Mabel.
I.
In the sunlight :—1
Little Mab, the keeper’s daughter, singing by the brooklet’s side,2
With her playmates singing carols of the gracious Easter-tide ;3
And the violet and the primrose make sweet incense for the quire,4
In the springlight, when the rosebuds hide the thorns upon the briar.5
II.
In the lamplight :—6
With a proud defiant beauty, Mab, the fallen, flaunts along,7
Speaking sin’s words, wildly laughing, she who sang that Paschal song,8
And a mother lies a-dying in the cottage far away,9
And a father cries to Heaven, “ Thou hast said,
‘I will repay.”10
III.
In the moonlight :—11
By the gravestone in the churchyard, Mabel, where her mother sleeps,12
Like the tearful saint of Magdala, an Easter vigil keeps :—13
There, trailing cruel thorns, storm-drenched, plaining with piteous bleat,14
The lost lamb (so her mother prayed) and the Good Shepherd meet.15