thee;
A daisy may be nearer God than he--
Than I.

II

What crime was hers, that she lies hushed,
Dead with the price, while you and I,
With lifted head, walk sinless by?
Pause then,--but spare
That easy tear; the tale I'll bare.
Mid stones that pushed
Her eager life back, grudged her room
For root without one bloom,
There strangely blushed
Some little dreams,--not gloriously fine
As yours and mine,
But vague, and veiled, and few;
She hardly knew their names, but felt the stir
That filled her heart with whispers as they grew,
And knew that life lay in them, life for her.
When Hunger came she turned her breast
And let him feed. Cold followed, gripped
Her veins and sipped
The thin blood thinner; both she pressed
As close as lovers, lest
A darker fiend might creep within
Her empty arms; lest she might buy,
With one swift hour of sin,
A poisoned ease from tooth of need,--
A little food, a little fire, and die;
And she had dreams to shelter, little dreams to feed.
Oh, unresisting dumb!
In wide earth's harvest-gold
She asked no share,
If in the dust a crumb
Might be for her;
If she might round her aching body fold
One hour's undriven sleep,--
But one hour more,
Safe from the Want that pried
Her thin and shaken door,--
That hour the shivering dawn denied
With scream that cut life through,
And made her wretched pillow seem a rose
Her clinging cheek would keep
In soft, ungoaded death! And ah, suppose
A few more pence the day
Were richly hers, to make youth gay
With ribbon or a flower ere it flew!
(So soon toil's wrinkles come!)
Then would she make her dreams a fairer home;
Then would her heart be stronger where they grew;
Then would she walk more bravely knowing them;
Then would her eyes be brighter showing them.
Yet did they whisper, yet they stirred
Uptremblingly, till half their breath
Was music, half was song;
Told of free hours and a wild heath
Where wind and sun ran dappling; of a bird
Bough-throned, whose trill
Turned all the forest leaves to wings,--
His singing young;
Of a moon-goldened hill
Where blossoms danced; of sweeter, holier things;
A sea-beach grey,
Where waves were drowned twilight, and the day
Hung in a pause that softly, sud