The Marriage Vow

Speak it not lightly!-tis a holy thing. Then will ye gaze upon the the altered brow,

A bond enduring through long and distant years, And love as fondly, faithfully as now?

When joy o'er thine abode is hovering,

Or when thy eye is wet with bitterest tears; Should fortune frown on your defenceless [defenseless] head,

Recorded by an angel's pen on high, Should storm o'ertake your bark in life's sea;

And must be questioned in eternity! Fierce tempest rend the sail so gaily spread,

When hope her syren [siren] strain sang joyously;

Speak it not lightly!-though the young and gay Will you look up, though clouds your sky o'ercast,

Are thronging around thee now, with tones of mirth; And say, 'Together we will bide the blast?'

Let not the holy promise of to-day

Fade like the clouds that with the morn have birth, Age, with its silvery locks, comes stealing on,

But ever bright and sacred may it be, And brings the tottering step, the furrowed cheek,

Stored in the treasury-cell of memory. The eye from which each lustrous beam had gone,

And the pale lip, with accents low and weak;

Life will not prove all sunshine! there will come Will ye then think upon your life's gay prime,

Dark hours for all: O will ye, when the night And, smiling, bid love triumph over time?

Of sorrows gather thickly round your home.

Love as ye did, in times when calm and bright Speak it not lightly! Oh, beware, beware!

'Tis no vain promise, no unmeaning word;

Seemed the sure path ye trod, untouched by care, Lo! Men and angels lisp the faith ye swear,

And deem'd the future like the present fair? And by the high and holy One 'tis heard;

Oh, then, kneel humbly at His altar now,

Eyes that now beam with health may yet grow dim, And pray for strength to keep your marriage vow!

And cheeks of rose forget their early glow; M. N. M.

Languor and pain assail each active limb,

And lay, Perchance, some worshiped [worshipped] beauty low;