The Sinner's Friend

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, called 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.