He touched her brow: the nightmare passed away; He soothed her heart, red with the stain of sin; And she forgot her guilt in penitence; She washed the ruby out with pearls of tears. He came, he suffered, and he died for us; He felt the bitterest woes a soul can feel; He probed the darkest depths of human grief; He sounded all the deeps and shoals of pain; Was cursed for all his love; thanked with the cross, Whereon he hung nailed, bleeding, glorified, As the last smoke of holocaust divine. "Ah! This was all two thousand years ago!" Two thousand years ago, and still he cries, With voice sweet calling through the distant dark: "O souls that labor, struggling in your pain, Come unto me, and I will give you rest! For every woe of yours, and every smart, I, too, have felt:--the mockery, the shame, The sneer, the scoffing lip, the hate, the lust, The greed of gain, the jealousy of man, Unstinted have been measured out to me. I know them all, I feel them all with you! And I have known the pangs of poverty, The cry of hunger and the weary heart Of childhood burdened with the weight of age! O sufferers, ye all are mine to love! The pulse-beats of my heart go out with you, And every drop of agony that drips From my nailed hands adown this bitter cross, Cries out, 'O God! accept the sacrifice, And ope the gates of heaven to the world!' Ye vermin of the garret, who do creep Your weary lives away within its walls; Ye children of the cellar, who behold The sweet, pale light, strained through the lothsome air And doled to you in tid-bits, as a thing Too precious for your use; ye rats in mines, Who knaw within the black and somber pits To seek poor living for your little ones; Ye women who stitch out your lonely lives, Unmindful whether sun or stars keep watch; Ye slaves of wheels; ye worms that bite the dust Where pride and scorn have ground you 'neath the heel; Ye Toilers of the earth, ye weary ones,-- I know your sufferings, I feel your woes; My peace I give you; in a little while The pain will all be over, and the grave Will sweetly close above your folded hands! And then?--Ah, Death, no conqueror art thou! For I have loosed thy chains; I have unbarred The gates of heaven! In my Father's house Of many mansions I prepare a place; And rest is there for every heart that toils! Oh, all ye sick and wounded ones who grieve For the lost health that ne'er may come again; Ye who do toss upon a couch of pain, Upon whose brow disease has laid his hand, Within whose eyes the dull and heavy sight Burns like a taper burning very low, Upon whose lips the purple fever-kiss Rests his hot breath, and dries the sickened palms, Scorches the flesh and e'en the very air; Ye who do grope along without the light;