I was sick with pain, once,
Sick with pain.
And an old witch drew to my side
And healed me again.
She was withered, and wretched, and gray,
Deep stabbed with years.
And the skin of her face was scarred
With hate and tears.
She had lived fierce days in that town
The sea-winds flog.
Hourly the neighbours jibed,
Cast stones at a dog.
They had slandered her, tricked her; robbed her
Of honour and purse.
But her wrongs slept deep in her heart
For the fiends to nurse.
One went blind; another stark mad,—
He's dead.
Fruit of the curse she flung.
"Old witch," they said.
Life ran high there; men nourished their hates
And slashed with swords.
Harsh skies swerved to the rim of the bay,—
Sweden seawards.
And I lay in her bare, clean room
At the stairway's end.
And the fierce pain clutched me and held me;
And nought would fend.
"O mother," I cried—and she leaned to me—
"Give me your hand's touch.
They have broken me too, and flung me
This same blind crutch."
And she placed her hand in my hand;
And her touch thrilled me.
And the blood ran warm in my veins;
And her dead life healed me.
She was wasted, arid as one
Whom no sun cheers.
But her dead life flowered that day
Down sixty years.
|