Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/77

FATHER JARDINE And envy it,—this furrows deep and wide

Its grooves in thee—in me.

Borne, always borne—what martyrdoms assoil

The laden soul from hostile chance and blind?

Nor time can loose the adamantine coil,

Nor Azrael unbind.

Redemption for the priest! but naught their gain

Who forfeit still the one thing asked of Earth,

Knowing all penance light beside this pain—

All pleasure, nothing worth.

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