| |
| A STILL dark joy! A sudden face! | |
| Cold daylight, footsteps, cries! | |
| The temple’s naked, shining space, | |
| Aglare with judging eyes! | |
| |
| All in abandoned guilty hair, | 5 |
| With terror-pallid lips, | |
| To vulgar scorn her honour bare, | |
| To vulgar taunts and quips, | |
| |
| Her eyes she fixes on the ground, | |
| Her shrinking soul to hide; | 10 |
| Lest, at uncurtained windows found, | |
| Its shame be clear descried. | |
| |
| All-idle hang her listless hands | |
| And tingle with the shame; | |
| She sees not who beside her stands, | 15 |
| She is so bowed with blame. | |
| |
| He stoops, he writes upon the ground, | |
| Regards not priests nor wife; | |
| An awful silence spreads around, | |
| And wakes an inward strife. | 20 |
| |
| Is it a voice that speaks for thee? | |
| Almost she hears aghast: | |
| “Let him who from this sin is free, | |
| At her the first stone cast.” | |
| |
| Astonished, waking, growing sad, | 25 |
| Her eyes bewildered rose; | |
| She saw the one true friend she had, | |
| Who loves her though he knows. | |
| |
| Upon her deathlike, ashy face, | |
| The blushes rise and spread: | 30 |
| No greater wonder sure had place | |
| When Lazarus left the dead! | |
| |
| He stoops. In every charnel breast | |
| Dead conscience rises slow: | |
| They, dumb before that awful guest, | 35 |
| Turn, one by one, and go. | |
| |
| Alone with him! Yet no new dread | |
| Invades the silence round; | |
| False pride, false shame, all false is dead; | |
| She has the Master found. | 40 |
| |
| Who else had spoken on her side, | |
| Those cruel men withstood? | |
| From him even shame she would not hide; | |
| For him she will be good. | |
| |
| He rises—sees the temple bare; | 45 |
| They two are left alone. | |
| He turns and asks her, “Woman, where | |
| Are thine accusers gone? | |
| |
| Hath none condemned thee?” “Master, no,” | |
| She answers, trembling sore. | 50 |
| “Neither do I condemn thee. Go, | |
| And sin not any more.” | |
| |
| She turned and went. To hope and grieve? | |
| Be what she had not been? | |
| We are not told; but I believe | 55 |
| His kindness made her clean. | |
| |
| Our sins to thee us captive hale— | |
| Offences, hatreds dire; | |
| Weak loves that selfish grow, and fail | |
| And fall into the mire. | 60 |
| |
| Our conscience-cry with pardon meet; | |
| Our passion cleanse with pain; | |
| Lord, thou didst make these miry feet— | |
| Oh! wash them clean again. | |
| |
