The mission craved, and swiftly winged to earth,
Where, in the modest form of woman, lo!
That angel took a new, terrestrial birth!
The form was woman’s—but the voice that spoke
To love’s key-note attuned—the dauntless heart —
The smile, that on Wo’s night like morning broke,
Were still the angel’s—still of Heaven a part.
And when the man of crime that eye beheld,
And felt the power of that transforming smile,
Beneath sin’s iron breastwork beat and swelled