MEA CULPA

Be pitiful, my God! No hard-won gifts I bring— But empty, pleading hands To Thee at evening. Spring came, white-browed and young, I, too, was young with Spring. There was a blue, blue heaven Above a skylark’s wing. Youth is the time for joy, I cried, it is not meet To mount the heights of toil With child-soft feet. When Summer walked the land In Passion’s red arrayed, Under green sweeping boughs My couch I made. The noon-tide heat was sore, I slept the Summer through; An angel waked me—“Thou Hast work to do.” I rose and saw the sheaves Upstanding in a row; The reapers sang Thy praise While passing to and fro.

My hands were soft with ease, Long were the Autumn hours; I left the ripened sheaves For poppy-flowers. But lo! now Winter glooms, And gray is in my hair, Whither has flown the world I found so fair? My patient God, forgive! Praying Thy pardon sweet I lay a lonely heart Before Thy feet.