Poems (White)/The Blessed

by Jeannie Copes White

THE BLESSED

Gentle, so gentle, and sweet as a rose,
Pair as a lily that any wind blows,
Bright as a buttercup, with yellow hair,
Fresh as a daisy anywhere,
With eyes speaking truth as the blue above,
Heart beating true to every love.
She stepped from her home to the curb below,
To enter her limousine so.
Just as the chauffeur swung open the door
A woman came up, so miserably poor.
She paused to listen to her tale of woe,
Seemed so touched her sufferings to know;
Then gentle pressed within stretched, 'pealing palms
Her silver used for giving alms.
"God bless you! " rose from parched lips,
"I'll pray for you this night till my tongue rips.
Till weakened, rough, for power to say
All that I wish for your happy young day."
Thus as the creature slid trembling along,
I heard the tenor of her song:
"An angel she is of realms of bright light.
'Tis fair she is to gladden one's sight.
I know the sweet Mary or Jesus her Son
Wore no fairer faces than this one."

A week or two after I passed the place,
There a funeral was taking place.
I stopped to watch the sad and solemn sight,
A bier it was of purest white,
Long and narrow, and all covered above
With garlands placed by hands of love.

Beside me standing with bowed head,
The woman who begged for her daily bread.
"She died of fever, they all say,—
The fever she caught from me on that day.
I hope I may meet her sweet face,
For such as she is not an earthly race.
She was taken, and I am here
To watch them carry out her sweet young bier,—
She with all that life held dear,
I who am full of strife and bitter fear.
Yet they say that God knows the best.
She's come unto her own, the chosen blest."