LOVE

WHAT if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved While yet on earth and was beloved in turn, And still remembered every look and tone Of that dear earthly sister who was left

Among the unwise virgins at the gate,— Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train,— What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host Of chanting angels, in some transient lull

Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour Some wilder pulse of nature led astray And left an outcast in a world of fire,

Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends, Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain From worn-out souls that only ask to die,—

Would it not long to leave the bliss of heaven,— Bearing a little water in its hand To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain With Him we call our Father? Or is all

So changed in such as taste celestial joy They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe; The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed Her cradle slumbers; she who once had held

A babe upon her bosom from its voice Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same? No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast

Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones We build to mimic life with pygmy hands,— Not in those earliest days when men ran wild And gashed each other with their knives of stone,

When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god

To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign

Than him the dead men mummied in their creed And taught their trembling children to adore! Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names,

Is not your memory still the precious mould That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer? Thus only I behold Him, like to them, Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath,

If wrath it be that only wounds to heal, Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin, Longing to clasp him in a father's arms,

And seal his pardon with a pitying tear! Four gospels tell their story to mankind, And none so full of soft, caressing words That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe

Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned In the meek service of his gracious art The tones which, like the medicinal balms That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls.

Oh that the loving woman, she who sat So long a listener at her Master's feet, Had left us Mary's Gospel,— all she heard Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man!

Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read The messages of love between the lines Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue Of him who deals in terror as his trade

With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame They tell of angels whispering round the bed Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream, Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms,

Of Him who blessed the children; of the land Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers, Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl, Of the white robes the winged creatures wear,

The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore! We too had human mothers, even as Thou, Whom we have learned to worship as remote

From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe. The milk of woman filled our branching veins, She lulled us with her tender nursery-song, And folded round us her untiring arms,

While the first unremembered twilight yeas Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel Her pulses in our own,— too faintly feel; Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds!

Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell, Not from the conclave where the holy men Glare on each other, as with angry eyes They battle for God's glory and their own,

Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn,— Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear The Father's voice that speaks itself divine!

Love must be still our Master; till we learn What he can teach us of a woman's heart, We know not His whose love embraces all.