Narrative Poems, part 7, Bay of Seven Islands | Page 4

From barn and woodpile the goodman came;
The goodwife quitted
her quilting frame,
With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,

The grandam followed to see the show.

Once more the torturing whip was swung,
Once more keen lashes the
bare flesh stung.
"Oh, spare! they are bleeding!"' a little maid cried,

And covered her face the sight to hide.
A murmur ran round the crowd: "Good folks,"
Quoth the constable,
busy counting the strokes,
"No pity to wretches like these is due,

They have beaten the gospel black and blue!"
Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,
With her wooden noggin of
milk drew near.
"Drink, poor hearts!" a rude hand smote
Her
draught away from a parching throat.
"Take heed," one whispered, "they'll take your cow
For fines, as they
took your horse and plough,
And the bed from under you." "Even so,"

She said; "they are cruel as death, I know."
Then on they passed, in the waning day,
Through Seabrook woods, a
weariful way;
By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,
And
glimpses of blue sea here and there.
By the meeting-house in Salisbury town,
The sufferers stood, in the
red sundown,
Bare for the lash! O pitying Night,
Drop swift thy
curtain and hide the sight.
With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip
The Salisbury constable
dropped his whip.
"This warrant means murder foul and red;

Cursed is he who serves it," he said.
"Show me the order, and meanwhile strike
A blow at your peril!" said
Justice Pike.
Of all the rulers the land possessed,
Wisest and boldest
was he and best.
He scoffed at witchcraft; the priest he met
As man meets man; his
feet he set
Beyond his dark age, standing upright,
Soul-free, with
his face to the morning light.

He read the warrant: "These convey
From our precincts; at every
town on the way
Give each ten lashes." "God judge the brute!
I
tread his order under my foot!
"Cut loose these poor ones and let them go;
Come what will of it, all
men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,

For whipping women in Salisbury town!"
The hearts of the villagers, half released
From creed of terror and rule
of priest,
By a primal instinct owned the right
Of human pity in
law's despite.
For ruth and chivalry only slept,
His Saxon manhood the yeoman
kept;
Quicker or slower, the same blood ran
In the Cavalier and the
Puritan.
The Quakers sank on their knees in praise
And thanks. A last, low
sunset blaze
Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed
A golden
glory on each bowed head.
The tale is one of an evil time,
When souls were fettered and thought
was crime,
And heresy's whisper above its breath
Meant shameful
scourging and bonds and death!
What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,
Even woman rebuked and
prophesied,
And soft words rarely answered back
The grim
persuasion of whip and rack.
If her cry from the whipping-post and jail
Pierced sharp as the
Kenite's driven nail,
O woman, at ease in these happier days,

Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!
How much thy beautiful life may owe
To her faith and courage thou
canst not know,
Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat
She
smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.
1883.

SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST.
A TALE for Roman guides to tell
To careless, sight-worn travellers
still,
Who pause beside the narrow cell
Of Gregory on the Caelian
Hill.
One day before the monk's door came
A beggar, stretching empty
palms,
Fainting and fast-sick, in the name
Of the Most Holy asking
alms.
And the monk answered, "All I have
In this poor cell of mine I give,

The silver cup my mother gave;
In Christ's name take thou it, and
live."
Years passed; and, called at last to bear
The pastoral crook and keys
of Rome,
The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair,
Sat the crowned
lord of Christendom.
"Prepare a feast," Saint Gregory cried,
"And let twelve beggars sit
thereat."
The beggars came, and one beside,
An unknown stranger,
with them sat.
"I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake,
"O stranger; but if need be thine,

I bid thee welcome, for the sake
Of Him who is thy Lord and
mine."
A grave, calm face the stranger raised,
Like His who on Gennesaret
trod,
Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed,
Whose form was as the
Son of God.
"Know'st thou," he said, "thy gift of old?"
And in the hand he lifted
up
The Pontiff marvelled to behold
Once more his mother's silver
cup.
"Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom
Sweetly among the
flowers of heaven.
I am The Wonderful, through whom
Whate'er

thou askest shall be given."
He spake and vanished. Gregory fell
With his twelve guests in mute
accord
Prone on their faces, knowing well
Their eyes of flesh had
seen the Lord.
The old-time legend is not vain;
Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul,

Telling it o'er and o'er again
On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall.
Still wheresoever pity shares
Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin,

And love the beggar's feast prepares,
The uninvited Guest comes in.
Unheard, because our ears are dull,
Unseen, because our eyes are dim,

He walks our earth, The Wonderful,
And all good deeds