Helen is Ill
When she is ill my laughter cowers;
An exile with a broken rhyme,
My heart upon the breast of time,
I hear the heart-beat of the hours;
I close my eyes without a sigh;
The vision of her flutters by
As glints the light of Mary's eyes
Upon the lakes in Paradise.

I seem to reach an olden town
And enter at the sunset gate;
And as the streets I hurry down,
I find the men are all elate,
As if an angel of the Lord
Had passed with dearest word and nod,
Remembered like a yearning chord
Of songs the people sing to God;
I come upon the sunrise gate -
As silent as her listless room -
There seven beggars sing and wait
And this the song that breaks the gloom:
God a 'mercy is most kind;
She the fairest passed this way;
We the lowest were not blind;
God a 'mercy bless the day.