Madala Goes By The Orphanage
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 delicate bones,
Cool in its linen her skin,
her hair up-combed and circled,
Lightly she flowered on the sin
And pain of the Spring-struck world.
Down the street went crazy men,
The winter misery of their blood
Budding in new pain
While beggars whined beside her,
While the street's daughters eyed her,--
Poor flowers that kept midsummer
With desperate bloom, and thrust
Stale rose at each newcomer,
And crime and hunger and lust
Raged in the noisy dust.
Lightly went Madala,
Unshaken still of that spell,
Coral beads and jade to buy,
While her thoughts roamed easily-
Thoughts like bees in lavender,--
Thoughts gay and fragile as a robin's shell.
Till suddenly she had come
To grim age-stubborned wall
Behind whose mask of bars
Starts up in shame the Foundling's Hospital.*
At the gates to watch her pass
A caged thing eyed her dumb,
Most mercifully unaware of
Its own hurt, but Madala
Stopped short of Spring that day.
The air grew pinched and wan,
A hand came over the sun,
Birds huddled, stones went grey,
Her lace and linen white
Seemed but her body's sin,
her flesh unscarred and bright
Burnt like a leper's skin.
Her mouth was stale with bread
Flung her by strangers, she was fed,
Housed, fathered by the State, and she had grown
A thing belonged to, and loved, by none.
Though the shut mouth said no word,
[...] Read more
poem by Muriel Stuart
Added by Poetry Lover
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