<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=464723" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Madala Goes By The Orphanage</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unaware of its terror,<br>And but half aware<br>Of the world's beauty near her-<br>Of sunlight on the stones,<br>And trembling birds in the square,<br>Lightly went Madala-<br>A rose blown suddenly<br>From Spring's gay mouth; part of the Spring was she.<br>Warmed to her delicate bones,<br>Cool in its linen her skin,<br>her hair up-combed and circled,<br>Lightly she flowered on the sin<br>And pain of the Spring-struck world.<br>Down the street went crazy men,<br>The winter misery of their blood<br>Budding in new pain<br>While beggars whined beside her,<br>While the street's daughters eyed her,--<br>Poor flowers that kept midsummer<br>With desperate bloom, and thrust<br>Stale rose at each newcomer,<br>And crime and hunger and lust<br>Raged in the noisy dust.<br>Lightly went Madala,<br>Unshaken still of that spell,<br>Coral beads and jade to buy,<br>While her thoughts roamed easily-<br>Thoughts like bees in lavender,--<br>Thoughts gay and fragile as a robin's shell.<br>Till suddenly she had come<br>To grim age-stubborned wall<br>Behind whose mask of bars<br>Starts up in shame the Foundling's Hospital.*<br>At the gates to watch her pass<br>A caged thing eyed her dumb,<br>Most mercifully unaware of<br>Its own hurt, but Madala<br>Stopped short of Spring that day.<br>The air grew pinched and wan,<br>A hand came over the sun,<br>Birds huddled, stones went grey,<br>Her lace and linen white<br>Seemed but her body's sin,<br>her flesh unscarred and bright<br>Burnt like a leper's skin.<br>Her mouth was stale with bread<br>Flung her by strangers, she was fed,<br>Housed, fathered by the State, and she had grown<br>A thing belonged to, and loved, by none.<br>Though the shut mouth said no word,<br>from the caged thing she heard,<br>'Who has wronged me, that this Spring<br>'Gives me nothing and you everything,<br>'Who alike were made,<br>'Who beckon the same dream?<br>'You buy coral and jade,<br>'I sew long, hungry seams<br>'To pay for charity . . .'<br>Then Madala's heart, afraid,<br>Cried the first selfish cry;<br>'Is it my fault? Can I<br>'Help what the world has done?<br>'Can the flower in the shade<br>'Blame the flower in the sun?'<br>Then quick the caged thing said,<br>As if to ask pardon that its words had made<br>Madala's Spring so spoiled for her that day:<br>'But there's a way, a way!<br>'If flowers would share their Spring<br>'There's be sunshine enough for all the flowers.<br>'Such sunshine you could bring,<br>'Such joy that swings and flies<br>'With posies your hours through,<br>'So just beyond my hours.<br>'If I could walk with you-<br>'Not in pitiful two by two<br>Flayed by free children's eyes,<br>Your sister for an hour to be,<br>It would double joy and woo<br>Spring back to you, and more than Spring to me.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then something quaked in Madala,<br>Quaked with magic, quaked with awe.<br>Love-quickening, She became a part<br>Of this caged thing, she was aware<br>Of strange lips tugging at her heart.<br>So clear the way was! Tenderer<br>Grew her eyes, and as they grew,<br>Back to the flowers rushed the dew,<br>The earth filled out with the sun,<br>The cold birds in the square<br>Unbunched and preened upon<br>Their twigs in the softening air;<br>The cold wind dwindled and dropped,<br>Nearer drew Madala,<br>At the dumb thing she smiled,<br>And Spring that a child had stopped<br>Came back from the eyes of a child.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Muriel+Stuart">Muriel Stuart</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <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=464723" data-title="Madala Goes By The Orphanage de Muriel Stuart" data-description="Unaware of its terror, And but half aware Of the world's beauty near her- Of sunlight on the stones, And trembling birds in the square, Lightly went Madala- A rose blown suddenly From Spring's gay mouth; part of the Spring was she. Warmed to her d..."></div> </div> </div>

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