Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/337

 Rh Of heaven-planted, incense-mingling flowers;

Within, the altar where the Mother sits

'Mid votive tablets hung from far-off years

By peasants succored in the peril of fire,

Fever, or flood, who thought that Mary's love,

Willing but not omnipotent, had stood

Between their lives and that dread power which slew

Their neighbor at their side. The chapel bell

Will melt to gentlest music ere it reach

That cottage on the slope, whose garden gate

Has caught the rose-tree boughs and stands ajar;

So does the door, to let the sunbeams in;

For in the slanting sunbeams angels come

And visit Agatha who dwells within —

Old Agatha, whose cousins Kate and Nell

Are housed by her in Love and Duty's name,

They being feeble, with small withered wits,

And she believing that the higher gift

Was given to be shared. So Agatha

Shares her one room, all neat on afternoons,

As if some memory were sacred there

And everything within the four low walls

An honored relic.

One long summer's day

An angel entered at the rose-hung gate,

With skirts pale blue, a brow to quench the pearl,

Hair soft and blonde as infants', plenteous

As hers who made the wavy lengths once speak

The grateful worship of a rescued soul.

The angel paused before the open door

To give good day. "Come in," said Agatha.

I followed close, and watched and listened there.

The angel was a lady, noble, young,

Taught in all seemliness that fits a court,