Classic Poem

There by the wayside, so she ever stood,
Shadowed and small, unwitting of the sky,
Nought but a little lorn beatitude
To pray to and pass by.

So young she was, not all the grievous rain
That wept to her had ever taught her tears;
Yet no May morning kindled blue again
Her wide eyes, dulled with years.

So cold she was with vigil — the one care
To be a steadfast saint, she did not know
Vines called to her; her hands held unaware
The mocking gift of snow.

Life was not life to her: she dimly saw
Dim flocks gone by, and herdsmen weary-dull,
And loitering children, to whose brimming awe
She seemed all-beautiful.

Time was not time to her: she heard, content,
The hour, like one more prayer-bead, slipped along
A rosary of vigil never spent,
Matins and even-song.

Was it because she knew not how to stir
An empty hand, and beckon gladness come, —
The winged secret spread its wings to her
And took her heart for home?

For close as silence, rounded as a song,
Built sure within the quiet of her breast, —
Shy sanctuary, all the year has clung
A brown deserted nest.

Surely she woke to find the world at spring,
And all her sainthood quickened with the rime;
Surely there came to her on rain-soft wing,
Love, for a summer-time.

Query, and heart-beat, and the eager stress
Of sunward wings made wise her solitude;
Love, and the warm content of littleness
With her maid-motherhood.

Since when she stands as patiently adream
With empty hands outheld, that make no stir, —
All in a long last-year: it well may seem
Time is not time to her.

And yet she knows the plea of vines that call,
The weariness of folk that pass, with eyes
Outlooking on the burden of them all,
Awakened, warm, and wise.

O wind of summer, blow her songs of thine;
O winds of winter, look ye spare alone
One nest, not now too lordly for a shrine,
— Since all the birds are flown.