rth,
The sorrowfulest thing on earth.

Time runs apace: the fleeting years
Left but her misery and her tears.

The very brothel-door was barred
Against a wretch so crook'd and marred.

She knocked at every gate in vain,
The cast-out harlot black with stain--

At all save one,--when this she tried,--
'T was His, the High Priest crucified.

He heard her tears, flung wide His door
And said, "Come in, and sin no more."

THE REQUIREMENT

To the Steward of his vineyard spake the Lord,
When he handed him over His Keys and Sword:
"See that you harken unto my word:

"There be three chief things that I love," quoth He,
"That bear a sweet savor up to me:
They be Justice, Mercy and Purity."

Justice was sold at a thief's behest;
Purity went for a harlot's jest,
And Mercy was slain with a sword in her breast.

THE LISTENER

A sparrow sang on a weed,
Sprung from an upturned sod,
And no one gave him heed
Or heard the song, save God.

CONTRADICTION

A bishop preached Sunday on Dives forsaken:
How he was cast out and Lazarus taken;
The very next day he rejoiced he was able
To dine that evening at Dives' table.
While wretched Lazarus, sick and poor,
Was called an impostor and turned from the door.

THE QUESTION

Why may I not step from this empty room,
Where heavy round me hangs the curtained gloom,
And passing through a little darkness there,
Even as one climbs to bed an unlit stair,
Find that I know is but one step above,
And that I hunger for: my Life: my Love?

'T is but a curtain doth our souls divide,
A veil my eager hand might tear aside--
One step to take, one thrill, one throb, one bound,
And I have gained my Heaven, the Lost have found--
Have solved the riddle rare, the secret dread:
The vast, unfathomable secret of the Dead.

It seems but now that as I yearning stand,
I might put forth my hand and touch her hand;
That I might lift my longing eyes and trace
But for the darkness there the gracious face;
That could I hush the grosser sounds, my ear
The charmed music of her voice might hear.

She may not come to me, Alas! I know,
Else had she surely come, long, long ago.
The Conqueror Death, who save One conquers all,
Had never power to hold that soul in thrall;
No narrowest prison-house; no piled up stone
Had held her heart a captive from my own.

No