Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

VI. Human Experience

In Prison

May Riley Smith (1842?–1927)

GOD pity the wretched prisoners,

In their lonely cells to-day!

Whatever the sins that tripped them,

God pity them! still I say.

Only a strip of sunshine,

Cleft by rusty bars;

Only a patch of azure,

Only a cluster of stars;

Only a barren future,

To starve their hope upon;

Only stinging memories

Of a past that’s better gone;

Only scorn from women,

Only hate from men,

Only remorse to whisper

Of a life that might have been.

Once they were little children,

And perhaps their unstained feet

Were led by a gentle mother

Toward the golden street;

Therefore, if in life’s forest

They since have lost their way,

For the sake of her who loved them,

God pity them! still I say.

O mothers gone to heaven!

With earnest heart I ask

That your eyes may not look earthward

On the failure of your task.

For even in those mansions

The choking tears would rise,

Though the fairest hand in heaven

Would wipe them from your eyes!

And you, who judge so harshly,

Are you sure the stumbling-stone

That tripped the feet of others

Might not have bruised your own?

Are you sure the sad-faced angel

Who writes our errors down

Will ascribe to you more honor

Than him on whom you frown?

Or, if a steadier purpose

Unto your life is given;

A stronger will to conquer,

A smoother path to heaven;

If, when temptations meet you,

You crush them with a smile;

If you can chain pale passion

And keep your lips from guile;

Then bless the hand that crowned you,

Remembering, as you go,

’T was not your own endeavor

That shaped your nature so;

And sneer not at the weakness

Which made a brother fall,

For the hand that lifts the fallen,

God loves the best of all!

And pray for the wretched prisoners

All over the land to-day,

That a holy hand in pity

May wipe their guilt away.