 | Poems and Romances |  |
271
LA CENCI.
Most pitiful of maidens,—after one,Who bore a Son more sorrowful than she,
And yielded Him to die on Calvary,
To heal whatever thou hast borne and done—
Ere thy short race of shame and pain be run,
Out of thy store of costly agony
We pray thee dash our dull prosperity,
That we through thee may win what thou hast won,—
Meek, mute contempt, which trembles on thy tongue,
For earth, and hope which lights thy countenance;
Whose holy heart of maidenhood was wrung
By slimy thrall of nameless sufferance,
Till it was like a blithe deliverance
To come to the clean pain of dying young.
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