Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/423

Rh :And cold hands folded over a still heart, Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
 * Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,

Awed for myself, and pitying my race, Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave, Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

said that in the Holy Land
 * The angels of the place have blessed

The pilgrim’s bed of desert sand,
 * Like Jacob’s stone of rest.

That down the hush of Syrian skies
 * Some sweet-voiced saint at twilight sings

The song whose holy symphonies
 * Are beat by unseen wings;

Till starting from his sandy bed,
 * The wayworn wanderer looks to see

The halo of an angel’s head
 * Shine through the tamarisk-tree.

So through the shadows of my way
 * Thy smile hath fallen soft and clear,

So at the weary close of day
 * Hath seemed thy voice of cheer.

That pilgrim pressing to his goal
 * May pause not for the vision’s sake,

Yet all fair things within his soul
 * The thought of it shall wake:

The graceful palm-tree by the well,
 * Seen on the far horizon’s rim;

The dark eyes of the fleet gazelle,
 * Bent timidly on him;