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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420808" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Two Elizabeths</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends'<br>School, Providence, R. I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A. D. 1209.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt,<br>A high-born princess, servant of the poor,<br>Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt<br>To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned door.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A blinded zealot held her soul in chains,<br>Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill,<br>Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains,<br>And gauged her conscience by his narrow will.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace,<br>With fast and vigil she denied them all;<br>Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face,<br>She followed meekly at her stern guide's call.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss<br>In the chill rigor of a discipline<br>That turned her fond lips from her children's kiss,<br>And made her joy of motherhood a sin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To their sad level by compassion led,<br>One with the low and vile herself she made,<br>While thankless misery mocked the hand that fed,<br>And laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But still, with patience that outwearied hate,<br>She gave her all while yet she had to give;<br>And then her empty hands, importunate,<br>In prayer she lifted that the poor might live.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to bear,<br>And dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control,<br>She kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer,<br>And fresh and pure the white flower of her soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Death found her busy at her task: one word<br>Alone she uttered as she paused to die,<br>'Silence!'--then listened even as one who heard<br>With song and wing the angels drawing nigh!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now Fra Angelico's roses fill her hands,<br>And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain<br>Kneel at her feet. Her marble image stands<br>Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy fane.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross uprears,<br>Wide as the world her story still is told;<br>In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears,<br>She lives again whose grave is centuries old.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And still, despite the weakness or the blame<br>Of blind submission to the blind, she hath<br>A tender place in hearts of every name,<br>And more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A. D. 1780.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Slow ages passed: and lo! another came,<br>An English matron, in whose simple faith<br>Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim,<br>A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No sackcloth robe, nor ashen-sprinkled hair,<br>Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long,<br>Marred her calm presence. God had made her fair,<br>And she could do His goodly work no wrong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Their yoke is easy and their burden light<br>Whose sole confessor is the Christ of God;<br>Her quiet trust and faith transcending sight<br>Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there she walked, as duty bade her go,<br>Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun,<br>Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show,<br>And overcame the world she did not shun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall,<br>In the great city's restless crowd and din,<br>Her ear was open to the Master's call,<br>And knew the summons of His voice within.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tender as mother, beautiful as wife,<br>Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood<br>In modest raiment faultless as her life,<br>The type of England's worthiest womanhood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone<br>The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed,<br>And guilt, which only hate and fear had known,<br>Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went<br>She followed, finding every prison cell<br>It opened for her sacred as a tent<br>Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal,<br>And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw<br>How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal,<br>And woman's pity kept the bounds of law.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She rests in God's peace; but her memory stirs<br>The air of earth as with an angel's wings,<br>And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers,<br>The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">United now, the Briton and the Hun,<br>Each, in her own time, faithful unto death,<br>Live sister souls! in name and spirit one,<br>Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</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=420808" data-title="The Two Elizabeths de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends'
School, Providence, R. I.

A. D. 1209.

AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt,
A high-born princess, servant of the poor,
Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt
To s..."></div>
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