The Penitent

She knelt alone. Above her were the stars;
The awful silence of the midnight hour 
By voice of bird, or breeze, or insect's hum 
Unbroken, was around her, like a spell 
Whose solemn presence filled her soul with fear 
That linked itself to reverence.

                                             She had prayed
In solitude, where none gave God might hear 
Her earnest supplication, and had wept 
Hot tears of shame, remorse and penitence, 
Hour after hour—for on her mind, the Past, 
With its dark catalogue of sins, came back— 
With squandered hours in mad'ning revel passed— 
With golden opportunities misused— 
With tastes perverted—intellectual gifts 
Wasted in very wantonness—with hopes
Darkened while yet they shone, and joys that turned 
To sorrow in the grasp—with woes and shames 
Born of transgression—all, and more than these, 
Thronged back upon her mind, in that still hour 
When Night had hushed the voices of the Day,—
And her soul shuddered at the retrospect!

     Once she was innocent-no thought of guile,
No sinful wish, no perilous desire 
Dwelt in her heart, the home of happiness.
Companion of the summer birds, her song, 
As wild as theirs, and scarce less musical, 
Rung through the garden aisles or forest-walks 
With a continual gladness — for the joy 
Of a young spirit, filled with whitest thoughts 
And instinct with a love that freely flowed 
Forth for all gentle natures, might not be 
By forms or fashion curbed.

                                        She was the light
That, to the father's and the mother's eye, 
Made home a radiant spot, how like to Heaven,
But for the sad mutations that the heart 
Sees with a prophet glance, before they come!

     Loving and loved—joyous and breathing joy,
Gentle and good and gifted—but, alas!
Too perilously beautiful — she grew
To perfect girlhood in her quiet home, 
Where, gliding on serenely, her glad life 
Chimed ever to the music of glad thoughts !

     Her sixteenth summer o'er her cheek had thrown
Ite delicate carnation, and bestowed 
Upon her form new graces, and her eye 
Filled with a tender and voluptuous light, 
When, as a guest unto her father's house, 
Came one of manliest bearing. His deep voice 
Was silver-musical, and from his lips 
Words melted with a fervid eloquence 
That won, resistless, on the listener's heart.
Much had he seen of men, and hoarded much 
Of wisdom found in books. Through foreign climes
He had been long a journeyer—had trod
The everlasting snows that crown the Alps—
Talked with the Switzer in his mountain-home—
And on the bosom of the glorious Rhine, 
Rocked in his light caique, for many a day 
Heard the wild legends of the German-land—
Had passed o'er sunny Italy, and stood 
Amid the ruins of " Eternal Rome"— 
Gazed on the " glorious City of the Sea," 
And in imagination heard again
The song of Tasso; on her " Bridge of Sighs" 
Lingered in melancholy mood, or passed 
Amidst her prisons and her palaces,
While thronged the spectres of her buried Great
Around him, as his sluggish gondola
Parted the turbid waters in her streets—
Ploughed the blue Ægean, and along its shores 
Wandered, a pensive pilgrim, filled with dreams 
Of the great olden time when Greece was free—
Stood in the shadow of the Pyramids,— 
Majestic monuments of kingly dust— 
Drank in the gales of holy Palestine,—
And mused along the Sea of Galilee—
Bearing from every clime its richest lore,
And adding still new treasures to the wealth
His busy mind had gathered.

                                        Rich he was
In varied knowledge, and too well he knew
To frame beguiling words, and take the soul
Captive at will. Alas! his heart was black
With cherished sin—the splendors of his mind
But dazzled to defile.

                                        That hapless girl
Drank the bewildering music of his voice, 
As day by day, with matchless eloquence, 
His vague philosophy, corrupt as vague, 
He cunningly unfolded to her view—
Poisoning her mind with evil thoughts—her soul
Staining with foul desires, till—wo for her!—
The tempter triumphed and the victim fell!

     Awaked at length from the bewildering dream
That had enthralled her senses, shuddering, 
She saw the ruin of her hopes, and shrunk, 
Blasted and blighted, overwhelmed with shame, 
And anguish-stricken, from the gaze of men.
He who had wrought, with fiendish guile, her fall— 
With fiendish cruelty that knew no ruth, 
eoft her, in hope and heart and name a wreck, 
To seek new victims and to work new wo!
     Just God! where sleep thy thunders, that the wretch, 
Who mars the Eden of a sinless heart, 
Driving away the angel Innocence
That room be made for fiends, escapes unscathed?
     By friends forsaken, who shall comfort thee,
Thou sorrowing child of Sin! Room might be found 
Still in a father's mother's, heart—but wo!
Father and mother, by the daughter's shame 
Heart-broken, sleep in death! Yet there is ONE 
Whose love restores the wandering, and forgives 
The sorrowing spirit that returns to Him.

     Beautiful, erring girl! not vainly hath 
Thy supplication, voiced in agony,
Gone upward to the FATHER! He whose love 
Brought Him in saddest fellowship with grief— 
Who to Samaria's guilty daughter gave 
The waters of Eternal Life, and blest 
The penitent Magdalene, as o'er his feet 
She poured hot tears, and with her golden hair 
Dried them again,—whose eye is quick to note 
The first relentings of the indurate heart, 
The starting of the penitential tear—
Who bids the weary, burdened with their sin, 
Come and partake of rest, and know that peace 
Earth's treasures cannot purchase, nor earth's hate, 
Nor hell's intenser malice, wrest away—
Hath marked thy tears, 'mid solitude and night 
Poured freely-all thy bitter groaning heard —
Thine earnest cries for pardon—known thy thirst 
Intense for purity and righteousness—
And, in the fulness of His pardoning grace, 
Hath blotted out thy sins and healed thy soul 
With free forgiveness !

                                   Oh, the blessed seal
Of that forgiveness was upon thy heart
As its last throb was given—and a smile
Parted thy pallid lips and lighted up
Thy face with transient splendor, as if heaven 
Were opened to thy view, with all its sights 
Of ravishing sweetness —then the shades of death 
Came over thy dimmed eye, whose drooping lid
Shut out the earth forever!

                                        Pharisee!
Curl not thy lip in scorn, as by her grave 
Thou passest to the church—for angels guard
Her sleeping dust,—and know that heaven hath joys 
For the sad Penitent, from paths of sin 
Turned back to holiness, that formal prayers, 
Breathed by the soul self-justified, and rites 
Duly observed, may never hope to win!