Part 4 (1/2)

None remember him: he lies In earth of some strange-sounding place, Nameless beneath the nameless skies, The wind his only chant, the rain The only tears upon his face; Far and forgotten utterly By living man. Yet such as he Have made it possible and sure For other lives to have, to be; For men to sleep content, secure.

Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes Because his heart beats not again: His rotting, fruitless body lies That sons may grow from other men.

He gave, as Christ, the life he had-- The only life desired or known; The great, sad sacrifice was made For strangers; this forgotten dead Went out into the night alone.

There was his body broken for you, There was his blood divinely shed That in the earth lie lost and dim.

Eat, drink, and often as you do, For whom he died, remember him.

MADALA GOES BY THE ORPHANAGE.

Unaware of its terror, And but half aware Of the world's beauty near her-- Of sunlight on the stones, And trembling birds in the square, Lightly went Madala-- A rose blown suddenly From Spring's gay mouth; part of the Spring was she.

Warmed to her delicate bones, Cool in its linen her skin, Her hair up-combed and curled, Lightly she flowered on the sin And pain of the Spring-struck world.

Down the street went crazy men, The winter misery of their blood Budding in new pain While beggars whined beside her, While the streets' daughters eyed her,-- Poor flowers that kept midsummer With desperate bloom, and thrust Stale rose at each newcomer, And crime and hunger and l.u.s.t Raged in the noisy dust.

Lightly went Madala, Unshaken still of that spell, Coral beads and jade to buy, While her thoughts roamed easily-- Thoughts like bees in lavender,-- Thoughts gay and fragile as a robin's sh.e.l.l.

Till suddenly she had come To grim age-stubborned wall Behind whose mask of bars Starts up in shame the Foundlings' Hospital.*

At the gates to watch her pa.s.s A caged thing eyed her dumb, Most mercifully unaware Of its own hurt, but Madala Stopped short of Spring that day.

The air grew pinched and wan, A hand came over the sun, Birds huddled, stones went grey.

Her lace and linen white Seemed but her body's sin, Her flesh unscarred and bright Burnt like a leper's skin.

Her mouth was stale with bread Flung her by strangers, she was fed, Housed, fathered by the State, and she had grown A thing belonging to, and loved by, none.

Though the shut mouth said no word, From the caged thing she heard, ”Who has wronged me, that this Spring ”Gives me nothing and you everything, ”Who alike were made, ”Who beckon the same dreams?

”You buy coral and jade, ”I sew long hungry seams ”To pay for charity...”

Then Madala's heart, afraid, Cried the first selfish cry: ”Is it my fault? Can I ”Help what the world has done?

”Can the flower in the shade ”Blame the flower in the sun?”

Then quick the caged thing said, As if to ask pardon that its words had made Madala's spring so spoiled for her that day: ”But there's a way, a way!

”If flowers would share their Spring ”There'd be suns.h.i.+ne enough for all the flowers.

”Such suns.h.i.+ne you could bring, ”Such joy that swings and flies ”With posies your hours through, ”So just beyond my hours.

”If I could walk with you-- ”Not in pitiful two by two ”Flayed by free children's eyes, ”Your sister for an hour to be, ”It would double joy and woo ”Spring back to you, and more than Spring to me.”

Then something quaked in Madala, Quaked with magic, quaked with awe.

Love-quickening, she became a part Of this caged thing, she was aware Of strange lips tugging at her heart.

So clear the way was! Tenderer Grew her eyes, and as they grew, Back to the flowers rushed the dew, The earth filled out with the sun, The cold birds in the square Unbundled and preened upon Their twigs in the softening air; The cold wind dwindled and dropped, And love and the world were one.

Nearer drew Madala, At the dumb thing she smiled, And Spring that a child had stopped Came back from the eyes of a child.

* Guilford Street, London, the gates of which face the street.

OBSESSION.

I will not have roses in my room again, Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain With all the trouble of things that I should know.

I will be as other women--come and go Careless and free, my own self sure and sane, As I was once ... then suddenly you were there With your old power ... roses were everywhere And I was listening to Michael Angelo.