Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/82

---

“My name indeed is Mary,” said the stranger sobbing wild;
“Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin’s child!

“She sleeps, by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying day
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far away.

“And when the priest besought her to do me no such wrong,
She said, ‘May God forgive me! I have closed my heart too long.

“ ‘When I hid me from my father, and shut out my mother’s call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father of us all.

“ ‘Christ’s love rebukes no home-love, breaks no tie of kin apart;
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.

“ ‘Tell me not the Church must censure: she who wept the Cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims of blood denied;

“ ‘And if she who wronged her parents, with her child atones to them,
Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least wilt not condemn!’

“So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother spake;
As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her sake.”

“God be praised!” said Goodwife Garvin, “He taketh, and He gives;
He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our daughter lives!”

“Amen!” the old man answered, as he brushed a tear away,
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence, “Let us pray.”

All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew paraphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer of love and praise.

But he started at beholding, as he rose from off his knee,
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of Papistrie.

“What is this?” cried Farmer Garvin. “Is an English Christian’s home
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign of Rome?”

Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his trembling hand, and cried:
“Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my mother died!

“On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and sunshine fall,
As they fall on Spurwink’s graveyard; and the dear God watches all!”

The old man stroked the fair head that rested on his knee;
“Your words, dear child,” he answered, “are God’s rebuke to me.

“Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one,
Let me be your father’s father, let him be to me a son.”

When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air,
From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer,

To the goodly house of worship, where, in order due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the people sit;

Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire before the clown,
From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray frock, shading down;

From the pulpit read the preacher, “Goodman Garvin and his wife
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has followed them through life,

“For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild,
Where she rests (they hope in God’s peace), has sent to them her child;