O better at rest where the crooning dove
May sing requiem o'er thy bed,
Sweet Robin aflame with love's sign on his breast
With quick light footstep tread;
While over the sod the Birds of God
Their guardian feathers outspread!

Too womanly sweet, too womanly frail,
Alone in thy faith and thy need;
In the homeless home, in the poisonous air
Of spite and libel and greed;
Mid perfidy's net thy pathway is set,
And thy feet in the pitfalls bleed.

--O lightnings, not lightnings of Heaven, that flare
Through the desolate House in the Field!
Craft that the Fiend had envied in vain;
Till the terrible Day unreveal'd,--
Till the Angels rejoice at the Verdict-voice,
And Mary's pardon is seal'd!

As a bird from the mesh of the fowler freed
With wild wing shatters the air,
From shelter to shelter, betray'd, she flees,
Or lured to some treacherous lair,
And the vulture-cry of the enemy nigh,
And the heavens dark with despair!

Bright lily of France, by the storm stricken low,