Poems (Kennedy)/Two Who Prayed

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

TWO WHO PRAYED

"TWO went up to the temple to pray,"
 When the last sun-hours were brief,
And the people said, as they saw them pass,
 "A gentleman there, and a thief."

A gentleman clad as a man should be
 Who takes the world by the throat
And wrests its wealth; but the other one walked
 In shame of a threadbare coat.

And there where the aureole window flamed
 And the altar lights burned low
They knelt and prayed, one fluent and calm,
 One trembling of speech and slow.

One pleaded to God of the snare of gold—
 The lure of a loaf of bread;
And he bared his soul to the conscience lash
 And told how his heart had bled.

He had taken the thing that was not his,
 And paid to the law its dole;
His hands were "red" with a stolen crust,
 But the stain reached not his soul.

The other man boasted of things achieved,
 Of gold piled up through the years;
But under the words God caught the drip
 Of an ill-paid woman's tears.

And he told also how he built the shops,
 Where was work for the hungry horde;
And he plumed himself on his charities,
 "Confessing" them to the Lord.

But he said no word how he drove and skimped
 The poor of their honest due;
How children cried in his cruel mills,
 But the pitiful God, He knew.

When the prayers were done and the two came forth,
 Where the sunset spilled its sheaf,
The people bowed, but the angels knew
 The gentleman from the thief.