Quincy Adams Sawyer And Mason's Corner Folks Part 30

Quincy took it and glanced over it a moment or two before he spoke, Alice leaning forward and listening intently for the first sound of his voice. Then Quincy uttered those ever pleasing words, "Sweet, Sweet Home," and delivered, with great expression, the words of the song.

"You read it splendidly," cried Alice, with evident delight. "Would it be presuming on your kindness if I asked you to read the refrain and chorus once more, Mr. Sawyer?"

"I shall enjoy reading it again myself," remarked Quincy, as he proceeded to comply with Alice's pleasantly worded request.

REFRAIN:

There is no place like home, they say, No matter where it be; The lordly mansion of the rich, The hut of poverty.

The little cot, the tenement, The white-winged s.h.i.+p at sea; The heart will always seek its home, Wherever it may be.

CHORUS:

Sweet, sweet home!

To that sweet place where youth was pa.s.sed our thoughts will turn; Sweet, sweet home!

Will send the blood to flaming face, and hearts will burn.

Sweet, sweet home!

It binds us to our native land where'er we roam, No land so fair, no sky so blue, As those we find when back we come to sweet, sweet home!

"Of course you know that lovely song, 'Juanita'?" said Alice.

"Certainly," said Quincy, and he sang the first line of the chorus.

Alice's voice joined in with his, and they finished the chorus together.

A thrill went through Quincy as he sang the last line, and he was conscious that his voice quivered when he came to the words, "Be my own fair bride."

"You sing with great expression," said Alice, "If you like these new words that I have written to that old melody we can sing them together.

I have called it Loved Days. I think this is the one," she said, as she pa.s.sed him several small sheets pinned together.

"It is," said Quincy, as he took the paper and read it slowly.

As before, he said nothing when he had finished.

"Mr. Judge," said Alice, "would it be improper, from a judicial point of view, for me to ask you which lines in the song you have just read please you the most? But perhaps," said she, looking up at him, "none of them are worthy of repet.i.tion."

"If you will consider for a moment," replied Quincy, "that I am off the bench and am just sitting here quietly with you, I will say, confidentially, that I am particularly well pleased with this;" and he read a portion of the first stanza:

On Great Heaven's beauties, Gaze the eyes I loved to see, Done earth's weary duties, Now, eternity.

"And," continued Quincy, "I think these lines from the second stanza are fully equal to those I have just read."

But my soul, still living, Speaks its words of comfort sweet, Grandest promise giving That again we'll meet.

"I should think," continued Quincy, "that those words were particularly well suited to be sung at a funeral. I shall have to ask my friend Bradley to have his quartette learn them, so as to be ready when I need them."

"Oh! Mr. Sawyer," cried Alice, with a strong tone of reproof in her voice, "how can you speak so lightly of death?"

"Pardon me," replied Quincy, "if I have unintentionally wounded your feelings, but after all life is only precious to those who have something to live for."

"But you certainly," said Alice, "can see something in life worth living for."

"Yes," a.s.sented Quincy, "I can see it, but I am not satisfied in my own mind that I shall ever be able to possess it."

"Oh, you must work and wait and hope!" cried Alice.

"I shall be happy to," he said, "if you will be kind and say an encouraging word to me, so that I may not grow weary of the battle of life."

"I should be pleased to help you all I can," she said sweetly.

"I shall need your help," Quincy remarked gravely, and then with a quick change in tone he said playfully, "I think it is about time for the judge to get back upon the bench."

"This," said Alice, as she pa.s.sed him a ma.n.u.script enclosed in a cover, "is my capital offence. If I escape punishment for my other misdemeanors, I know I shall not when you have read this." And she handed him the paper.

Quincy opened it and read, The Lord of the Sea, a Cantata.

CHARACTERS.

Canute, the Great, King of England and Denmark.

A Courtier.

An Irish Harper.

Queen Emma, the "Flower of Normandy."

Courtiers, Monks, and Gleemen.

PLACE.

Part I.--The palace of the king.

Part II.--The seash.o.r.e at Southampton.

Time--About A.D. 1030.

As he proceeded with the reading he became greatly interested in it. He had a fine voice and had taken a prize for oratory at Harvard.

When he finished he turned to Alice and said, "And you wrote that?"

"Certainly," said she. "Can you forgive me?"

Quincy said seriously, "Miss Pettengill, that is a fine poem; it is grand when read, but it would be grander still if set to music. I can imagine," Quincy continued, "how those choruses would sound if sung by the Handel and Haydn Society, backed up by a full orchestra and the big organ." And he sang, to an extemporized melody of his own, the words:

G.o.d bless the king of the English, The Lord of the land, The Lord of the sea!

"I can imagine," said he, as he rose and stood before Alice, "King Canute as a heavy-voiced ba.s.so. How he would bring out these words!

Great sea! the land on which I stand, is mine; Its rocky sh.o.r.es before thy blows quail not.

Thou, too, O! sea, are part of my domain, And, like the land, must bow to my command.

I'll sit me here! rise not, nor dare to touch, With thy wet lips, the ermine of my robe!

"And," cried he, for the moment overcome by his enthusiasm, "how would this sound sung in unison by five hundred well-trained voices?

For G.o.d alone is mighty, The Lord of the sea, The Lord of the land!

For He holds the waves of the ocean In the hollow of His hand, And the strength of the mightiest king Is no more than a grain of sand.