Читать книгу Lays and Legends (Second Series) - Эдит Несбит, Nesbit Edith - Страница 7

Once by a foreign prison gate,

Deep in the gloom of frowning stone,

I saw a woman, desolate,

Sitting alone;

Immeasurable pain enwound

Infinite anguish lapped her round,

As the sea laps some sunken shore

Where flowers will blossom never more.

Despair sat shrined in her dry eyes —

Her heart, I thought, in blood must weep

For hopes that never more can rise

From their death-sleep;

And round her hovered phantoms gray —

Ghosts of delight dead many a day;

And all the thorns of life seemed wed

In one sharp crown about her head.

And all the poor world's aching heart

Beat there, I thought, and could not break.

Oh! to be strong to bear the smart —

The vast heart-ache!

Then through my soul a clear light shone;

What I would do, my Lord has done;

He bore the whole world's crown of thorn —

For her sake, too, that crown was worn!