FAITH
A wall
Gray and tall,
And a sky of gray,
And a twilight cold;
And that is all
That my eyes behold.
But I know that unseen,
Beyond the wall,
On a lawn of green
White blossoms fall
In the waning light;
And beyond the lawn
Curtains are drawn
From windows bright.
And within she moves with her gracious hands
And the heart that loves and that understands,
Waiting to succour poor souls in need,
And to bind with her blessing the hearts that bleed.
I know it all, though I cannot see;
But the tired-out tramp,
Dirty and ill,
In the evening’s damp,
In the Spring’s clean chill,
Knows not that there
Is the heart to care
For such as I and for such as he.
He slouches along, and sees alone
The gray of the sky and the gray of the stone.
Lord, when my eyes see nothing but grey
In all Thy world that is now so green,
I will bethink me of this spring day
And the house of welcome, known yet unseen;
The wall that conceals
And the faith that reveals.
THE DEATH OF AGNES
Now that the sunlight dies in my eyes,
And the moonlight grows in my hair,
I who was never very wise,
Never was very fair,
Virgin and martyr all my life,
What has life left to give
Me—who was never mother nor wife,
Never got leave to live?
Nothing of life could I clasp or claim,
Nothing could steal or save.
So when you come to carve my name,
Give me life in my grave.
To keep me warm when I sleep alone
A lie is little to give;
Call me “Magdalen” on my stone,
Though I died and did not live.
IN TROUBLE
It’s all for nothing: I’ve lost him now.
I suppose it had to be;
But oh, I never thought it of him,
Nor he never thought it of me.
And all for a kiss on your evening out,
And a field where the grass was down . . .
And he ’as gone to God-knows-where,
And I may go on the town.
The worst of all was the thing he said
The night that he went away;
He said he’d ’a married me right enough
If I hadn’t ’a been so gay.
Me—gay! When I’d cried, and I’d asked him not,
But he said he loved me so;
An’ whatever he wanted seemed right to me . . .
An’ how was a girl to know?