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A DRAMA OF EXILE.
The heavenly life and compensative rest Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth An angel of the woe thou didst achieve Found acceptable to the world instead Of others of that name, of whose bright steps Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied; Something thou hast to bear through womanhood—Peculiar suffering answering to the sin; Some pang paid down for each new human life; Some weariness in guarding such a life—Some coldness from the guarded; some mistrust From those thou hast too well served; from those beloved Too loyally, some treason: feebleness Within thy heart, and cruelty without; And pressures of an alien tyranny, With its dynastic reasons of larger bones And stronger sinews. But, go to! thy love Shall chant itself its own beatitudes, After its own life-working. A child's kiss, Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad: A poor man, served by thee, shall make thee rich; An old man, helped by thee, shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown I set upon thy head,—Christ witnessing With looks of prompting love—to keep thee clear Of all reproach against the sin foregone, From all the generations which succeed. Thy hand which plucked the apple, I clasp close; Thy lips which spake wrong counsel, I kiss close,—I bless thee in the name of Paradise, And by the memory of Edenic joys Forfeit and lost;—by that last cypress tree Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out; And by the blessed nightingale, which threw Its melancholy music after us;—And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells
