| |
| I CAME in light that I might behold | |
| The shadow which shut me apart of old. | |
| Lo, it was lying robed in white, | |
| With the still palms crossed o’er a lily, bright | |
| With salt rain of tears; and everywhere | 5 |
| Around lay blossoms that filled the air | |
| With perfume, snow of flowers that hid | |
| The snow of the silken coverlid | |
| With myrtle and orange bloom and store | |
| Of jasmine stars, and a wreath it wore | 10 |
| Of stephanotis. Still it lay, | |
| For its time of travail had passed away. | |
| “Of old it was never so fair as this,” | |
| I said, as I bent me down to kiss | |
| The cast swathing robe. “It is well that so | 15 |
| I see it before I turn to go— | |
| Turn to depart that I may bless | |
| The love that has shown such tenderness.” | |
| |
| So I passed to my mother’s side, | |
| Where she lay sleepless and weary-eyed; | 20 |
| Glided within, that I might see | |
| The chamber her love had reserved for me. | |
| It was wide and warm, and furnished forth | |
| With the best she had, with gifts of worth, | |
| Anxious watchings and tears and prayers | 25 |
| And ministrations of many years. | |
| I bent me down o’er her wrinkled brow | |
| And kissed it smooth, as I whispered low | |
| Comfort and hope for her daughter dear, | |
| Till my whisper drew forth the healing tear. | 30 |
| Last, I kissed her to slumber deep, | |
| Kissed her to quiet rest and sleep. | |
| |
| I passed to my sister’s heart, and there | |
| I heard sweet notes of her soaring prayer; | |
| And, joining therewith, found the fair white shrine | 35 |
| That her love had set apart as mine. | |
| On its alabaster altar stood | |
| A vessel with sacrificial blood. | |
| Incense of sweet unselfishness | |
| Rose ever, a pillar of light to bless | 40 |
| That fair pure place with its flower-sweet fume. | |
| Dimmed was that shrine by no cloud of gloom, | |
| But bright shone that pillar which rose above | |
| On her earthly jewels with its lambent love. | |
| So I knew that any gift of mine | 45 |
| Was naught by her treasure of love divine, | |
| Flowing freely down; but a flower I lent | |
| That would bloom in her bosom with sweet content, | |
| ’T was forget-me-not. “Though poor,” I said, | |
| “Mid her blossoms of living love, the dead | 50 |
| Would yet be loved, and I will that she | |
| Keep this, and render it back to me.” | |
| I knew how my blossom would live and grow, | |
| As I kissed it once ere I turned to go; | |
| |
| Turned to go to my cousin Kate— | 55 |
| She who was rival to me of late, | |
| Jealous, unhappy, but in the end | |
| Nursed me and tended me like a friend. | |
| I searched her heart, and soon I found | |
| A plot of mine in her garden ground; | 60 |
| Flowers were there which had ripened seed, | |
| But among them many a yellow weed. | |
| Still, I saw with a gladdened eye | |
| The weeds were pining and like to die, | |
| Whilst heartsease throve, and sprigs of rue | 65 |
| Watered well with remorseful dew. | |
| So I bent down and rooted out | |
| Nettles of envy, and round about | |
| Cleared the ground that the flowers might live, | |
| Live and blossom and grow and thrive. | 70 |
| Lastly, I drew with cords of love | |
| A thistle of pride naught else might move, | |
| Pressed her forehead and swiftly passed— | |
| For I kept my best gifts to the last— | |
| Treasures of comfort and hope to cheer | 75 |
| The heart which my own had held most dear. | |
| |
| I dreamed of the bliss that I should feel | |
| When that opened heart should to me reveal | |
| Its fulness, before but dimly seen, | |
| As I lifted its veils and entered in— | 80 |
| Entered, and saw with mute amaze | |
| How squalid and narrow was the place. | |
| Still, I fancied, perchance for me | |
| The best of that which is here may be. | |
| Searching in dusk, I forced my way | 85 |
| To the secret place where my chamber lay, | |
| Choked with the sordid piles o’erthrown | |
| Of a miser’s dust which had been my own, | |
| Till but little space for me remained, | |
| All being filthy and weather-stained; | 90 |
| Whilst evil fungi, spawn of lust, | |
| Pushed through the rotten floor, and thrust | |
| Unsightly growths in that evil space, | |
| And vanity pressed in the crowded space | |
| Till room was scanty for me to tread. | 95 |
| I gazed shadowed a moment before I fled, | |
| For no gift of mine of love or care | |
| Might live in that pestilential air; | |
| Still, for the love of dreams bygone, | |
| I could not leave him quite alone, | 100 |
| So I planted cypress to warn of death. | |
| It might live, and its keen balsamic breath | |
| Would wither these fungi one by one, | |
| Giving entrance, perchance, to some ray of sun. | |
| |
| Then I departed, earth’s lesson o’er. | 105 |
| Never henceforth shall I enter more; | |
| And the thought was mine of former dread | |
| And former longings, and so I said, | |
| “Blind I was when my dearest wish | |
| Was ever to dwell in a home like this.” | 110 |
| Knew, as I went forth to my rest, | |
| My prayer was a child’s, and God knew best. | |
| |
