Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/250

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over the sea into the lonesomeness of the night and nothing stops it on the way, for all know what it is and bid it godspeed. And it goes down and around a mountain to a house where there is woe, and if before it came that house had turned away charity and love and friendship and good-will and peace, and had sent a curse after them all, still it opens wide its doors for the message of a tender soul. For its coming is not heralded, and the soul that sends it does not even know its tenderness, and the hearts of all in that house where there is woe—they are deeply, unknowingly comforted. And it goes upon the barrenness of a countryside where there is not one green thing growing, and the barrenness is then more than paradise, had paradise no such message. And it goes where lovely flowers grow in thousands, where sparkling water mingles with sparkling water and