SISTER BEATRICE
That drag an unstained victim to the mire,
Then cast it soiled and hopeless on the mart!
Even so the clerk, once having dulled his longing,
A worse thing did than that first bitter wronging.
The base hind left her, ruined and alone,
Unknowing by what craft to gain her bread
In the hard world that gives to Want a stone.
What marvel that she drifted whither led
The current, that with none to heed her moan
She reached the shore where life on husks is fed,
Sank down, and, in the strangeness of her fall,
Among her fellows was the worst of all!
Thus stranded, her fair body, consecrate
To holiness, was smutched by spoilers rude.
And entered all the seven fiends where late
Abode a seeming angel, pure and good.
What paths she followed in such woeful state,
By want, remorse, and the world's hate pursued,
Were known alone to them whose spacious ken
O'erlooks not even the poor Magdalen.
After black years their dismal change had wrought
Upon her beauty, and there was no stay
By which to hold, some chance or yearning brought
Her vagrant feet along the convent-way;
And half as in a dream there came a thought
(For years she had not dared to think or pray)
That moved her there to bow her in the dust
And bear no more, but perish as she must.
Crouched by the gate she waited, it is told,
Brooding the past and all of life forlorn,
Nor dared to lift her pallid face and old
Against the passer's pity or his scorn;
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