To Mary Helen

Soul in Sleep

I watch you sleep at peace in troubled days,

Sleep of the Innocent who bear the wounds

The world inflicts with quiet dignity.

Floating through dreams as on buoyant seas,

Unteared your face, unstained its radiance,

Aglow, attuned to finer harmonies,

Those mysteries beyond our sight and sense,

And on your brow divine tranquillity.

Still I watch unknowing where you perchance

Do soar, but on your beauty ever I glance

And know your secret soul with God communes

Illumining my life with lambent rays.

I shall gather in sheaves your acts of tenderness

For I have reaped far more than I have sown

Your simplest gifts are felt as His caress

And surely by your touch my soul has grown.