the light that for them was as darkness, and knew
not thee.
But the blood of the martyrs whose mission was witness for God,
they said,
Might raise to redemption the souls that were here, in the sun's
sight, dead.
And the child rose up in the night, when the stars were as friends
that smiled,
And sought her brother, and wakened the younger and tenderer child.
From the heaven of a child's glad sleep to the heaven of the sight
of her eyes
He woke, and brightened and hearkened, and kindled as stars that
rise.
And forth they fared together to die for the stranger's sake,
For the souls of the slayers that should slay them, and turn from
their sins, and wake.
And the light of the love that lit them awhile on a brief blind
quest
Shines yet on the tear-lit smile that salutes them, belated and
blest.

And the girl, full-grown to the stature of godhead in womanhood,
spake
The word that sweetens and lightens her creed for her great love's
sake.
From the godlike heart of Theresa the prayer above all prayers
heard,
The cry as of God made woman, a sweet blind wonderful word,
Sprang sudden as flame, and kindled the darkness of faith with
love,
And the hollow of hell from beneath shone, quickened of heaven from
above.
Yea, hell at her word grew heaven, as she prayed that if God
thought well
She there might stand in the gateway, that none might pass into
hell.
Not Hermes, guardian and guide, God, herald, and comforter, shed
Such lustre of hope from the life of his light on the night of the
dead.
Not Pallas, wiser and mightier in mercy than Rome's God shone,
Wore ever such raiment of love as the soul of a saint put on.
So blooms as a flower of the darkness a star of the midnight born,
Of the midnight's womb and the blackness of darkness, and flames
like morn.
Nor yet may the dawn extinguish or hide it, when churches and
creeds
Are withered and blasted with sunlight as poisonous and blossomless
weeds.
So springs and strives through the soil that the legions of
darkness have trod,
From the root that is man, from the soul in the body, the flower
that is