But at night, when silence and sleep on the lonely hamlet fell Like a spirit clad in white through the graveyard gate she passed, And the stars bent down to hear, "I have come to you, love, at last," While through the valley solemnly sounded the midnight bell. And her southern birds will wait her coming in vain, Their starry eyes impatiently pierce the palm-trees' shade, And her roses droop in their bowers, alone they'll wither and fade. Roses of June you are gone, but we know you will blossom again. MAGDALENA. Who falsely called thee destroyer, still white Angel of Death? Oh not a destroyer here, but a kind restorer, thou, For the guilty look is gone, died out with her failing breath, And the sinless peace of a babe has come to lip and brow. Drowned in the heaving tide with her life, is her burden of woe, The dreary weight of sin, the woeful, troublesome years, The cold pure touch of the water has washed the shame from her brow Leaving a calm immortal, that looks like the chrism of peace. I fancy her smile was like this, as she pulled at her mother's gown Drawing her out with childish fingers to watch the red of the skies On the old brown doorstep of home, while the peaceful sun went down, With her mother's hand on her brow, and the glow of the west in her eyes. "An outcast vile and lost," you say, yes, she went astray, Astray, when the crimson wine of life ran fresh and wild, With mother's tender hand no more on her brow, put away The grasses beneath, and she was alone and almost a child. Like a kid decoyed to its death, the stealthy panther lures, Mocking the voice of its dam, thus he led the innocent child Through her tenderness down to ruin, he is a friend of yours, And admired by all; as you say, "men will be wild." But I wonder if God, so far above on His great white throne The clanging tumult of trouble and doubt that mortals vex; When the murmur of a crime sweeps up from earth with woeful moan, If He pauses, ere He condemns, to ask the offender's sex. And if so, whether the weaker or stronger He blames the most, The tempter or tempted a tithe of His tender compassion claims, Whether the selfish or too unselfish, those who through love or lust are lost, He in His infinite wisdom and mercy most condemns. Frown not, I know her evil our womanly nature shuns, Turns from, with shuddering horror; but now so low is her head For God's sake, woman, remember your own little ones Lying safely at home in their snow-white sheltered bed. Your own little girls, for them does the flame of your anger burn, "Such creatures will draw down innocence into guilt and woe." I think from eternity vast she will scarcely return To entice them to sin, you can safely forgive her now.