To Our Parents

WRITTEN BY REQUEST, FOR A GOLDEN WEDDING


Full fifty years together -
    Father and mother dear -
Through pleasant summer weather,
    Or wintry tempests drear, -
Thro' sunshine and thro' shadow,
    Oft travel sore and tried,
Yet strong to aid each other,
    You've journeyed side by side

A few brief years of climbing, -
    One glad, exultant glance
At the sun bright world around you,
    At the smiling heaven's expanse, -
And then, the slow descending
    Into the vale below,
Where the light with shade is blending,
    And the deamy waters flow

Full fifty years of travel -
    Then, on your worn staves rest,
And welcome home your children,
    And many an honored guest, -
We come to give you greeting, -
    We come to bring you cheer, -
To hail with glad rejoicing
    This fiftieth wedded year!

We know your hearts are asking
    For one who is not here -
Whose voice was sweetest music,
    Whose smile was very dear,
But the blessed Heaven that holds him
    Is very near to you,
And the warm love that enfolds him,
    Enfolds his parents too.

Then let the tears we're shedding
    Have naught of grief's alloy; -
And let this GOLDEN WEDDING
    Be one of tranquil joy.
God bless our honored father
    God bless our mother dear!
And a thousand, thousand welcomes
    To this fiftieth wedded year.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

Pamela S. Vining, also known by her pseudonym J. C. Yule, was an English poet whose work was recognized in the 19th century. Despite her significant contribution to English poetry, detailed information about her life, including her birth and death dates, remains elusive. She remains a noteworthy figure in the canon of English literature for her emotive and thought-provoking poetry.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

God's Witnesses. A Pen Picture From The Old Testament.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

Lines On The Death Of A Young Mother

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

At Home

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

A Parting Hymn.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

English

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After Fifty Years

A MOTHER'S ADDRESS TO HER FAMILY ON HER GOLDEN-WEDDING DAY.


Just fifty years, my daughters,
    Just fifty years, my son,
Since your sire and I together
    The march of life begun.
It does not seem so long ago
    As half a hundred years,
Since hand in hand we started out,
    To face life's toils and tears.

And toils, and tears, too, we have met;
    Yet sunbeams oft have come -
Many and beautiful, and bright -
    To cheer our happy home;
Sweet infant faces, thro' the years,
    Are smiling back to me;
And, God be praised, each precious one
    Still at my side I see!

Yet ye are changed, my children three,
    Your baby-bloom is gone;
And you are growing old, I see,
    Grey hairs are coming on;
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The Golden Wedding.

Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary,
FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876.


A half a century of time,
    The mingled pain and bliss
That make the history of life
    Between that day and this;
Two lives that in that morning light,
    Together were made one,
Now standing where the shadows fall
    Athwart the setting sun.

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    And full of toil and pain,--
Yet love and peace kept house with them,
    And love and peace remain.
Though youth and strength and youthful friends
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Long since, an honest man is still
    The noblest work of God.

No famous deeds, no acts achieved
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The Golden Wedding Of Longwood

With fifty years between you and your well-kept wedding vow,
The Golden Age, old friends of mine, is not a fable now.

And, sweet as has life's vintage been through all your pleasant past,
Still, as at Cana's marriage-feast, the best wine is the last!

Again before me, with your names, fair Chester's landscape comes,
Its meadows, woods, and ample barns, and quaint, stone-builded homes.

The smooth-shorn vales, the wheaten slopes, the boscage green and soft,
Of which their poet sings so well from towered Cedarcroft.

And lo! from all the country-side come neighbors, kith and kin;
From city, hamlet, farm-house old, the wedding guests come in.

And they who, without scrip or purse, mob-hunted, travel-worn,
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To My Husband.

Just two-and-forty years have passed[5]
Since we, a youthful pair,
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How many friends of early days,
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They withered, drooped, and died.

But still permitted, hand in hand
Our journey we pursue;
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Of "better land" in view.

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A Touching Ceremony.

The following verses were suggested by a touching ceremony which lately took place in the chapel of the Congregation Convent, Notre Dame, Montreal, the beloved Institution in which the happy days of my girlhood were passed. The ceremony in question was the renewal of her vows by the Venerable Mother Superior, just fifty years from the date of her first profession, which was made at the early age of fifteen. In the world, in the few rare instances in which both bride and bridegroom live to witness the fiftieth anniversary of their union, the "golden wedding," as it is usually called, is generally celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing; tis but just, then, that in religion, the faithful spouses of the Saviour should welcome with equal satisfaction the anniversary of the epoch which witnessed the mystical union contracted with their Heaven...

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To My Father (Upon His Retirement)

(See Note 42)

In all the land our race was once excelling.
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Broad seats and fruitful; but by fate's hard stresses
Our branch was bent and bowed to blows compelling.
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The flowing fountain of your faith has laved it,
To life's late evening thus your strength has saved it.

As rests the race in time of chill and rigor,
And from the deeps that lie within its being
Draws to it what alone can nourish, freeing
Its powers to full prophecy of vigor, -
So I divined the unseen stir in you
Of nature's might that you could not subdue;
It was so strong, from sire to son surviving,
In mystery mute descends this power's stri...

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