University of Virginia Library

Gathered upon the beach one day I saw
A group of preachers.—They had made a square
With four green common benches, and they stood
Within the square—just ordinary men,
Shopkeepers, tradesmen, grocers, what you will.
They stood within their green-bench-guarded square,
With the wide grey indifferent sea behind
And preached their rendering of the word of God.
And with them stood some stumpy servant-maids,
Sallow, ill-dressed, and awkward; and they sang
With help of these their hardly sweet-toned hymns.
And then along the beach there came a form
Slender and graceful, robed in quiet black,
A woman,—one it may be of the band
Whom some call “gay,” and some “unfortunate.”
She listened to the hymn, and soon received
A hymn-book from a stumpy servant-maid,
Red-cheeked, red-handed, and red-ribboned too.
She stood there, leaning on the green top-bar
Of one of the four benches, just outside
The hollow angel-guarded preachers' square.
—A myriad thoughts flew through me as I watched.
“Lo! here is Venus, just outside the heaven
Of these the Galilean folk,” I thought;
“And yet her grace of mien and attitude
Hath surely something in itself of heaven.”
She leaned against the bench, and every limb
Took of itself the right most fitting pose;
She seemed a sudden message sent from Greece,
And round her the weird gospel-music rang,
And that top-bar of the dividing bench
On which she leant seemed like God's judgment-bar,
Or like a gulf between the righteous fixed
And stately Venus on the other side,
And all the ages' strife seemed symbolized
By those gaunt preachers safe within the square,
They and their women-followers, and the slight
Poor fair sad woman in her black silk dress
And white straw hat with flowers of lavender
Who leant with such unconscious grace of form
Against the bench,—against it, but outside.

“And yet,” I thought, “is God within that square,
Along with those gaunt-eyed repulsive men
And sallow stumpy women, or is he
Perhaps outside the bench-square sometimes too,—
Just as the grey-waved calm far-stretching waste
Of water yonder hath but little heed
Of these four benches? is not God outside
As well as inside—with his grey-waved sea
And this grey-eyed poor woman?
Surely, yes!”