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did it mean? What did they want with me? What was the matter with the evening now That it was just as bound to make me glad As morning and the live-long day had been? Me, who had quite forgot what gladness was, Who had no right to anything but toil, And food and sleep for strength to toil again, And that fierce frightened anguish of my love For the poor little spirit I had wronged With life that was no life. What had befallen Since yesterday? No need to stop and ask! Back there in the dark places of my mind Where I had thrust it, fearing to believe An unbelievable mercy, shone the news Told by the village neighbors coming home Last night from the great city, of a man Arisen, like the first evangelists, With power to heal the bodies of the sick, In testimony of his master Christ, Who heals the soul when it is sick with sin. Could such a thing be true in these hard days? Was help still sent in such a way as that? No, no! I did not dare to think of it, Feeling what weakness and despair would come After the crazy hope broke under me. I turned and started homeward, faster now, But never fast enough to leave behind The voices and the troubled happiness That still kept mounting, mounting like a sea, And singing far-off like a rush of wings. Far down the road a yellow spot of light Shone from my cottage window, rayless yet, Where the last sunset crimson caught the panes. Alice had lit the lamp before she went; Her day of pity and unmirthful play Was over, and her young heart free to live Until to-morrow brought her nursing-task Again, and made her feel how dark and still That life could be to others which to her Was full of dreams that beckoned, reaching hands, And thrilling invitations young girls hear. My boy was sleeping, little mind and frame More tired just lying there awake two hours Than with a whole day's romp he should have been. He would not know his mother had come home; But after supper I would sit awhile Beside his bed, and let my heart have time For that worst love that stabs and breaks and kills. This I thought over to myself by rote And habit, but I could not feel my thoughts; For still that dim unmeaning happiness Kept mounting, mounting round me like a sea, And singing inward like a wind of
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