saw the hearse,—and two understood. They thought of the one-eyed cabin small, Hid like a nest in the grasses tall, Grooved into heaven everywhere,— So near the stars' invisible stair That planets and prairie almost met,— Just cleared its edges as they set! They thought of the level world's "divide," And their hearts flowed down its other side To the grave of the little girl that died. They thought of childhood's neighborly hills, With sunshine aprons and ribbons of rills, That drew so near when the day went down, Put on a crimson and golden crown, And sat together in mantles brown; The Dawn's red plume in their winter caps, And Night asleep in their drowsy laps, Lightening the load of the shouldered wood By shedding the shadows as they could, That gathered round where the homestead stood. They thought,—that pair in the rugged wain, Thinking with bosom rather than brain; They'll never know till their dying day That what they thought and never could say, Their hearts throbbed out in an Alpine lay, The old Waldensian song again; Thank God for the mountains, and amen! The wain gave a lurch, the hearse moved on,— A moment or two, and both were gone; The wain bound east, the hearse bound west, Both going home, both looking for rest. The Lord save all, and his name be blest! Benjamin F. Taylor. |
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