Classic Poem

I never believed they were married lovers:
He was such a hard man—and she was hard;
Both Presbyterians, and old-fashioned
Enough to think that bodies can damn souls,
And that original sin can shake us
From the Tree of Life into perdition.

I thought their marriage was just a bargain
They had made because they thought it a duty.
They never called each other by first names.
'Twas always “Mr.” and “Mrs.”—stiff words
For the breakfast table, year in and year out.
But one could see they never flinched from life.
They worked hard and brought up thirteen children.
Most of them went to college: they believed
The Lord commanded men to get knowledge.
Abial, the eldest, became a preacher;
Ichabod went off somewhere engineering;
Mary taught school; now she's at a college
Where they teach girls to be missionaries
And send them out to heathen in China;
Bethuel is a doctor down in Utica.
They're all off somewhere working out salvation,
And the old folks live on in the farm house
And use their religion as a ramrod
To stiffen their spines, so they can hold out
Until death against all the natural
Human happiness that they're so scared of.

But I changed my mind about them last year.
I had brought some candy up from the store.
I stopped in at their house—neighbors were there—
And passed the candy—just peppermint sticks
With pink stripings—the kind that children like.
Somehow I missed him when I passed it,
And I had just enough sticks to go around
Without him. Well, I thought nothing of it:
A man don't set much store by candy—
(I had forgot they felt it was a sin
To waste money on such foolish notions
As candy, so he hardly knew its taste,)
I sat near the outside door behind them,
And I saw her hand slip back of her chair
And find his hand, while she kept on talking,
And when it drew back he had the candy.
She couldn't bear to have the little treat
And feel that he was not sharing it too.

It was a simple thing—but it held all
The love we had thought they were missing.
Their hardness was only a cloak—a mask
To hide their rich treasure from the curious;
And I understood then why their children
Had grown up like young trees, strong and lovely.

Now I've a fondness when I'm teaming it
For eating pink-striped peppermint candy;
I think—when I'm munching along the road
And flicking the heads of the timothy
With my whip—“They loved one another—
We were so blind; they loved hard all the time.
Their natures were flint; there's bound to be fire
When you strike flint. They poured out a great love
Into life; maybe that was the secret
Old John Calvin tried so hard to teach us.”