<h2><SPAN name="chap52"></SPAN>MOTHERHOOD</h2>
<p>Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently.<br/>
Following the children joyously astir<br/>
Under the cedrus and the olive tree,<br/>
Pausing to let their laughter float to her.<br/>
Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,<br/>
She saw a little Christ in every face;<br/>
When lo, another woman, gliding near,<br/>
Yearned o’er the tender life that filled the place.<br/>
And Mary sought the woman’s hand, and spoke:<br/>
“I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed<br/>
With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke<br/>
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.<br/></p>
<p class="poem">
“I, too, have rocked my little one,<br/>
O, He was fair!<br/>
Yea, fairer than the fairest sun,<br/>
And like its rays through amber spun<br/>
His sun-bright hair.<br/>
Still I can see it shine and shine.”<br/>
“Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.”<br/>
<br/>
“His ways were ever darling ways,”—<br/>
And Mary smiled,—<br/>
“So soft, so clinging! Glad relays<br/>
Of love were all His precious days.<br/>
My little child!<br/>
My infinite star! My music fled!”<br/>
“Even so was mine,” the woman said.<br/>
<br/>
Then whispered Mary: “Tell me, thou,<br/>
Of thine.” And she:<br/>
“O, mine was rosy as a boug<br/>
<br/>
Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,<br/>
To bloom for me!<br/>
His balmy fingers left a thrill<br/>
Within my breast that warms me still.”<br/>
<br/>
Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour,<br/>
And said, when Mary questioned, knowing not,<br/>
“Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?”<br/>
“I am the mother of Iscariot.”<br/></p>
<p class="left">
AGNES LEE</p>
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