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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339801" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Kind Word</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Speak kindly, wife; the little ones will grow<br>Fairest and straightest in the warmest sun.<br>We talk so often of the seed we sow;<br>But, maybe, when we think our labour done,<br>And when we look to gather in the grain,<br>We'll find these stones, we fling about, again<br>Strewing the fruitless sod,<br>Having crush'd down and stunted the sweet life<br>That bore the likeness of the life of God.<br>All your hard words of bitterness and strife<br>Will lie upon their love, as stones would lie;<br>You think to pick them up, but, by-and-by,<br>You'll find where they have lain<br>By the poor, meagre, crooked ears of grain.<br>You will be sorry then.<br>Speak kindly, wife; you know not half the wealth<br>Kind words bring in. Ah! I remember when<br>I was a little lad, all youth and health,<br>How I went wrong for want of one, and how<br>One saved my life—ay, keeps it steady now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *<br>My mother died, you know, when I had seen<br>Only a few days' light; they say her face<br>Was fair and young—and so it might have been;<br>I cannot tell. But she, who took her place,<br>Was coarse and hard, and had a shrewish tongue<br>That fretted all the household into strife.<br>Ah, how that sharp voice rung<br>Through ear and heart—through all the peace of life!<br>It drove my father from his home at length,<br>And drove him to the ale-house, where he learn'd<br>To drink away the good name he had earn'd,<br>And drink away his precious health and strength.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I can remember well how he would sigh,<br>Would sigh, and turn from his own chimney nook;<br>And how, though wintry winds blew fierce and high,<br>He fumbled at the door with hands that shook,<br>And pass'd out slowly, as though caring not<br>Whither he went. And she, who tempted him,<br>Was first to see the change—to mark the blot<br>That made his manhood's beauty blurred and dim—<br>But had no mercy and no help for him.<br>I think I see her now!<br>Standing, with that red flush upon her brow,<br>Hurling her stinging insults thick and fast,<br>As he was sadly creeping through the door;<br>Until he raised his grizzled head, and swore,<br>And suddenly struck her, growing mad at last.<br>Was that the way to better him? Ah, no;<br>She taunted him, and stung his spirit so,<br>That what was weakness became sin and crime.<br>Wife, did you ever hear<br>What happen'd in that dark and dreadful time?<br>One night, when I was wide awake for fear,<br>Straining my baby ears to catch the sound<br>Of the fierce voices that were storming near—<br>One night, I heard a cry—<br>So sharp! so shrill! a strange and fearful cry—<br>And then a heavy fall upon the ground;<br>And then—and then—in the grey morning light<br>I saw her lie,<br>With her hard face so strangely still and white,<br>With a broad purple stain upon her brow,<br>And dusky shadows on her lips and eyes.<br>Ah me! ah me! I think I see her now,<br>Wrapped in that awful death-sleep, as she lies!<br>I well remember how I cried and shook<br>In childish terror, and with what a look<br>I turn'd to all the living faces there,<br>Seeking in vain,<br>With the first dreary thrill of my despair,<br>The one face that I never saw again!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *<br>I was so young—a little lad, a child—<br>And it was hard, ay, very hard, to be<br>So helpless and so ignorant and wild,<br>With not a soul to love and care for me.<br>She, when she storm'd about,<br>Had roughly used me, and had turn'd me out<br>Into the streets, to gather what I could<br>And what I liked of all the evil there;<br>But he, my father, at odd times he would<br>Sit, with his arms flung round me, in his chair,<br>And tell me, as he stroked my curly head,<br>How he could see the mother that was dead<br>In my blue eyes and in my golden hair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now I was alone—quite, quite alone.<br>Ah, you can never know how I was toss'd<br>From place to place; how like a thing of stone,<br>Frozen for want of just a kindly tone,<br>My heart became—all its good instincts cross'd!<br>And how like some distorted tree I grew,<br>Barren of all things beautiful and true.<br>Sullen, and hard, and reckless, I was fit<br>And ready, when the devil laid his snare—<br>Quite ready—to rush headlong into it.<br>And who was there to care?<br>In a wild night—a well-remember'd night,<br>When I was prowling in a darken'd street,<br>Trying to hush the echo of my feet,<br>Trying to hide me out of sound and sight—<br>Just as I heard the bells begin to call<br>From a church-tower—as I caught a gleam<br>Of marble pillars, standing white and tall,<br>And saw the stream<br>Of tender, mellow light make, as it were,<br>A shining pathway in the misty air,<br>Whither soft footsteps trod<br>Out of the world into the courts of God—<br>Just then they found me out—<br>They who had watch'd and follow'd me so long—<br>They found me as I idly hung about<br>That stately doorway; and I felt the strong<br>Relentless grip upon my arm—I saw<br>The quiet, cruel, smiling eyes, and saw<br>That I was bound.<br>That night I lay awake upon the ground<br>Of a dark cell. The moonlight quiver'd in,<br>Tender, and pure, and sweet, and hover'd round—<br>Trying to cool the raging fire within<br>My eyes and heart; like tender mother's touch,<br>It wander'd over lips, and hands, and hair.<br>I think I feel it now—it came with such<br>An unexpected pity to me there!<br>It was so dark—and I was all alone.<br>No gentle tone<br>To comfort and to keep me from despair!<br>A blessing had been sent—ah, now I know,<br>Just by that little moonbeam; its white glow<br>Lay on my heart, till the tears fell like rain.<br>The long-endured, sullen sense of pain,<br>So dark and deep,<br>Was stirred and touch'd, and almost lighten'd, when</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I plunged my face into my hands to weep.<br>Somehow the boyish spirit came again,<br>With just a little of its softness, then;<br>The burning fever cool'd, and I could sleep.<br>Ah, I remember, as I lay there, she<br>I never knew came gliding through my dream,<br>As through the shadows that encompass'd me<br>Glided the tender moonshine; I could see,<br>Dim and yet purely bright—just in the gleam<br>That cross'd the prison-floor—a girlish face,<br>Divinely beautiful—an angel's face;<br>And long robes, fair and white,<br>Shadow'd with wings that shone like living light.<br>I seem'd to feel, e'en in that gloomy place,<br>The soft, sweet kisses stray<br>Over my feverish forehead as I lay;<br>But when I woke, and look'd with glistening eyes<br>Up through the grating, I could only see<br>The pale rose-colour dawning in the skies<br>From whence that message had come down to me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I was so lonely! Yet more lonely far<br>In the bright day-time, when my sight was bound<br>By cold, hard, scornful faces all around,<br>Instead of prison-wall and iron bar.<br>More lonely—ay, so much more lonely! They,<br>My judges and accusers, and the crowd<br>That witness'd all my misery that day,<br>They knew not that my spirit was as proud,<br>As sensitive to suffering, as theirs.<br>They knew the sweet hearth-love, that makes the cares<br>And storms of life so light!<br>And the great safeguard against sin and crime<br>Stood round about their homes by day and night.<br>But I had no one in that bitter time,<br>No one, I thought—no one to stand by me,<br>No one to teach me or to care for me!<br>I pass'd through fire as I stood waiting—stood<br>In that great, dreary, dreadful, crowded place;<br>A fire that scorch'd out even the faintest trace<br>My tearful dream had left, of good and true.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *<br>Wearily, wearily, I laid me down<br>Within my little prison-cell that night;<br>And then I long'd for death to come, and drown<br>The sinful, lonely, sorrowful earthly life<br>That always seem'd at strife<br>With God and man. I know it was not right—<br>I know it, dear; but it is hard to be<br>Shut out from all the pleasant, genial life<br>That makes life worth!—and it was hard for me.<br>And so I lay, and fix'd a vacant stare<br>Upon my grated bars, now dimly drawn<br>Across a grey-blue thunder-cloud; for there<br>The moonlight came, and there the rosy dawn<br>Peep'd in—a kind and friendly face to see;<br>One thing, at least, of peace and purity.<br>And dark thoughts brooded in my heart and brain,<br>Such wicked, reckless thoughts! I wonder'd why<br>I had been born to so much misery,<br>Born to so large a heritage of pain!<br>Sure it was wrong, I murmur'd bitterly,<br>Setting my teeth again.<br>And then there slowly drifted through my mind—<br>Vaguely and darkly, gaining shape at length—<br>A thought whose likeness it were hard to find<br>In any common words. I felt the strength<br>Of stern endurance and resolve die out,<br>And felt a fierce new strength creep round about<br>My smouldering heart. Eager I turn'd to gaze<br>At my new vision—and the warning doubt<br>Died in the passion that was set ablaze.<br>What was the vision? Wife, I scarcely dare<br>Paint it again.<br>It's very memory enfolds such pain!<br>A river, dark, and deep, and dreadful, where<br>The moaning eddies swirl'd about the piers<br>Of a high bridge; lights twinkling in the air;<br>Unnumber'd voices thrilling in my ears;<br>And one—one only—speaking to me there—<br>Calling from out the deep,<br>Dark water, in its slow, reluctant sweep . . . . .<br>An awful space of shadows; then the gleam<br>Of steely ripples, lying far below,<br>Like bright snakes coil'd together on the stream;—<br>Ah, wife, you know! you know!<br>I saw—but did not see—the grey-blue cloud<br>Change into black; the thunder roar'd aloud;<br>And shining arrows glanced across the floor,<br>Striking a blaze upon my staring eyes;—<br>Darling, these are such painful memories,<br>I cannot tell you more.<br>* * * * *<br>But in the day that follow'd—when the sun<br>Was high in heaven, and the crimson flame<br>Danced on the bleak white wall above me—one<br>Bearing a sweet and holy message, came.<br>He found me lying motionless, alone,<br>Passionately quiet, and as hard as stone;<br>And he stepped softly, and bent over me<br>Until I saw his face—<br>Fair as an angel's, with a shining crown<br>Of wavy golden hair—a boyish face,<br>But shadow'd with a wondrous dignity.<br>As he bent down,<br>His grave eyes looking deeply into mine,<br>The dignity seem'd born of the divine.<br>Ah me, he was so good! so true! so kind!<br>He melted that black shadow on my mind<br>With his sweet, earnest tones; I sat and wept<br>Just like a child; and a new life and light<br>Once more, as he sat by me, gently crept<br>Into my spirit, that was dark as night.<br>He did not talk as if he were above<br>The sins and follies of his fellow-men;<br>But all his words were sympathy and love—<br>Or I had never listen'd to them then.<br>He did not once reproach me, though he heard—<br>Because he would not ask it—every word<br>I had to tell him; but he counselled me,<br>Framing his lips in that humility<br>Which seems the stamp of a good man and true.<br>Saying not, “I know this,” but “God has said;”<br>Saying not, with the solemn warning, “you,”<br>But mostly “we;” yet over all he shed<br>The high and special dignity he bore.<br>One felt he was a priest, as if he wore<br>His surplice—standing in the church, instead<br>Of on a prison-floor.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *<br>And those kind words—they brought a blessed morn<br>Unto my soul; I never wish'd again<br>That I might die; I never felt forlorn,<br>As if my life were given me in vain.<br>But I went out into the world, and fought<br>Against its legions, with an arm of strength!<br>Wife, though I often falter'd, what he taught<br>Nerved me to courage, and I won at length.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ada+Cambridge">Ada Cambridge</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339801" data-title="The Kind Word de Ada Cambridge" data-description="Speak kindly, wife; the little ones will grow
Fairest and straightest in the warmest sun.
We talk so often of the seed we sow;
But, maybe, when we think our labour done,
And when we look to gather in the grain,
We'll find these stones, we fling ab..."></div>
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