http://digital.lib.buffalo.edu/upimage/PCMS-0132_1_81.pdf

Media

Part of Clipping of The Little Portress with corrections, undated

Text

____....
THE LITTLE PORTRESS.

[ 88 ]

"Soeur Marie de l'enfant Jesus,"
You wrote it in my little bookYour shadow-name. Your shadow-look
Is dimmer and diviner too,
But not to keep : it slips so far
Beyond us to that golden bar

TheLittle Portress.
(St. Gilda de Rhuys.)

THEstillness of the sunshine lies

.

,

[✓, Upon her spirit: silence seems

To look out from its place of dreams
When suddenly she lifts her eyes
To waken, for a little space,
The smile asleep upon her face.
A thousand years of sun and shower,
The melting of unnumbered snows
Go to the making of the rose
Which blushes out its little hour.
So old is Beauty: in its heart
The ages seem to meet and part.
Like Beauty's self, she holds a clear
Deep memory of hidden thingsThe music of forgotten springsSo far she travels back, so near
She seems to stand to patient truth
As old as Age, as young as Youth.
That is her window, by the gate.
Now and again her figure flits
Across the wall. Long hours she sits
Within : on all who come to wait.
Her Saviour too is hanging there
A foot or so above her chair

-

Where angels, watching from their stair,
Half-envy you your tranquil days
Of prayer
as exquisite as praiseGrey twilights softer than their glare
Of glory : all sweet human things
Which vanish with the whirr of wings.
Yet will you, when you wing your way
To whiter worlds, more whitely shine
Or shed a radiance more divine
Than here you shed from day to day-High in His heaven a quiet star,
Be nearer God than now you are ?

CHAR

Reproductions from the Charlotte Mew Digital Collection are provided courtesy of the
University at Buffalo Libraries.

Preferred Citation:
[Title], Digital Collections - University at Buffalo Libraries, accessed [date accessed], [URL].