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the professor at the breakfast table-第33部分
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Where Moab's daughter; homeless and forlorn;
Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn;
And some remembered how the holy scribe;
Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe;
Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son
To that fair alien; bravely wooed and won。
So fared they on to seek the promised sign
That marked the anointed heir of David's line。
At last; by forms of earthly semblance led;
They found the crowded inn; the oxen's shed。
No pomp was there; no glory shone around
On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground;
One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed;
In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid!
The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale
Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale;
Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed;
Told how the shining multitude proclaimed
〃Joy; joy to earth! Behold the hallowed morn!
In David's city Christ the Lord is born!
'Glory to God!' let angels shout on high;
'Good…will to men!' the listening Earth reply!〃
They spoke with hurried words and accents wild;
Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child。
No trembling word the mother's joy revealed;
One sigh of rapture; and her lips were sealed;
Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart;
But kept their words to ponder in her heart。
Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall;
Growing in wisdom; finding grace with all。
The maids of Nazareth; as they trooped to fill
Their balanced urns beside the mountain…rill;
The gathered matrons; as they sat and spun;
Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son。
No voice had reached the Galilean vale
Of star…led kings or awe…struck shepherds' tale;
In the meek; studious child they only saw
The future Rabbi; learned in Israel's law。
So grew the boy; and now the feast was near;
When at the holy place the tribes appear。
Scarce had the home…bred child of Nazareth seen
Beyond the hills that girt the village…green;
Save when at midnight; o'er the star…lit sands;
Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands;
A babe; close…folded to his mother's breast;
Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West。
Then Joseph spake : 〃Thy boy hath largely grown;
Weave him fine raiment; fitting to be shown;
Fair robes beseem the pilgrim; as the priest
Goes he not with us to the holy feast?〃
And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white;
Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light。
The thread was twined; its parting meshes through
》From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew;
Till the full web was wound upon the beam;
Love's curious toil;a vest without a seam!
They reach the holy place; fulfil the days
To solemn feasting given; and grateful praise。
At last they turn; and far Moriah's height
Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight。
All day the dusky caravan has flowed
In devious trails along the winding road;
(For many a step their homeward path attends;
And all the sons of Abraham are as friends。)
Evening has come;the hour of rest and joy;
Hush! hush!that whisper;…〃Where is Mary's boy?〃
O weary hour! O aching days that passed
Filled with strange fears; each wilder than the last:
The soldier's lance;the fierce centurion's sword;
The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord;
The midnight crypt that suck's the captive's breath;
The blistering sun on Hinnom's vale of death!
Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light;
Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night;
Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth;
Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth。
At last; in desperate mood; they sought once more
The Temple's porches; searched in vain before;
They found him seated with the ancient men;
The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen;
Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near;
Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear;
Lost in half…envious wonder and surprise
That lips so fresh should utter words so wise。
And Mary said;as one who; tried too long;
Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong;
What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done?
Lo; we have sought thee sorrowing; O my son!
〃Few words he spake; and scarce of filial tone;
Strange words; their sense a mystery yet unknown;
Then turned with them and left the holy hill;
To all their mild commands obedient still。
The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men;
And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again;
The maids retold it at the fountain's side;
The youthful shepherds doubted or denied;
It passed around among the listening friends;
With all that fancy adds and fiction fends;
Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown
Of Joseph's son; who talked the Rabbis down。
But Mary; faithful to its lightest word;
Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard;
Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil;
And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale。
Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them all。
VI
You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back。
Bloated some; I expect。
This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant remark with which
the Poor Relation greeted the divinity…student one morning。
Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part
to continue living in this transitory; unsatisfactory; and
particularly unpleasant world。 This is so much a matter of course;
that I was surprised to see the divinity…student change color。 He
took a look at a small and uncertain…minded glass which hung slanting
forward over the chapped sideboard。 The image it returned to him had
the color of a very young pea somewhat overboiled。 The scenery of a
long tragic drama flashed through his mind as the lightning…express…
train whishes by a station: the gradual dismantling process of
disease; friends looking on; sympathetic; but secretly chuckling over
their own stomachs of iron and lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive;
but calculating their crop; and thinking how soon it will be ripe; so
that they can go to your neighbor; who is good for a year or so
longer; doctors assiduous; but giving themselves a mental shake; as
they go out of your door; which throws off your particular grief as a
duck sheds a raindrop from his oily feathers; undertakers solemn; but
happy; then the great subsoil cultivator; who plants; but never looks
for fruit in his garden; then the stone…cutter; who puts your name on
the slab which has been waiting for you ever since the birds or
beasts made their tracks on the new red sandstone; then the grass and
the dandelions and the buttercups;Earth saying to the mortal
body; with her sweet symbolism; 〃You have scarred my bosom; but you
are forgiven〃; then a glimpse of the soul as a floating consciousness
without very definite form or place; but dimly conceived of as an
upright column of vapor or mist several times larger than life…size;
so far a
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