Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/170

160 There, the weak, trampled by the strong,

Live but to suffer—hopeless die;

There pagan-priests, whose creed is Wrong,

Extortion, Lust, and Cruelty,

Crush our lost race—and brimming fill

The bitter cup of human ill;

And I—who have the healing creed,

The faith benign of Mary's Son;

Shall I behold my brother's need

And, selfishly, to aid him shun?

I—who upon my mother's knees,

In childhood, read Christ's written word,

Received his legacy of peace,

His holy rule of action heard;

I—in whose heart the sacred sense

Of Jesus' love was early felt;

Of his pure full benevolence,

His pitying tenderness for guilt;

His shepherd-care for wandering sheep,

For all weak, sorrowing, trembling things,

His mercy vast, his passion deep

Of anguish for man's sufferings;

I—schooled from childhood in such lore—

Dared I draw back or hesitate,

When called to heal the sickness sore

Of those far off and desolate?

Dark, in the realm and shades of Death,

Nations and tribes and empires lie,

But even to them the light of Faith

Is breaking on their sombre sky: