Page:A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.djvu/190

If my couplets too numerous be compact or ill-knitted,
If my style to my theme and my matter be fitted.
It's a long work, but, dears, in all labour there's profit,
And children devoted will make the best of it.

Yes, sometimes you will read this cluster of lays,
This silent consoler of my oft bitter days,
And you will read twice o'er, bits here and there,
And all my aspirations, I foresee, you'll share;
The parts wherein I bless the mobile arches
Of woods, resounding with great organ marches
When winds stir up their music in the leaves,
May strike your eye; or where I sing, the sheaves,
Or bees that court the wild flowers, or the calm
Of sacred solitude and the silent psalm
Of nature, where my holidays I kept:
Scenes where I've smiled, and oftener, oftener wept.
And you will say, like children kind and good,
'These lines, for the time, are not very rude;
The style's rather stiff, out-of-fashion, one may say,
But really such thoughts are not met every day.'

When your mother, well versed in legend and tale,
Recounts some adventure, and you listen all pale,
How once in the Black Forest ogres roared grim,
And roasted their prey in the twilight dim,
Whole flocks at a time—with a wolf—on the spit!
If allusion by chance be made to my wit,
Or my verses neglected, she will reply,
With some little pride in her bearing and eye,—
'Be sure, my dear children, whate'er critics may say,
Such verses are not very common to-day.
What deep philosophy! Ah, what a grace!
Touches how tender and bold interlace!