Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body
To painful labor, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience ;-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband.
And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war, where they should kneel for peace:
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
THE MONK'S MAGNIFICAT.
A STATELY abbey many prayerful years
Had risen o'er the marshes; thither went
In tribulation, sickness, want, or fears
The peasants for whose weal her stores were spent,
Certain to find a welcome and to be
Helped in the hour of their extremity.
The monks in simple ways and works were glad; Yet all men must have sorrows of their own.
And so a bitter grief the brothers had,
Nor mourned for other's heaviness alone.
This was the secret of their sorrowing-
That not a monk in all the house could sing!
Was it the damp air from the lonely marsh,
Or strain of scarcely intermitted prayer,
That made their voices, when they sang, as
harsh
As any frogs' that croak in evening air—
That made less music in their hymns to lie
Than in the hoarsest wild fowl's hoarsest cry?
If love could sweeten voice to sing a song,
Theirs had been sweetest song was ever sung;
But their heart's music reached their lips all
wrong.
The soul's intent foiled by the traitorous tongue
That marred the chapel's peace, and seemed to
The rapt devotion lingering in the air.
The brethren's prayers and fasts availing not
To give them voices sweet, their soul's desire,
The Abbot said: "Gifts He did not allot,
God at our hands will not again require;
Praise Him we must, and since we cannot praise
As we would choose, we praise Him in our
ways."
But one good brother, anxious to remove
This, the reproach now laid on them so long,
Rejected counsel, and for very love
Besought a brother skilled in art of song
To come to them-his cloister far to leave-
And sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve.
And when the time for singing it had come,
With pure face raised, and sweetest voice, he
Magnificat anima mea Dominum; et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo.
Each in his stall the monks stood glad and dumb,
As through the chancel's dusk his voice out
Pure, clear, and perfect as the thrushes sing
Their first impulsive welcome of the spring.
At the first notes the Abbot's heart spoke low:
"O God, accept this singing, seeing we,
Had we the power, would ever praise Thee so—
Would ever, Lord, Thou know'st, sing thus for
Thus in our hearts Thy hymns are ever sung, As he Thou blessest sings them with his tongue."
But as the voice rose higher, and more sweet, Suscepit Israel, puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae suae,
The Abbot's heart said: "Thou hast heard us
And sent an angel from beside Thy feet
To sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve,
To ease our ache of soul, and let us see
How we some day in heaven shall sing to
Thee."
When, service done, the brothers gathered round
To thank the singer, modest-eyed, said he:
"Not mine the grace, if grace indeed abound,
God gave the power, if any power there be;
If I in hymn or psalm clear voice can raise,
As His the gift, so His be all the praise!"
That night-the Abbot lying on his bed—
A sudden flood of radiance on him fell,
Poured from the crucifix above his head,
And cast a stream of light across his cell—
And in the fullest fervor of the light-
An angel stood, glittering, and great, and white.
The angel spoke, his voice was low and sweet,
As the sea's murmur on low-lying shore,
Or whisper of the wind in ripened wheat.
Brother," he said, "the God we both adore Hath sent me down to ask, is all not right? Why was Magnificat not sung to-night?"
Tranced, in the joy the angel's presence brought,
The Abbot answered: "All these weary years
We have sung our best, but always have we
thought
Our voices were unworthy heavenly ears;
And so to-night we found a clearer tongue,
And by it the Magnificat was sung."
The angel answered: "All these happy years
In heaven has YOUR Magnificat been heard;
This night alone the angels' listening ears
Of all its music caught no single word.
Say, who is he whose goodness is not strong
Enough to bear the burden of his song?"
The Abbot named his name. "Ah, why," he cried,
"Have angels heard not what we found so dear?"
"Only pure hearts," the angel's voice replied, "Can carry human songs up to God's ear;
To-night in heaven was missed the sweetest
That ever rises from earth's mudstained maze.
"The monk who sang Magnificat is filled
With love of praise, and with hypocrisy ;
He sings for earth, in heaven his notes are stilled
By muffling weight of deadening vanity;
His heart is chained to earth, and cannot bear His singing higher than the listening air!
"From purest hearts most perfect music springs, And while you mourned your voices were not sweet,
Marred by the accident of earthly things,
In heaven, God, listening, judged your song complete.
The sweetest of earth's music came from you,
The music of a noble life and true."
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