THE GLEANER'S GUIDE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 672, 12 February 1864, Page 6

THE GLEANER'S GUIDE.

" Poor heart! that twinest with the twisted

band, : Thoughts bound to sorrow, in a smiling land, What dost thou here with tears upon thy hand 1" So spoke a reaper, standing 'mid the leaves, Between the time of suns and golden eves, To a losi maiden binding up tho sheaves. " In vain to heaven's face I lift mine eye; On me no comfort droppeth tfrom on 4iigh: So shall I reap in sorrow till I die." So cried the maiden, weeping as she bound; Cheating glad echo with a thankless sound ; Her hottearsdropping—dropping on the ground. " Leave the full sheaf; go, glean the scattered ears; Stain not the precious bread oflife with tears!— Bruise not the blossom, tender 83 thy years." So spoke the reaper, on a balm-breathed morn, To that wronged maiden, eluded and forlorn, Plucking the'virgin bindweed from the corn. " 0 Man—so seeming tender of the bud— See! on the drooping- poppy hast thou trod, Crushing sweet sleep out,—even in tears of blood!" So cried the maiden, goaded into pain, On whose dead heart there fell.no harvest rainj A blossom bruised before the time of grain. "Go forth !—.thou comest to the field too late; Onthee, and on thy woe, I bar the gate— Away! I will not have thee for my mate." So spoke the reaper, as the night fell black, To that poor gleaner on life's stony track; To that crushed soul—that soul upon the rack! She buried hor wan face^-as well she may— To whom no night is darker than her day— When lo! a strange light lighted all the way. Through her closed eyelids did the radiance shine Which lit the pale flower of a virgin bine, Twined round the cross-head of a road-way sign. It was but a rude cross to point the path To those who stray —as many a wanderer hath j Set up in tenderness, and not in wrath. - The beauty of it fixed her to the spot— If her poor %vay she had awhile forgot, Yet One took care that she should miss it not! A clear hand, imaged oil the carven wood, Pointed to where the climbing wild-flower stood— (Like a white maiden, beautiful and good.) White, save for one seared leaf the night wind blew A moment o'er its pure and spotless hue— A skeleton leaf, that all the white shone through!

She looked, to see whence glanced the living light, And marked where high a feeble lamp shone bright; A guide to those to whom the way was night. The lamp's glad rays streamed point-wise to the sky; Or so it seemed unto her dazzled eye : But her soul saw it, too—and could not lie! So, from a chance-bsrne Yisjou of delight, She di'<2w sweet comfort^-*till her pain grew slight; And traced God's hand, graved in that hand of light. Eleanora L. Heryey.