[
28]
One of the best of
Mrs. Sawyer's poems, of this same impersonal sort, is the stanza of fourteen lines that appears in some of its manuscript versions as ‘Milton Sleeping.’
It is said that the incident here described did actually occur to the great
Puritan poet—
In a cool glade the Bard Divine lay sleeping;
His young face beautiful with grace and power;
When, through the bosky reach of leaf and flower,
Came, with her maiden-guard, a fair dame weeping.
Startled, she paused, drew near, her soft eyes keeping
Fixed on the Bard's sweet face till, in her breast,
Her young heart melted, and she knelt and prest
A light kiss on his lips, he still a-sleeping.
At this sight grave and startled looks went round
Among the maids, as if they said, “Can this, Our high-born lady, thus a stranger kiss?
”
But she rose proudly, with reply profound,
“I did but greet a seraph who keeps wait, With song celestial, at a mortal gate.
”
It is hard to resist the impression that the poem called ‘A Love Song,’ although it is not manifestly personal, yet belongs to that pilgrimage of more than sixty years which the writer and her husband were privileged to make in company.
One who saw her with him, going home from church, it might be, Sunday after Sunday, cannot shake off the impression of a long life journey, affectionately traveled together.
The third stanza of the poem runs as follows:—
I know there are sorrows and tears, love,
There is night as well as day,
But the sorrows will fade and the tears will dry,
If Love's hand wipe them away.
Then come and be mine, my darling,
And whatever our future bring,
Whatever the storm that may round us beat,
In our hearts 't will be always Spring.
