THE FORLORN. THE night is dark, the stinging sleet, Drives whistling down the lonely street, The street-lamps flare and struggle dim Through the white sleet-clouds as they pass, Or, governed by a boisterous whim, Drop down and rattle on the glass. One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze; Yet dares she not a shelter seek, Though faint with hunger and disease. The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within. She lingers where a ruddy glow Streams outward through an open shutter, Giving more bitterness to woe, More loneness to desertion utter. One half the cold she had not felt, Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt Its slow way through the deadening night. She hears a woman's voice within, Singing sweet words her childhood knew, And years of misery and sin Furl off and leave her heaven blue. Her freezing heart, like one who sinks Drowses to deadly sleep, and thinks Old fields, and clear blue summer days, And whiten in the western breeze, Rises within her heart again, And sunshine from her childhood cast Makes summer of the icy rain. Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow, From all humanity apart, She hears old footsteps wandering slow Through the lone chambers of her 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 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, Straightway 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 |