PEGGING AWAY,

215

PEGGING AWAY.

THERE was an old shoemaker, sturdy as steel,
Of great wealth and repute in his day,
Who, if questioned his secret of luck to reveal,
Would chirp like a bird on a spray,

"It isn't so much the vocation you're in,

Or your liking for it," he would say,

"As it is that forever, through thick and through thin, You should keep up a-pegging away."

I have found it a maxim of value, whose truth

Observation has proved in the main;

And which well might be vaunted a watchword by youth

In the labor of hand and of brain;

For even if genius and talent are cast

Into work with the strongest display,

You can never be sure of achievement, at last

Unless you keep pegging away.

There are shopmen who might into statesmen have grown,

Politicians for handiwork made,

Some poets who better in workshops had shone,
And mechanics best suited in trade;

But when once in the harness, however it fit,

Buckle down to your work night and day,

Secure in the triumph of hand or of wit,

If you only keep pegging away.

There are times in all tasks when the fiend Discontent

Advises a pause or a change,

And, on field far away and irrelevant bent,

The purpose is tempted to range;

Never heed, but in sound recreation restore

Such traits as are slow to obey,

And then, more persistent and stanch than before,
Keep pegging and pegging away.

Leave fitful endeavors for such as would cast

Their spendthrift existence in vain.

For the secret of wealth in the present and past,
And of fame and of honor, is plain;
It lies not in change, nor in sentiment nice,
Nor in wayward exploit and display,
But just in the shoemaker's homely advice
To keep pegging and pegging away.

CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT.

ENGLAND'S sun was slowly setting o'er the hills so far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,
He with step so slow and weaken'd, she with sunny, floating

hair;

He with sad, bowed head, and thoughtful, she with lips so cold and

white,

Struggling to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to night."

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old, With its walls so dark and gloomy-walls so dark and damp and

cold

"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die

At the ringing of the Curfew, and no earthly help is nigh. Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her face grew strangely

white,

As she spoke in husky whispers, "Curfew must not ring to-night." Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton-every word pierced her young

แ

heart

Like a thousand gleaming arrows, like a deadly poisoned dart"Long, long years I've rung the Curfew from that gloomy,

shadowed tower;

Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;

I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right,

Now I'm old, I will not miss it; girl, the Curfew rings to-night!"

CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT.

217

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful

brow,

And within her heart's deep centre, Bessie made a solemn vow;
She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh,
"At the ringing of the Curfew-Basil Underwood must die."
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and

bright

One low murmur, scarcely spoken-" Curfew must not ring tonight!"

She with light step bounded forward, sprang within the old church

door,

Left the old man coming slowly paths he'd trod so oft before;

Not one moment paused the maiden, but with cheek and brow

aglow,

Staggered up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro; Then she climbed the slimy ladder, dark, without one ray of light, Upward still, her pale lips saying: "Curfew shall not ring to-night.” She has reached the topmost ladder, o'er her hangs the great dark

bell,

And the awful gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell; See, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of Curfew

now,

And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow.

Shall she let it ring? No, never! her eyes flash with sudden light, As she springs and grasps it firmly-"Curfew shall not ring tonight!"

Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a tiny speck below;
There, 'twixt heaven and earth suspended, as the bell swung to and

fro;

And the half-deaf sexton ringing (years he had not heard the bell), And he thought the twilight Curfew rang young Basil's funeral

knell;

Still the maiden clinging firmly, cheek and brow so pale and white, Stilled her frightened heart's wild beating-" Curfew shall not ring

to-night."

It was o'er the bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once

more

Firmly on the damp old ladder, where for hundred years before

Human foot had not been planted; and what she this night had

done

Should be told in long years after-as the rays of setting sun

Light the sky with mellow beauty, aged sires with heads of white Tell the children why the Curfew did not ring that one sad night. O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie saw him, and her

brow,

Lately white with sickening terror, glows with sudden beauty

now;

At his foot she told her story, showed her hands all bruised and

torn;

And her sweet young face so haggard, with a look so sad and worn, Touched his heart with sudden pity-lit his eyes with misty light; "Go, your lover lives!" cried Cromwell; "Curfew shall not ring to-night."

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

THOMAS GRAY.

THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team a-field!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:-
:-

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these a fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre;

219