If her cry from the whipping-post and jail Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail, O woman, at ease in these happier days, Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!
How much thy beautiful life may owe To her faith and courage thou canst not know, Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.
1883.
SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST.
A TALE for Roman guides to tell To careless, sight-worn travellers still, Who pause beside the narrow cell Of Gregory on the Caelian Hill.
One day before the monk's door came A beggar, stretching empty palms, Fainting and fast-sick, in the name Of the Most Holy asking alms.
And the monk answered, "All I have In this poor cell of mine I give, The silver cup my mother gave; In Christ's name take thou it, and live."
Years passed; and, called at last to bear The pastoral crook and keys of Rome, The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair, Sat the crowned lord of Christendom.
"Prepare a feast," Saint Gregory cried, "And let twelve beggars sit thereat."
The beggars came, and one beside, An unknown stranger, with them sat.
"I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake, "O stranger; but if need be thine, I bid thee welcome, for the sake Of Him who is thy Lord and mine."
A grave, calm face the stranger raised, Like His who on Gennesaret trod, Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed, Whose form was as the Son of God.
"Know'st thou," he said, "thy gift of old?"
And in the hand he lifted up The Pontiff marvelled to behold Once more his mother's silver cup.
"Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom Sweetly among the flowers of heaven.
I am The Wonderful, through whom Whate'er thou askest shall be given."
He spake and vanished. Gregory fell With his twelve guests in mute accord Prone on their faces, knowing well Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord.
The old-time legend is not vain; Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul, Telling it o'er and o'er again On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall.
Still wheresoever pity shares Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin, And love the beggar's feast prepares, The uninvited Guest comes in.
Unheard, because our ears are dull, Unseen, because our eyes are dim, He walks our earth, The Wonderful, And all good deeds are done to Him.
1883.
BIRCHBROOK MILL.
A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs Beneath its leaning trees; That low, soft ripple is its own, That dull roar is the sea's.
Of human signs it sees alone The distant church spire's tip, And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, The white sail of a ship.
No more a toiler at the wheel, It wanders at its will; Nor dam nor pond is left to tell Where once was Birchbrook mill.
The timbers of that mill have fed Long since a farmer's fires; His doorsteps are the stones that ground The harvest of his sires.
Man trespassed here; but Nature lost No right of her domain; She waited, and she brought the old Wild beauty back again.
By day the sunlight through the leaves Falls on its moist, green sod, And wakes the violet bloom of spring And autumn's golden-rod.
Its birches whisper to the wind, The swallow dips her wings In the cool spray, and on its banks The gray song-sparrow sings.
But from it, when the dark night falls, The school-girl shrinks with dread; The farmer, home-bound from his fields, Goes by with quickened tread.
They dare not pause to hear the grind Of shadowy stone on stone; The plashing of a water-wheel Where wheel there now is none.
Has not a cry of pain been heard Above the clattering mill?
The pawing of an unseen horse, Who waits his mistress still?
Yet never to the listener's eye Has sight confirmed the sound; A wavering birch line marks alone The vacant pasture ground.
No ghostly arms fling up to heaven The agony of prayer; No spectral steed impatient shakes His white mane on the air.
The meaning of that common dread No tongue has fitly told; The secret of the dark surmise The brook and birches hold.
What nameless horror of the past Broods here forevermore?
What ghost his unforgiven sin Is grinding o'er and o'er?
Does, then, immortal memory play The actor's tragic part, Rehearsals of a mortal life And unveiled human heart?
God's pity spare a guilty soul That drama of its ill, And let the scenic curtain fall On Birchbrook's haunted mill
1884.
THE TWO ELIZABETHS.
Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends'
School, Providence, R. I.
A. D. 1209.
AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt, A high-born princess, servant of the poor, Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door.
A blinded zealot held her soul in chains, Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill, Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains, And gauged her conscience by his narrow will.
God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace, With fast and vigil she denied them all; Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face, She followed meekly at her stern guide's call.