قراءة كتاب The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories
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اللغة: English
The Hidden Servants and Other Very Old Stories
الصفحة رقم: 2
which the world of light hangs visibly, and is more intensely seen by the poor and the pure in heart than by the rich, or the learned, or the men of culture."
ANNA FULLER.
Preface
THE OLD STORY-TELLER
In my upper chamber here,
Still I wait from year to year;
Wondering when the time will come
That the Lord will call me home.
All the rest have been removed,—
Those I worked for, those I loved;
And, at times, there seems to be
Little use on earth for me.
Still God keeps me—He knows why—
When so many younger die!
From my window I look down
On the busy, bustling town.
But beyond its noise and jar
I can see the hills afar;
And above it, the blue sky,
And the white clouds sailing by;
And the sunbeams, as they shine
On a world that is not mine.
Here I wait, while life shall last,
An old relic of the past,
Feeling strange, and far away
From the people of to-day;
Thankful for the memory dear
Of a morning, always near,
Though long vanished, and so fair!
Dewy flowers and April air;
Thankful that the storms of noon
Spent their force and died so soon;
Thankful, as their echoes cease,
For this twilight hour of peace.
But my life, to evening grown,
Still has pleasures of its own.
Up my stairway, long and steep,
Now and then the children creep;
Gather round me, where I sit
All day long, and dream, and knit;
Fill my room with happy noise—
May God bless them, girls and boys!
Then sweet eyes upon me shine,
Dimpled hands are laid in mine;
And I never ask them why
They have sought to climb so high;
For 'twere useless to enquire!
'Tis a story they desire,
Taken from my ancient store,
None the worse if heard before;
And they turn, with pleading looks,
To my shelf of time-worn books,
Bound in parchment brown with age.
Little in them to engage
Children's fancy, one would say!
Yet, when tired with noisy play,
Nothing pleases them so well
As the stories I can tell
From those pages, old and gray,
With their edges worn away;
Spelling queer, and Woodcut quaint.
Angel, demon, prince, and saint,
Much alike in face and air;
Houses tipping here and there,
Lion, palm-tree, hermit's cell,
And much more I need not tell.
Then they all attentive wait,
While the story I relate,
And, before the half is told,
I forget that I am old!
But one age there seems to be
For the little ones and me.
What though all be new and strange,
Little children never change;
All is shifting day by day,—
Worse or better, who can say?
Much we lose, and much we learn,
But the children still return,
As the flowers do, every year;
Just as innocent and dear
As those babes who first did meet
At our Heavenly Master's feet.
In His arms He took them all:
Oh, 'tis precious to recall—
Blessèd to believe it true—
That what we love He loved too!
Since the time when life was new,
All my long, long journey through,
I have story-teller been.
When a child I did begin
To my playmates; later on,
Other children, long since gone,