Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/138

 132 DOMINIE DAY.

I remember the fair little woman in gray

Who, blushing in great trepidation, Stole in at his coming one morning in May,

To be watched by the whole congregation.

Not older than Mary our Mary was then ;

Only Mary is nineteen for ever, For Time cannot touch the clay temple that s moved

On the blest other side of the river.

I remember the two little heads as they came, Each nestled at first on her shoulder ;

Each crowded in turn to the end of the pew By the next one, because he was older.

But the bride lost the roses she wore in her cheeks With the wearing of motherhood s crown;

A head now and then faded out of the row, While the rest turned from golden to brown.

And the dominie John, did you notice to-day How he stooped as he passed up the aisle,

And wearily pushed the thin hair from his brow? &quot;Can t he rest, John, from labor a while?

&quot;He has prayed with the erring and counselled the weak,

He has stood by the bed of the dying, And borne his own sorrows, whatever they were,

Without weak complaining and sighing.

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