A Sculptor and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Cross her hands upon her breast:
Hands she never rais'd for pray'r
In her toil; but, in her rest,
Let them lie, cross-folden fair
As they had won prayer's reward:
Poor dead hands all seam'd and hard.

What was she who lieth there,
Little past her early youth;
Eyes coin-shut that else would stare,
Bandage closing up the mouth;
No one having car'd to dress
Death away from ghastliness?

Young? Nay, she was dull and old,
Thinking but of market-price,
Just its copper, not its gold;
With no glory in her eyes.
At the rising of the sun
Wishing weary day-time done.

105

Just a mere bald life was hers,
Missing our deep questioning,
What the outer universe
To the inner world may bring?
Stagnant soul that, all without
Faith or hope, could know no doubt.

Missing Love, and so, with it,
Missing all of Love that grew:
Missing too the exquisite
Morn-flusht skies and early dew.
Ah, of Love and Beauty reft,
What worth having is there left?

Silence kept without the pain
Speech denied brings bitterly:
Silence kept without the gain
Of a larger speech thereby:
Silence always:—was there naught
She could tell us of her thought?

Did God hold her just as dear
(Hard, if so, to realize)
As our saint whose soul shone clear
Through her pure, pathetic eyes;
Whom we gaz'd on dead as though
Love itself lay still and low?

106

In the framing of our chart,
For the unexplored land
We must leave an unfill'd part
Till, some day, we understand
All the good things life may yield
In the country new-reveal'd.

But we fancy streams and trees,
Rock and moss and vale and hill;
Till the new land clad in these
Seems not unfamiliar still.
There must be, whene'er we come,
Something in it like our home.

Oh, the home we love must be
That strong Heart which loveth best:
In that other country He
Still is Home, so let it rest.
Cross her hands and leave her so,
Only He who loves can know.

Ah, and if she miss'd indeed
Blessings which the life receives
In the sowing of the seed,
In the binding of the sheaves,
Greater lessons God can teach
In some other kind of speech.

107

When her life shall take the grace
Of His life that naught can dim,
And the light is on her face,
Caught from looking up at Him,
Shall we meet as equals then?
Sister, child of His, Amen.