1872.—.
WOMEN IN RESIGNATION.
On Your poor hands pierced by the nail,
With hope's long clinging, the old
Women have rested their cold
Souls without feeling and frail,
In the hush You are dreaming in
This night, good Lord! And they sing
To the prodigals wandering
In the wildernesses of sin:
They are saying, these voices in pain,
They must suffer long until
The heavenly dawn shall fill
Their songs with brightness again,
That since You have wept above
The sins of the mad human race,
They must wash with tears their face,
And pray to You long in love.
On Your poor hands pierced by the nail,
With hope's long clinging, the old
Women have rested their cold
Souls without feeling and frail.
SOULS OF THE EVENING.
While the spindle merrily sings,
Old women sing your complaint,
The gas-lamps are misty and faint,
And the night to the water clings.
Now Jesus walks where greens
The dark, cobbled alley, and rests
His poor, pierced hands on the breasts
Of dreaming Magdalenes;
And of every orphan child,
And of houses holy with prayer,
Mary Mother has care ...
Sing, Jesus meek and mild
Stands in your doorways' gloom,
And hears your hymn beseech ...
Let the honey of His speech
Your desolate hearts perfume!—
The Shepherd of straying sheep
Shall lead you home to the fold ...
But your soul, old women, must weep,
Remembering its wounds of old,
Love, and the heart's long burn,
The wounds of hope ever sick,
And childhood's dreams falling quick,
Shed and dead turn by turn.
Lord, on old women have pity,
Whose soul, fair fragile toy,
Touched by the kiss of the city,
Dreams of the sun of joy!
ALBERT MOCKEL.
1866—.
Slender, and so virginal, but why not somewhat languid?—her casque of golden hair is starred sometimes with mellow sparks, and mellow is her mauve silk dress soft in its folds.
She is all music, in the music of her movements bathed, they also soft with pensive grace, and very slow with suppleness that undulatingly unrolls.
An evening party. She has danced, she dances still. Men dark and fair have come and led her off, under the chandeliers in this insipid music,—insipid, and amusing her. Much has she danced (O all this light!) and feels a little weary, weary. Yes, several waltzes; of her partners one could talk, or nearly could;—but he is ugly, and his fish eyes middle-class. The other, on her programme next, is far more handsome, surely: his keen eyes have metallic glints, his hair is glossy black; he is Italian, is he not, or else from Hungary?
Ah! here he comes.