The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite :: :: University of Virginia Library

The horse is warm in his stall,
Warm in his but lies the thrall;
A measured music, grand and dim,
Heard from afar, is the angels' hymn.
Turn horse in stall and churl on bed;
Angels of Issa, bend the head:
Let all waif-children be comforted!

These things in a vision saw I,
But they rest with me till I die;
And ever the pity grows in my heart
For all earth's stray'd ones, her counterpart.

Now, the child was striving where great downs rose,
And about those downs did the steep hills close;
Peak above peak, with a frozen crown,
Each mountain over the hills look'd down.

The sky was snow, and within it all
Was a sense of night that could not fall;
While the wind, which seem'd to carry a cross,
Scream'd the eternal sense of loss:
Yet through that wailing world of grey
The white waif follow'd her woful way.

The child was wretched, the child was bare,
And, for greater horror, was lonely there;
No single face in that stricken zone
Had bent in kindness to meet her own;
None offer'd the grasp of a helping hand,
For no man dwelt in the dreadful land;
And the tender heart of a woman had not
Sweeten'd or lighten'd her orphan lot.
It seem'd that since the beginning of things
Such feet came less than an angel's wings,
And the kind, sweet angels, it is known,
Only encircle a great white throne,
Or if below them they turn their faces,
'Tis not to gaze on accursèd places.

She went on trying some goal to reach,
As a lost child strives who has none to teach;
But she knew not whence she had come, nor whither
Tended the path which had brought her thither,
While fear—which is worse than a frozen track
Through an ice-world stretching, at front and back—
Forbade the pulses of thought to stir
And wither'd the poor little heart of her:
One thing only, by waste and hill
Something drove her to hasten still,
Lest cross more dreadful and greater woes,
In that world's unrest, should befall repose.

Over the waste, through the mist so wan,
The tortuous path went on and on—

What purpose serving exceeded wit:
Say, is there light at the end of it?
And after all, in the scheme of things,
Is the child protected by unseen wings?
Or is this only a show which seems?—
Shall the waif wake up from uneasy dreams
On a bed of down, where bright rays are falling,
To hear the voice of her mother calling,
Saying: “Sweet maid, it is late, so late,
And out in the garden your sisters wait
In the morning shine, while the bells begin
To usher my dear one's birthday in?”

The grey clouds gather from rim to lift
And the child enters a great snow-drift;
The sharp flakes stifle her wailing cry,
The peaks are lost in a blank of sky.
If God is behind this doom and wrath,
She will haply issue on smoother path,
But I know not, granting all crowns of bliss,
For what good end it is ruled like this:

While the horse is warm in his stall,
And warm in his hut lies the thrall;
And a high chant filling the heavens says thus:—
“But Thou, O Lord, have mercy on us!”
Angels of Issa, bow the head,
Till all waif-children are comforted.