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Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun, Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show, And overcame the world she did not shun. In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall, In the great city's restless crowd and din, Her ear was open to the Master's call, And knew the summons of His voice within. Tender as mother, beautiful as wife, Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood In modest raiment faultless as her life, The type of England's worthiest womanhood. To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed, And guilt, which only hate and fear had known, Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ. So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went She followed, finding every prison cell It opened for her sacred as a tent Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well. And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal, And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal, And woman's pity kept the bounds of law. She rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs The air of earth as with an angel's wings, And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers, The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings. United now, the Briton and the Hun, Each, in her own time, faithful unto death, Live sister souls! in name and spirit one, Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth! 1885. REQUITAL. As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew Nigh to its close, besought all men to say Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should pay A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue, And, through the silence of his weeping friends, A strange voice cried: "Thou owest me a debt," "Allah be praised!" he answered. "Even yet He gives me power to make to thee amends. O friend! I thank thee for thy timely word." So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed, For all have sinned in thought, or word, or deed, Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred. All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay Ere the night cometh, while it still is day. 1885. THE HOMESTEAD. AGAINST the wooded hills it stands, Ghost of a dead home, staring through Its broken lights on wasted lands Where old-time harvests grew. Unploughed, unsown, by sc
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