She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song she sang;
And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers rang!
By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing the wrinkled sheet,
Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the ice-cold feet.
With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and long abuse,
By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use.
Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the mistress stepped,
Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with his hands, and wept.
Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, with brow a-frown:
“What! love you the Papist, the beggar, the charge of the town?”
“Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know and God knows
I love her, and fain would go with her wherever she goes!
“O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for love so athirst.
You saw but the town-charge; I knew her God’s angel at first.”
Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down a bitter cry;
And awed by the silence and shadow of death drawing nigh,
She murmured a psalm of the Bible; but closer the young girl pressed,
With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross to her breast.
“My son, come away,” cried the mother, her voice cruel grown.
“She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim; let her alone!”
But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his lips to her ear,
And he called back the soul that was passing: “Marguerite, do you hear?”
She paused on the threshold of heaven; love, pity, surprise,
Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of her eyes.
With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never her cheek grew red,
And the words the living long for he spake in the ear of the dead.
And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to blossoms grew;
Of the folded hands and the still face never the robins knew!
THE ROBIN
My old Welsh neighbor over the way
Crept slowly out in the sun of spring,
Pushed from her ears the locks of gray,
And listened to hear the robins sing.
Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped,
And, cruel in sport as boys will be,
Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped
From bough to bough in the apple-tree.
“Nay!” said the grandmother; “have you not heard,
My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit,
And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird
Carries the water that quenches it?
“He brings cool dew in his little bill,
And lets it fall on the souls of sin:
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.
“My poor Bron rhuddyn! my breast-burned bird,
Singing so sweetly from limb to limb,
Very dear to the heart of Our Lord
Is he who pities the lost like Him!”
“Amen!” I said to the beautiful myth;
“Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well:
Each good thought is a drop wherewith
To cool and lessen the fires of hell.
“Prayers of love like rain-drops fall,
Tears of pity are cooling dew,
And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all
Who suffer like Him in the good they do!”
