ST. HELENA ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, IN 1863.
I was young and "Harry" was strong,
The summer was bursting from sky and plain,
Thrilling our blood as we bounded along,—
When a picture flashed, and I dropped the rein.
A black sea-creek, with snaky run
Slipping through low green leagues of sedge,
An ebbing tide, and a setting sun;
A hut and a woman by the edge.
Her back was bent and her wool was gray;
The wrinkles lay close on the withered face;
Children were buried and sold away,—
The Freedom had come to the last of a race!
She lived from a neighbor's hominy-pot;
And praised the Lord, if "the pain" passed by;
From the earthen floor the smoke curled out
Through shingles patched with the bright blue sky.
"Aunt Phillis, you live here all alone?"
I asked, and pitied the gray old head;
Sure as a child, in quiet tone,
"Me and Jesus, Massa," she said.
I started, for all the place was aglow
With a presence I had not seen before;
The air was full of a music low,
And the Guest Divine stood at the door!
Ay, it was true that the Lord of Life,
Who seeth the widow give her mite,
Had watched this slave in her weary strife,
And shown himself to her longing sight.
The hut and the dirt, the rags and the skin,
The grovelling want and the darkened mind,—
I looked on this; but the Lord, within:
I would what he saw was in me to find!
A childlike soul, whose faith had force
To see what the angels see in bliss:
She lived, and the Lord lived; so, of course,
They lived together,—she knew but this.