Verses and Rhymes By the Way

by Norah

PART II

Away in a distant city,
Is a stranger all unknown;
Far, far from the leaping river,
That is rushing past his home.

He lay in the stilly silence
Of a quiet, darkened room,
Feeling that the dread death angel
Stands in the gathering gloom.

One foot on shadowy waters,
One foot on the earthly shore;
He swears to the shrinking mortal,
That his time shall be no more.

The spray of the silent river,
Is cold beaded on his brow,
For Jordan's billowy swellings
Are bearing him onward now

He is floating into darkness,
Going with the shifting tide,
And there is the seat of judgment,
Waits him at the further side.

But his eyes are looking backward,
In pauses of mortal strife,
And he sees the quiet village,
Where he preached the word of life.

And he sees the pleasant cottage,
To which in the flush of pride,
The popular village pastor,
Brought home a most haughty bride

But ever there comes another,
With a pale and pleading face,
So helpless, and so unwelcome,
A burden and a disgrace

And the river roars and rushes,
Leaping past with fearful din,
Its ever foaming caldron
Suggesting a deadly sin.

Saying, "I am partially sheeted,
In the winter's ice and snow,
What's plunged in my dashing waters,
No mortal shall ever know"

So ever with nervous fingers,
He harnesses up his sleigh;
So ever with stealthy movements,
He travels the icy way.

And stops where the yawning chasm,
Shows the yawning wave beneath,
And she knows with sudden horror,
That she has been brought to her death

Her weak hands cling to his bosom,
His ears are thrilled with her cry;
When the last struggling strength went forth
In that shriek of agony.

So his most unwilling spirit,
Still travels memory's track,
Despair staring blindly forward,
Remorse ever dragging back.

Again he walks by the waters,
While innocent mortals sleep,
Asking the pitiless river,
The horrible deed to keep.

Spring comes and the ice is breaking,
Does it break before its time?
Then he knows on God's fair footstool
No shelter there is for crime.

For the rushing, tempting waters,
Have got an accusing roar;
The treacherous sweeping eddy
Has brought the crime to his door.

Then he lives over and over,
That moment of anguished dread,
When the cry arose—awestruck hands
Had found and borne oft his dead.

Thus he, conscience-lashed and goaded,
Feeling as the murderer feels,
Has reached the last, last spot of earth,
The Avenger at his heels

Ah me! to plunge in those swellings,
Along with that ghastly face,
Going out on unknown waters
In that clinging dread embrace

So he floated on to judgment,
What award may meet him there,
Who knows—but his earthly punishment
Was greater than he could bear