John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Occasional Poems“I was a Stranger, and ye took me in”
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The air was full of light and balm,
And warm and soft the Gulf wind blew
Through orange bloom and groves of palm.
Who sought the fount of health in vain,
Sank homeless on the alien earth,
And breathed the languid air with pain.
Of pity made her blue eye dim;
Against her woman’s breast she laid
The drooping, fainting head of him.
Flower-sweet and cool with salt sea air,
And watched beside his bed, for whom
His far-off sisters might not care.
Its lines of pain with tenderest touch.
With holy hymn and prayer she soothed
The trembling soul that feared so much.
Came to him, as he lapsed away
As one whose troubled dreams of night
Slide slowly into tranquil day.
Upon his lonely grave she laid:
The jasmine dropped its golden showers,
The orange lent its bloom and shade.
More sweet than mortal voices be:
“The service thou for him hast wrought
O daughter! hath been done for me.”