| |
St. Lucy’s Day, Dec. 13
WE watched, as she lingered all the day | |
| Beneath the torturer’s skill; | |
| And we prayed that the spirit might pass away, | |
| And the weary frame be still. | |
| ’Twas a long, sharp struggle from darkness to light, | 5 |
| And the pain waxed fierce and sore, | |
| But she, we knew, in her latest fight, | |
| Would be more than conqueror. | |
| |
| Oh, what a change had the prison wrought | |
| Since we gazed upon her last, | 10 |
| And mournful the lessons her thin frame taught | |
| Of the sufferings she had passed. | |
| Of pain and sickness, not of fear, | |
| There was courage in her eye, | |
| As she entered the amphitheatre | 15 |
| As to triumph, and not to die! | |
| |
| And once, when we could not bear to see | |
| Her sufferings, and turned the head, | |
| “His rod and His staff they comfort me,” | |
| The virgin martyr said. | 20 |
| It was at the setting of the sun, | |
| And her voice waxed faint and low, | |
| And we knew that her race was well nigh run, | |
| And her time drew near to go. | |
| |
| We could almost deem the clouds that rolled | 25 |
| In the ruddy sun’s decline, | |
| To be chariots of fire and horses of gold | |
| On the steep of Mount Aventine: | |
| Yea, guardian angels bent their way | |
| From their own skies’ cloudlets blue, | 30 |
| And a triumph more glorious was thine to-day | |
| Than ever the Cæsar knew! | |
| |
| We lay thee here in the narrow cell | |
| Where thy friends and brethren sleep; | |
| And we carve the palm of thy lot to tell, | 35 |
| And we do not dare to weep. | |
| Hopefully wait we God’s holy time | |
| That shall call us to share thy rest, | |
| Till then, we must dwell in an alien clime, | |
| While thou art in Abraham’s breast. | 40 |
| |
