Last Verses. Coolidge Susan
over it – not a very dark one at first, but inexorable. She fought with it, played with it, defied it, but it was always there! She could not acknowledge defeat and was always planning for the future with gay self-confidence; but the shadow grew! By and by the narrowing limits shut her in her chamber, but even then she looked out upon the days to come with undaunted courage. The chamber was not like a sick room. It was bright with sunshine and the sparkle of fire, and scented and gay with the flowers she so dearly loved. Here she read and wrote and saw her many friends. From hence came words of rejoicing for all her dear ones who were happy, and words of truest sympathy for those who were sad. She was one of the few people to whom the joys and sorrows of others are of equal importance to their own. She pondered over the lives of her friends with never-ending interest, and gave at every turn and crisis the truest and most comprehending sympathy. No wonder that so many warmed hands and hearts by that generous flame!
Slowly the shadow deepened. She was disturbed by it, but still wrote happily of the future and filled it with plans and purposes. But one day, April 9, 1905, very gently, Death’s finger touched her. She was not conscious of pain or trouble, “only a new sensation,” but she closed her eyes, and without a word of farewell, was gone away from us.
It is hard to sum up such a life. It was a very full and happy one. She gave much, but received much. She loved beauty, and she was always surrounded by it. She loved friendship, and nobody had more or better friends. She gave them of her best, but she drew their best from them. Hers was an ideal companionship, so full of appreciative interest and sympathy, so illuminated by wit and humor. She was ardent and eager in her plans of life. Nothing could exceed the absorption and energy with which she carried them out. But she accepted disappointment, after a little struggle, with a gay insouciance. So when the final defeat came she seemed to resign herself without struggle to the inevitable, and to those of us who loved her best it seemed as if that sweet and brilliant and unwearied spirit had only folded its wings for a moment before taking a longer and surer flight.
April, 1906.
HELEN KELLER
BEHIND her triple prison-bars shut in
She sits, the whitest soul on earth to-day.
No shadowing stain, no whispered hint of sin,
Into that sanctuary finds the way.
There enters only clear and proven truth
Apportioned for her use by loving hands
And winnowed from all knowledge of all lands
To satisfy her ardent thirst of youth.
Like a strange alabaster mask her face,
Rayless and sightless, set in patience dumb,
Until like quick electric currents come
The signals of life into her lonely place;
Then, like a lamp just lit, an inward gleam
Flashes within the mask’s opacity,
The features glow and dimple suddenly,
And fun and tenderness and sparkle seem
To irradiate the lines once dull and blind,
While the white slender fingers reach and cling
With quick imploring gestures, questioning
The mysteries and the meanings: – to her mind
The world is not the sordid world we know;
It is a happy and benignant spot
Where kindness reigns, and jealousy is not,
And men move softly, dropping as they go
The golden fruit of knowledge for all to share.
And Love is King, and Heaven is very near,
And God to whom each separate soul is dear
Makes fatherly answer to each whispered prayer.
Ah, little stainless soul, shut in so close,
May never hint of doubt creep in to be
A shadow on the calm security
Which wraps thee, as its fragrance wraps a rose.
“A CLOUD OF WITNESSES”
ON Calais sands the breakers roar
In fierce and foaming track;
The screaming sea-gulls dip and soar,
White seen against the black;
And shuddering wind and furling sail
Are making ready for the gale.
Ho, keeper of the Calais Light!
See that your lamps burn free;
For, if they should go out to-night,
There will be wrecks at sea.
Fill them and trim them with due care,
For there is tempest in the air.
“Go out? My lamps go out, you say?
What words are on your lips?
There, in the offing far away,
Are sailing countless ships,
Beyond my ken, beyond my sight,
But all are watching Calais Light.
“If but a single lamp should fail,
A single flame burn dim,
How could they ride the gathering gale,
Or justly steer and trim?
To right, to left, would equal be,
There are no road-marks in the sea.
“I should not hear their drowning cry,
Or see the ship go down,
And weeks and months might pass us by,
Ere came to Calais town
The word – ‘A ship was lost one night,
And all for want of Calais Light.’
“Here in my tower, my lamps in row,
I sit the long hours through;
There is no soul to mark or know
If I my duty do;
Yet oftentimes I seem to see
A world of eyes all bent on me!
“Go out! My lamps go out! alas!
It were a woeful day
If ever it should come to pass
That I must live to say,
A ship went down in storm and night,
Because there failed it Calais Light.”
Ah, Christian, in your watch-tower set,
Fill all your lamps and trim;
For though there seem no watchers, yet
Far in the darkness dim,
Where souls are tossing out of view,
A hundred eyes are fixed on you!
COR CORDIUM
ALL diamonded with glittering stars
The vast blue arch of air;
Pent in behind these mortal bars
We strain our eyes to where,
Oh noblest heart, thou walkest apart
Amid thy heavenly kin.
Though blinded with the veils of sense,
We may not look within.
Oh eyes so tender with command!
Oh