What a Wretched Woman Said to Me

by Alice Cary

WHAT A WRETCHED WOMAN SAID TO ME

All the broad East was laced with tender rings
  Of widening light; the Daybreak shone afar;
Deep in the hollow, 'twixt her fiery wings,
  Fluttered the morning star.

A cloud, that through the time of darkness went
  With wanton winds, now, heavy-hearted, came
And fell upon the sunshine, penitent,
  And burning up with shame.

The grass was wet with dew; the sheep-fields lay
  Lapping together far as eye could see;
And the great harvest hung the golden way
  Of Nature's charity.

My house was full of comfort; I was propped
  With life's delights, all sweet as they could be,
When at my door a wretched woman stopped,
  And, weeping, said to me,--

"Its rose-root in youth's seasonable hours
  Love in thy bosom set, so blest wert thou;
Hence all the pretty little red-mouthed flowers
  That climb and kiss thee now!

"I loved, but I must stifle Nature's cries
  With old dry blood, else perish, I was told;
Hence the young light shrunk up within my eyes,
  And left them blank and bold.

"I take my deeds, all, bad as they have been,--
  The way was dark, the awful pitfall bare;--
In my weak hands, up through the fires of sin,
  I hold them for my prayer."

"The thick, tough husk of evil grows about
  Each soul that lives," I mused, "but doth it kill?
When the tree rots, the imprisoned wedge falls out,
  Rusted, but iron still.

"Shall He who to the daisy has access,
  Reaching it down its little lamp of dew
To light it up through earth, do any less,
  Last and best work, for you?"