IN FRENCH FIELDS.
289
At last comes the darkness; we embrace, bid adieu;
Then home through the shadows while the stars are yet few!
At her side the good mother in prayer makes us kneel,
Saying—'When tired of our pleasures 'tis fit that we feel
Our God's hand around us, for all good comes from Him!'
Song rises, rises prayer, by the hearth embers dim.
Thus learnt, can those prayers, can those songs pass away?
Their echoes still ring and make us purer to-day.
The chaste sweet remembrance of the days that are past
Is the gold key that opens the soul's treasures shut fast,
For it opens the gardens enchanted—the bowers,
Where the bloom is eternal on the fruits and the flowers.
