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,
With terror-pallid lips,
To vulgar scorn her honour bare,
To lewd remarks and quips,
Her eyes she fixes on the ground
Her shrinking soul to hide,
Lest, at uncurtained windows found,
Its shame be clear descried.
All idle hang her listless hands,
They tingle with her shame;
She sees not who beside her stands,
She is so bowed with blame.
He stoops, he writes upon the ground,
Regards nor priests nor wife;
An awful silence spreads around,
And wakes an inward strife.
Then comes a voice that speaks for thee,
Pale woman, sore aghast:
"Let him who from this sin is free
At her the first stone cast!"
Ah then her heart grew slowly sad!
Her eyes bewildered rose;
She saw the one true friend she had,
Who loves her though he knows.
He stoops. In every charnel breast
Dead conscience rises slow:
They, dumb before that awful guest,
Turn, one by one, and go.
Up in her deathlike, ashy face
Rises the living red;
No greater wonder sure had place
When Lazarus left the dead!
She is alone with him whose fear
Made silence all around;
False pride, false shame, they come not near,
She has her saviour found!