In School Days
Still sits the schoolhouse by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jackknife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western windowpanes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delay
When all the school were leaving.
For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered;
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light carressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.
"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because" - the brown eyes lower fell -
"Because, you see, I love you!"
Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! The grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and hiss loss,
Like her - because they love him.
The Two Loves
Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:
"Richest gifts are those we make,
Dearer than the love we take
That we give for love's own sake.
"Well I know the heart's unrest;
Mine has been the common quest
To be loved and therefore blest.
"Favors undeserved were mine;
At my feet as on a shrine
Love has laid its gifts divine.
"Sweet the offerings seemed, and yet
With their sweetness came regret,
And a sense of unpaid debt.
"Heart of mine unsatisfied,
Was it vanity or pride
That a deeper joy denied?
"Hands that ope but to receive
Empty close; they only live
Richly who can richly give.
"Still," she sighed, with moistening eyes,
"Love is sweet in any guise;
But its best to sacrifice!
"He who, giving, does not crave
Likest is to Him who gave
Life itself the loved to save.
"Love, that self-forgetful gives,
Sows suprise of ripened sheaves,
Late or soon its own receives."
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