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| GOD pity the wretched prisoners, | |
| In their lonely cells to-day! | |
| Whatever the sins that tripped them, | |
| God pity them! still I say. | |
| |
| Only a strip of sunshine, | 5 |
| Cleft by rusty bars; | |
| Only a patch of azure, | |
| Only a cluster of stars; | |
| |
| Only a barren future, | |
| To starve their hope upon; | 10 |
| Only stinging memories | |
| Of a past that’s better gone; | |
| |
| Only scorn from women, | |
| Only hate from men, | |
| Only remorse to whisper | 15 |
| Of a life that might have been. | |
| |
| Once they were little children, | |
| And perhaps their unstained feet | |
| Were led by a gentle mother | |
| Toward the golden street; | 20 |
| |
| Therefore, if in life’s forest | |
| They since have lost their way, | |
| For the sake of her who loved them, | |
| God pity them! still I say. | |
| |
| O mothers gone to heaven! | 25 |
| With earnest heart I ask | |
| That your eyes may not look earthward | |
| On the failure of your task. | |
| |
| For even in those mansions | |
| The choking tears would rise, | 30 |
| Though the fairest hand in heaven | |
| Would wipe them from your eyes! | |
| |
| And you, who judge so harshly, | |
| Are you sure the stumbling-stone | |
| That tripped the feet of others | 35 |
| Might not have bruised your own? | |
| |
| Are you sure the sad-faced angel | |
| Who writes our errors down | |
| Will ascribe to you more honor | |
| Than him on whom you frown? | 40 |
| |
| Or, if a steadier purpose | |
| Unto your life is given; | |
| A stronger will to conquer, | |
| A smoother path to heaven; | |
| |
| If, when temptations meet you, | 45 |
| You crush them with a smile; | |
| If you can chain pale passion | |
| And keep your lips from guile; | |
| |
| Then bless the hand that crowned you, | |
| Remembering, as you go, | 50 |
| ’T was not your own endeavor | |
| That shaped your nature so; | |
| |
| And sneer not at the weakness | |
| Which made a brother fall, | |
| For the hand that lifts the fallen, | 55 |
| God loves the best of all! | |
| |
| And pray for the wretched prisoners | |
| All over the land to-day, | |
| That a holy hand in pity | |
| May wipe their guilt away. | 60 |
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