High souls exult to claim, on earth,
Their kindred with the high and great–
The spirits of diviner birth
Who round us, like the viewless air
Softly breathing everywhere,
Upon our spirits wait.
And men are stronger for the thought
That every earnest breath they draw
Is vital with an effluence brought
From loftier realms, by angel wings
Wafting light from luminous springs
That mortals never saw.
Ambition, in its low disguise
Of glittering wealth and loveless power,
Dazzles a million eager eyes
Of men who crowd to kiss the hem
Of her rank robes flouting them –
Poor parasites of an hour!
Dead Dives in his gulf of woe
Leaves heirs enough to all his gold;
A king’s blood never runs so low
In helot veins but that a frown
Shows the shadow of a crown
To slaves of baser mould.
But needs there heavenller souls to feel
Their brotherhood with souls debased,
To clasp the hands of them who reel
With their own lusts inebriate,
Scarred by inward scorn and hate,
By every sin defaced.
Now tremulous with doubled pangs
Of sated sense and sateless will;
Now torn by all the venomed fangs
Of silent shame and loud remorse,
Hurrying down their headlong course
In fellowship of ill.
There are the worms who gnaw the flower
And greenness of the tree of life;
Or, smitten by a sudden shower,
Creep, wounded, in the paths of men,
Stinging feet that wound again,
And torn by mutual strife.
Yet are they brothers of us all,
The husk-fed prodigals of God,
Whose love is round them in their fall,
And prompt to welcome their return
When their torn hearts homeward yearn
All bleeding from the rod.
Yet hidden in those verminous rings
A shapeless crush, coiled closely away,
Are beautiful, immortal wings–
Perhaps too delicately fair
For the earth’s polluted air,
Waiting a sunnier day.
So have we seen, chilled back in frost,
The opening vans of loving bards,
Their morning song in wallings lost,
Their plumed aspirations torn,
Drooping over hearts forlorn,
For lack of stubborn shards.
Divinest of the souls divine
That, helpful, o’er the humblest bend,
With love and truth for oil and wine —
Is he who lifts the fallen soul,
And whose the purest aureole
Crowns him The Sinner’s Friend.
The Sinner's Friend