| Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916. | | | XXXI. Tender Memory
From ‘My Kate’ | | By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) |
| | | HER air had a meaning, her movements a grace; | |
| You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face: | |
| And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, | |
| You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth— | |
| My Kate. | 5 |
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| Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, | |
| You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke: | |
| When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, | |
| Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone— | |
| My Kate…. | 10 |
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| She never found fault with you, never implied | |
| Your wrong by her right: and yet men at her side | |
| Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town | |
| The children were gladder that pulled at her gown— | |
| My Kate. | 15 |
| |
| None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall; | |
| They knelt more to God than they used,—that was all: | |
| If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, | |
| But the charm of her presence was felt when she went— | |
| My Kate. | 20 |
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| The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, | |
| She took as she found them, and did them all good; | |
| It always was so with her—see what you have! | |
| She has made the grass greener even here … with her grave— | |
| My Kate…. | 25 | | | |
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