Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By The Foremost Trail (1900). II. A Worshipper

Cicely Fox-Smith (1882–1954)

AGAINST the oaken pew he leant,

A child of summers three or four,

And smiled to see each stained-glass saint

Cast by the sunlight on the floor.

He wondered why the folk should look

So sad and stern on either hand.

His thoughts were wandering from the book,

The prayers he could not understand.

Yet, when the organ’s thunder filled

The dim-lit aisles in praise and prayer,

Sweetly his baby treble trilled

Happiest of all who worshipped there.

The sunshine made his heart rejoice;

And who shall chide him? Who declare

God did not hear the childish voice

That sang because His world was fair?