THE YOUNG MAN CHARLES STUART REVIEWETH THE TROOPS ON BLACKHEATH

By Helen Gray Cone

We were still as a wood without wind; as‘ t were set by a spell

Stayed the gleam on the steel cap, the glint on the slant petronel.

He to left of me drew down his grim grizzled lip with his teeth,—

I remember his look; so we grew like dumb trees on the heath.

But the people,— the people were mad as with store of new wine;

Oh, they cheered him, they capped him, they roared as he rode down the line:

He that fled us at Worcester, the boy, the green brier-shoot, the son

Of the Stuart on whom for his sin the great judgment was done!

Swam before us the field of our shame, and our souls walked afar;

Saw the glory, the blaze of the sun bursting over Dunbar;

Saw the faces of friends, in the morn riding jocund to fight;

Saw the stern pallid faces again, as we saw them at night!

“O ye blessed, who died in the Lord! would to God that we too

Had so passed, only sad that we ceased his high justice to do,

With the words of the psalm on our lips that from Israel's once came,

How the Lord is a strong man of war; yea, the Lord is his name!

“Not for us, not for us! who have served for his kingdom seven years,

Yea, and yet other seven have we served, sweating blood, bleeding tears,

For the kingdom of God and the saints! Rachel's beauty made bold,

Yet we bear but a Leah at last to a hearth that is cold!”

Burned the fire while I mused, while I gloomed; in the end came a call;

Settled o'er me a calm like a cloud, spake a voice still and small:

“Take thou Leah to bride, take thou Failure to bed and to board!

Thou shalt rear up new strengths at her knees; she is given of the Lord!

“If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal,

And the smoke clouds, and thunders of guns, and the lightnings of steel,

Shall the cool silent dews of his grace, in a season of peace,

Not descend on the land, as of old, for a sign, on the fleece?

Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's long dead,—

I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead;

Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife,

And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!