I Stood, one Sunday morning, Before a large church door, The congregation gathered, And carriages a score,— From one out stepped a lady I oft had seen before. Her hand was on a prayer-book, And held a vinaigrette; The sign of man’s redemption Clear on the book was set,— But above the cross there glistened A golden Coronet. For her the obsequious beadle The inner door flung wide; Lightly, as up a ball-room, Her footsteps seemed to glide,— There might be good thoughts in her, For all her evil pride. But after her a woman Peeped wistfully within, On whose wan face was graven Life’s hardest discipline,— The trace of the sad trinity Of weakness, pain, and sin. The few free-seats were crowded Where she could rest and pray; With her worn garb contrasted Each side in fair array,— “God’s house holds no poor sinners,” She sighed, and crept away.
London Churches
More from Poet
-
O Gentler Censor of our age! Prime master of our ampler tongue! Whose word of wit and generous page Were never wroth except with Wrong. Fielding—without the manner’s dross, Scott—with a spirit’s larger room, What Prelate deems thy grave his loss? What Halifax erects thy tomb? But, may be, He—who...
-
From “Anima Mundi” GOD is good, And flight is destined for the callow wing, And the high appetite implies the food, And souls most reach the level whence they spring; O Life of very life! set free our powers, Hasten the travail of the yearning hours. Thou, to whom old...
-
I Stood, one Sunday morning, Before a large church door, The congregation gathered, And carriages a score,— From one out stepped a lady I oft had seen before. Her hand was on a prayer-book, And held a vinaigrette; The sign of man’s redemption Clear on the book was set,— But above the cross there...
-
They seemed to those who saw them meet The worldly friends of every day, Her smile was undisturbed and sweet, His courtesy was free and gay. But yet if one the other’s name In some unguarded moment heard, The heart you thought so calm and tame, Would struggle like a captured bird: And letters of...
-
I Wandered by the brookside, I wandered by the mill; I could not hear the brook flow,— The noisy wheel was still; There was no burr of grasshopper, No chirp of any bird, But the beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard. I sat beneath the elm-tree; I watched the long, long shade, And, as...