THE WIDOW ON WINDERMERE SIDE
I HOW beautiful when up a lofty height Honour ascends among the humblest poor, And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door Of One, a Widow, left beneath a weight Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune’s spite She wasted no complaint, but strove to make A just repayment, both for conscience-sake And that herself and hers should stand upright In the world’s eye. Her work when daylight failed Paused not, and through the depth of night she kept Such earnest vigils, that belief prevailed With some, the noble Creature never slept; But, one by one, the hand of death assailed Her children from her inmost heart bewept. II The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow, Till a winter’s noonday placed her buried Son Before her eyes, last child of many gone– His raiment of angelic white, and lo! His very feet bright as the dazzling snow Which they are touching; yea far brighter, even As that which comes, or seems to come, from heaven, Surpasses aught these elements can show. Much she rejoiced, trusting that from that hour Whate’er befell she could not grieve or pine; But the Transfigured, in and out of season, Appeared, and spiritual presence gained a power Over material forms that mastered reason. Oh, gracious Heaven, in pity make her thine! III But why that prayer? as if to her could come No good but by the way that leads to bliss Through Death,–so judging we should judge amiss. Since reason failed want is her threatened doom, Yet frequent transports mitigate the gloom: Nor of those maniacs is she one that kiss The air or laugh upon a precipice; No, passing through strange sufferings toward the tomb She smiles as if a martyr’s crown were won: Oft, when light breaks through clouds or waving trees, With outspread arms and fallen upon her knees The Mother hails in her descending Son An Angel, and in earthly ecstasies Her own angelic glory seems begun. 1842.