The roses blushing at the door, The lapse of leafy June, The singing birds, the sunny shore, The summer moon;-- All these entrance the eye or ear By innate grace and charm; But o'er them, reaching through the year, Hangs Winter's arm. To give to memory the sign, The index of our bliss, And show by contrast how divine The Summer is. From chilling blasts and stormy skies, Bare hills and icy streams, Touched into fairest life arise Our summer dreams. And virtue never seems so fair As when we lift our gaze From the red eyes and bloody hair That vice displays. We are too low,--our eyes too dark Love's height to estimate, Save as we note the sunken mark Of brutal Hate. So this ensanguined tale shall move Aright each little dreamer, And Blue Beard teach them how to love The sweet Fatima. They hate his crimes, and it is well; They pity those who died; Their sense of justice when he fell Was satisfied. No fierce revenges are the fruit Of their just indignation; They sit in judgment on the brute, And condemnation; And turn to her, his rescued wife, Her deeds so kind and human, And love the beauty of her life, And bless the woman. _Ruth_. That is the way I supposed you would twist it; And now that the boys are disposed of, And the moral so handsomely closed off, What do you say of the girl? That she missed When she thought of old Blue Beard as some do of Judas, Who with this notion essay to delude us: That when he relented, And fiercely repented, He was hardly so bad As he commonly had The fortune to be represented? _David_. The noblest pity in the earth Is that bestowed on sin. The Great Salvation had its birth That ruth within. The girl is nearest God, in fact; The boy gives crime its due; She blames the author of the act, And pities too. Thus, from this strange excess of wrong Her tender heart has caught The noblest truth, the sweetest song, The Saviour taught. So, more than measured homily, Of sage, or priest, or preacher, Is this wild tale of cruelty Love's gentle teacher. It tells of sin, its deep remorse, Its fitting recompense, And vindicates the tardy course Of Providence. These boyish bosoms are on fire With chivalric possession, And burn with just and manly ire Against oppression. The glory and the grace of life, And Love's surpassing sweetness, Rise from the monster to the wife In high completeness; And thence look down with mercy's eye On sin's accurst abuses, And seek to wrest from charity Some fair excuses. _Ruth_.