| |
| WHEN she is ill my laughter cowers; | |
| An exile with a broken rhyme, | |
| My head upon the breast of time, | |
| I hear the heart-beat of the hours; | |
| I close my eyes without a sigh; | 5 |
| The vision of her flutters by | |
| As glints the light of Mary’s eyes | |
| Upon the lakes in Paradise. | |
| |
| I seem to reach an olden town | |
| And enter at the sunset gate; | 10 |
| And as the streets I hurry down, | |
| I find the men are all elate, | |
| As if an angel of the Lord | |
| Had passed with dearest word and nod, | |
| Remembered like a yearning chord | 15 |
| Of songs the people sing to God; | |
| I come upon the sunrise gate— | |
| As silent as her listless room— | |
| There seven beggers sing and wait | |
| And this the song that breaks the gloom: | 20 |
| |
| God a ’mercy is most kind; | |
| She the fairest passed this way; | |
| We the lowest were not blind; | |
| God a ’mercy bless the day. | |
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