Women must weep :: :: University of Virginia Library

She had heard of a far-off wondrous land,
As in helpless want she lay,
And outstretch'd to the stars her trembling hand,
While she wonder'd how to pray;
But yet no one could tell her troubled heart
Where the happier world was found,
Though she ask'd the labourer from the mart,
And the traveller on his round;
And the Pharisee, with his holy leaven,
Though it starveth souls that pine;
And the baby, sweet as a flower from heaven,
With its human face divine.

But they none of them knew that blessed place,
Where the tempests cease to blow,
And the meanest features get a grace,
Which they never had below;
For she lived in a dim and savage lair,
Which in haunts forgotten stood,
And afar from the teachings fresh and fair,
From the glorious homes of good;
She was lame, and in every form a foe
Only saw with her childish dread,
And she dream'd not, in her utter woe,
That this Paradise she would tread.

As she huddled low in her hopeless grief,
A thought as an angel broke
On her hungry breast, with a strange relief,
And her higher nature woke;
For she breathed but a humble sigh to Him
Who is nearest when we pray,
To whom murk of the midnight is not dim,
And the sun not a brighter day;
For the load of her sinning monstrous felt,
As of drags that downward pull,
And she in her ignorant anguish knelt
At the Gate called Beautiful.

130

And no more in her need she lingers lame,
To be heal'd of sore distress,
She has put off the shabby garb of shame
For the robe of righteousness;
And she steps in beauty under light,
With her footsteps strong and free,
And now shrinks not out of human sight,
Though the shadows from her flee;
For she pass'd, by the way of better hopes,
Which in prayer before her went,
Through the Gate called Beautiful, which opes
To the pure and penitent.