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Madeline

With other poems and parables: By Thomas Gordon Hake

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 XXXVIII. 
 XXXIX. 
XXXIX. ON THE SAINT.
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241

XXXIX. ON THE SAINT.

Saint, now in paths of light,
Let drop awhile thy newly grafted wings,
And, in the dead of night,
Devote a leisure hour to earthly things;
Bear witness, once, how ill thy fellows thrive
In haunts thou didst not visit when alive.
Champions to hunger trained, these scenes engage;
The boards unlicensed, unapproved the play:
One look of sorrow on the blackened stage
Would break upon it like the invading day,
Would show to thee how low is laid the plot,
And from what depths is tragedy begot!
Invest with memory the lyric verse
Whose accents stun the air;
The menace and the look rehearse;
And laugh the loud despair!
Fail not the thought and gesture to acquire,
Then light up heaven itself with tragic fire!

242

Yes, on thy way to bliss,
Mimic these graceless acts before the blessed:
Repeat the howl of hunger, and the hiss;
Perform a benefit for the distressed!
Then shall kind eyes be turned to earth below,
And, on the wretched, looks like thine bestow.

EPODE.

Is pity all in all; whose then the hand
That speeds its almoners by sea and land?