Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/485

FATHER JARDINE FATHER JARDINE

TRINITY CHURCH, ST. LOUIS

his loins, when the last breath had gone

From the gaunt frame—and death's encroaching mist,

A veil betwixt earth left and heaven won,

Told naught of all it wist—

Close to the flesh, sore-lashed by waves of pain,

They found the iron girth that ate his side,

Its links worn bright: the cruel, secret chain,

They found it when he died.

Son of the Church, though worldlings spake her creed

And smiled askance, even in the altar fold,

This man, this piteous soul, believed indeed

With the stern faith of old.

Unquestioning aught, aye, in the eager West

Surcharged with life that mocks the vague unknown,

His ligature of anguish unconfest

He wore alone—alone.

Alone? but trebly welded links of fate

More lives than one are bidden to endure,

Forged in a chain's indissoluble weight

Of agonies more sure.

His torture was self-torture; to his soul

No jest of time irrevocably brought

A woe more grim than underneath the stole

His gnawing cincture wrought.

Belike my garments,—yes, or thine,—conceal

The sorer wound, the pitiabler throe,

Not even the traitor Death shall quite reveal

For his rough mutes to know.

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