Before the Wedding

MILK-WHITE and honey-sweet its flowers
The locust-tree is shedding;
O, if this weather would but stay,
I could not ask a lovelier day,
To-morrow, for my wedding!
Yes, ’t is, in truth, my bridal path
The wind with flowers is strewing.
The thing a woman says she won’t,
She’s always sure of doing ;
And, from a child, I have declared,
I’d choose a maid to tarry,
And single-handed fight my way,
Before I’d ever marry
(Though he, by all his deeds and words,
Were worth and wisdom proving)
A Methodist itinerant,
And keep forever moving,
Moving, moving, moving,—
Just two years in a place, —
Stopping here and off again,
With scarce a breathing space.

But when camp-meeting came around,
A year ago this summer,
The Sudbury people had a tent,
And I, with Sister Hartley, went,
And first heard Brother Plummer.
“ A young man looking for a wife,”
Was some one’s sly reminder.
“ And he may look for all of me,”
I said, “ and never find her.”

But when I came to hear him preach,
He told the Gospel story
So thrillingly, through all the grove
Went up one shout of “ Glory ” !
Rough men were bowed, hard sinners wept,
I owned his power to hold me, —
His glowing fervor, like a spell,
Against my will controlled me.
“For, who is he?” I said, my own
Admiring thoughts reproving ;
“ A Methodist itinerant,
Who keeps forever moving,
Moving, moving, moving,—
Just two years in a place.
That’s too hard a way,” thought I,
“ To run the Christian race ! ”

I said the preacher pleased me not,—
I did not wish to meet him ;
And, when we met, I tried to see
How coldly formal I could be
And courteously treat him ;
But when a woman tries to hate,
Be sure it’s love’s beginning;
The more I frowned, the more I felt
That he my heart was winning ;
Dull (may the Lord forgive !) I found
The class, unless he led it,
And sweeter seemed the blessed word
Of Scripture, if he read it;
And, from the closing love-feast, when,
As we walked home together,
He led me down a quiet path,
And calmly asked me whether
“ My future should be one with his ? ” —
And I must take or lose him,
I felt my hold on earthly joy
Was lost, should I refuse him.
“ But, if I love, there’s but one way,”
I said, “ my love of proving ;
And I am willing, for your sake,
To keep forever moving,
Moving, moving, moving,—
Just two years in a place,—
Happy, whereso’er I go,
If I but see your face ! ”

So now, my bridal blossoms fall,
These locust-flowers sweet-scented !
My future pathway is the one
I’ve always thought that I would shun,
Yet I am well contented !
We choose not for ourselves ; we go
The way the Conference sends us;
But, rough or smooth, we know, through all,
A Father’s care attends us.
His perfect strength our weakness shields,
His patient love broods o’er us, —
What matters it what changes fill
The years that lie before us ?
We only pray we may be kept
From faithless servants proving,
And onward, as our footsteps press,
May they be heavenward moving !