Alas! thy forehead never knew The kiss that happier children claim, Nor glistened with baptismal dew.

Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,

Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow

By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

-"Avis!"

With Saxon eye and cheek,

At once a woman and a child,

The saint uncrowned I came to seek

Drew near to greet us,― spoke, and smiled.

AVIS.

God gave

that sweet sad smile she wore

All wrong to shame, all souls to win, A heavenly sunbeam sent before

Her footsteps through a world of sin.

"And who is Avis?"- Hear the tale The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,The story known through all the vale Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild,
Strayed from the hand of human care,

They find one little refuse child

Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,

The chattel-stamp, the pariah-stain

That follows still her hunted race,

The curse without the crime of Cain.

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate

The little suffering outcast's ail?

Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate

So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.

261

Ah, veil the living death from sight
That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
The children turn in selfish fright,
The white-lipped nurses hurry by.

Take her, dread Angel! Break in love This bruised reed and make it thine!

No voice descended from above,

But Avis answered, "She is mine."

The task that dainty menials spurn

The fair young girl has made her own; Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn The toils, the duties yet unknown.

So Love and Death in lingering strife
Stand face to face from day to day,

Still battling for the spoil of Life

While the slow seasons creep away.

Love conquers Death; the prize is won; See to her joyous bosom pressed

The dusky daughter of the sun,

The bronze against the marble breast!

AVIS.

Her task is done; no voice divine

Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. No eye can see the aureole shine

That rings her brow with heavenly flame.

Yet what has holy page more sweet,
Or what had woman's love more fair,
When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet
With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown,
The Angel of that earthly throng,

And let thine image live alone

To hallow this unstudied song!

263

IRIS, HER BOOK.

I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee,
By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee,
Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee!

For Iris had no mother to infold her,
Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder,
Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her.

She had not learned the mystery of awaking
Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching,
Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking.

Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token ! Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken?

She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, -
Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances,
And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances.