Poems (Scudder)/Ursule's Missal

by Antoinette Quinby Scudder

URSULE'S MISSAL

Ursule a dainty missal hath;
 Its pages smooth and bland
Are white as lily-petals
 Or as our Lady's hand.

But Ursule while she scans it peers
 Aside and tries to see
If Colin's kneeling near the aisle
 Where he was wont to be.

The letters scarlet, golden, blue
 Most quaintly shapen are,
And in the margin of each leaf
 Are painted clear and fair

Saint Michael in his gilded mail,
 Saint John in tunic green,
Saint Helen robed in miniver,
 And rose-crowned Magdalene.

But Ursule while she studies them
 Knows that her Colin wears
A fine new cloak of velvet blue
 As fruit the plum-tree bears.

Around the little pictures runs
 A charming fantasy
Of flower, leaf and budding vine—
 Oh, marvellous to see

How finely wrought the hawthorn leaves,
 And ivy; finer yet
The silver-berried mistletoe,
 Clove-pink and violet.

But Ursule thinks of how her lad
 And she one blithe spring day
Through field and meadow singing went
 To gather in the May.

Of how they never reached her home
 Till dews began to fall,
And how they found the year's first rose
 Beside the garden wall.

The missal hath a golden clasp
 Set with a comely stone,
But Ursule while she fingers it
 Hopes that when Mass is done

Colin will wait beside the door
 To greet her—pretty fool—
Perchance will try to kiss her hand—
 Oh, shame on thee, Ursule.