Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
  Outwearied in the drifting snow. 
Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks
  No longer of its hopeless woe;

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,
  Old meadows, green with grass, and trees
That shimmer through the trembling haze
  And whiten in the western breeze.

Old faces, all the friendly past
  Rises within her heart again,
And sunshine from her childhood cast
  Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,
  From man’s humanity apart,
She hears old footsteps wandering slow
  Through the lone chambers of the heart.

Outside the porch before the door,
  Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone,
She lies, no longer foul and poor,
  No longer dreary and alone.

Next morning something heavily
  Against the opening door did weigh,
And there, from sin and sorrow free,
  A woman on the threshold lay.

A smile upon the wan lips told
  That she had found a calm release,
And that, from out the want and cold,
  The song had borne her soul in peace.

For, whom the heart of man shuts out,
  Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
  With silence mid the world’s loud din;

And one of his great charities
  Is Music, and it doth not scorn
To close the lids upon the eyes
  Of the polluted and forlorn;

Far was she from her childhood’s home,
  Farther in guilt had wandered thence,
Yet thither it had bid her come
  To die in maiden innocence.

MIDNIGHT

The moon shines white and silent
  On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
  O’er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
  Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
  Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth’s dumb spirit
  Up to the longing skies: 
I seem to hear dim whispers,
  And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o’er the meadow
  In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees’ heavy shadow
  Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
  The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic,
  The very bushes swell
And take wild shapes and motions,
  As if beneath a spell;
They seem not the same lilacs
  From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence
  O’er everything doth fall,
So beautiful and quiet,
  And yet so like a pall;
As if all life were ended,
  And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight,
  There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
  Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
  Of immortality!

A PRAYER