A LYNMOUTH WIDOW
He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue
As the summer meeting of sky and sea,
And the ruddy cliffs have a colder hue
Than flushed his cheek when he married me.
We passed the porch where the swallows breed,
We left the little brown church behind,
And I leaned on his arm though I had no need,
Only to feel him so strong and kind.
One thing I never can quite forget—
It grips my throat when I try to pray—
The keen salt smell of a drying net
That hung on the churchyard wall that day.
He would have taken a long, long grave—
A long, long grave, for he stood so tall....
Oh, God—the crash of the breaking wave,
And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall!
The Bellman Amelia Josephine Burr
THE GIFT OF GOD
Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so,—
That her degree should be so great
Among the favored of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.
As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has known
Of other women’s other sons,—
The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.
She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.