Deathly hands that pluck at his cassock's hem;
Sighings of earthly breath that smite his cheek;
Canice the priest swings on, atune with them,
Hears the throbbings of pain, and hears them speak;
Hears the word they utter, and answers "Yea!
Yea, poor souls, for I heed; I pray, I pray."
Lo, a gleam of gray, and the dark is done;
Hark, a bird that trills a song of the light.
Canice hies him home by the shine of the sun.
What to-day of those pallid wraiths of the night?
What of the woeful notes that had wailed and fled?
"Maria, ora pro illis!" Canice said.
"ALL THE LITTLE SIGHING SOULS"
MARY SHEPHERDESS: MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL
When the heron's in the high wood and the last long furrow's sown
With the herded cloud before her and her sea-sweet raiment blown
Comes Mary, Mary Shepherdess, a-seeking for her own.
Saint James he calls the righteous folk, Saint John he calls the kind,
Saint Peter seeks the valiant men all to loose or bind,
But Mary seeks the little souls that are so hard to find.