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| WITHIN the cool Quadrangle’s welcome shade, | |
| Beneath the linen awning, Jesus sought | |
| A moment’s quiet, while the fountain played | |
| Her pleasant interlude to weary thought. | |
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| Through the porch gleamed the rose-red sunset snows | 5 |
| Of the wild crags of northern Galilee: | |
| What awful Life is in the God-Repose, | |
| That with the Past and Present welds Futurity! | |
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| Up the benched gateway thrills a Woman’s cry, | |
| As if the swollen torrent of deep care | 10 |
| Had torn down silence in its agony | |
| To fling Grief’s secret on the trembling air! | |
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| The loneliness of one unuttered woe, | |
| The silent tears when every Hope had fled, | |
| The sacred Love, which Mothers best may know, | 15 |
| When sickness glooms around a first-born’s bed. | |
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| The weary hours beside her little Child, | |
| The patient sadness of her darling’s eye, | |
| As with unselfish love she feebly smiled, | |
| All, all, came sobbing on that bitter cry— | 20 |
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| O Lord, thou Son of David, pity me! | |
| So mid the wreck, bareheaded, ’gainst the spray, | |
| A drowning Man might shriek across the sea. | |
| When hope of human help had passed away. | |
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| O Lord, Thou Son of David, pity me! | 25 |
| While ghastly doubt stung her sin-laden breast, | |
| If for the guilt done by her secretly, | |
| God’s Curse had fallen on what she loved the best. | |
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| He did not answer her one single word, | |
| Yet Love was speaking in His ev’ry Look: | 30 |
| When earth is silent, then may Heaven be heard, | |
| In sorrow’s gloom Faith best reads God’s own Book. | |
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| Think’st thou He hears not, when for many a day | |
| Thy knees are worn with fasting and with prayer? | |
| Think’st thou He turns from any love away, | 35 |
| Because thou see’st no Angel on the air? | |
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| Tempter, away! each throb of pain He knows; | |
| I will kneel on, and wait His blessed Time; | |
| Up the steep staircase of Life’s darksome woes | |
| I’ll climb and sing, till overhead God’s chime | 40 |
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| Break with one roar of an eternal Sea; | |
| And lo! if I have prayed He giveth more; | |
| I stagger down, half-blind with victory, | |
| Whispering the Chant from out the opening Door. | |
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