Daily Globe

THE FIRESIDE.

AN UNCROWNED MARTYR

No outward sign her angelhood revealed,
Save that her eyes were wondrous mild and fair
The aureole round her forehead was concealed
By the pale glory of her shining hair.

She bore the yoke and wore the name of wife
To one who made her tenderness and grace
A mere convenience of his narrow life,
And put a seraph in a servant's place.

She cheered his meagre hearth--she blessed and warmed
His poverty, and met his harsh demands
With meek, unvarying patience, and performed
Its menial tasks with stained and battered hands.

She nursed his children through their helpless years--
Gave them her strength, her youth, her beauty's prime,
Bore for them privation, toil and tears,
Which made her old and tried, before her time.

And when fierce fever smote him with its blight,
Her calm, consoling presence charmed his pain:
Through long and thankless watches day and night
Her fluttering fingers cooled his face like rain.

With soft magnetic touch, and murmur sweet,
She brought him sleep, and stilled his fretful moan,
And taught his flying pulses to repeat
The wild and moderate measures of her own.

She had an artist's quick perceptive eyes
For all the beautiful; a poet's heart
For every changing phase of earth and skies.
And all things fair in Nature and in art,

She looked with all a woman's keen delight
On jewels rich, and dainty drapery,
Rare fabrics and soft hues--the happy right
Of those more favored but less fair than she

On pallid pearls, with glimmer cool and white
Dimming proud foreheads with their purity;
On silks which gleam and ripple in the light,
And shift and shimmer in the Summer sea.

On gems like drops by sudden sunlight kissed
When fell the last large brilliants of the rain;
On laces delicate as frozen mist
Embroidering a winter window pane.

Yet, near the throng of worldly butterflies
She dwelt, a chrysalis, in homely brown,
With costliest splendor flaunting in her eyes,
She went her dull way in a gingham gown.

Hedged in by alien hearts, unloved, alone.
With slender shoulders bowed beneath their load,
She trod the path that Fate had made her own
Nor met one kindred spirit on the road.

Slowly the years rolled onward; and at last
When the bruised reed was broken, and her soul
Knew its sad term of earthly bondage past
And felt its nearness to the heavenly goal.

Then a strange gladness filled the tender eyes.
Which gazed afar beyond all grief and sin
And seemed to see the gates of Paradise
Unclosed for her feet to enter in.

Vainly the master she had served so long
Clasped her worn hands, and with remorseful tears
Cried, "Stay, oh, stay! Forgive my bitter wrong:
Let me atone for all those weary years!"

Alas for heedless hearts and blinded sense!
With what faint welcome and what meagre fare,
What mean subjections and small recompense,
We entertain our angels unaware!