Page:Suggestive programs for special day exercises.djvu/30

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SPECIAL DAY EXERCISES

19

MOUNT VERNON BELLS.

[Air:—Massa ’s in de Cold, Cold Ground.]

Where Potomac’s stream is flowing,
Virginia’s border through;
Where the white-sailed ships are going,
Sailing to the ocean blue;
Hushed the sound of mirth and singing—
Silent every one—
While the solemn bells are ringing
By the tomb of Washington.

Chorus:—Tolling and knelling.
With a sad, sweet sound;
O’er the waves the tones are swelling.
By Mount Vernon’s sacred ground.

Long ago the warrior slumbered’
Our country’s father slept;
Long among the angels numbered—
They the hero-soul have kept.
But the children’s children love him
And his name revere;
So, where willows wave above him,
Sweetly, still, his knell, you hear.

Sail, Oh ships, across the billows,
And bear the story far,
How he sleeps beneath the willows,—
“ First in peace and first in war.”
Tell, while sweet adieus are swelling,
Till you come again.
He within the hearts is dwelling
Of his loving countrymen.

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

The snow had begun in the gloaming.
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fur and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came chanticleer’s muffled crow;
The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky.
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds.
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently.
As did robins the babes in the wood .

Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, “ Father, who makes it snow?”
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o’er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow.
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered.
“The snow that husheth all.
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!”

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow