A little hand came knocking on my door:
“Let me turn in: I won’t be bad no more!”
A little voice in tearful murmur plead-
Somehow I wish that I had long been dead
Ere from her knocking I could turn away,
Ere to her pleading I could answer nay,
Or yet refuse to ope and let her in,
Who had so little done of guile or sin.
Strong as we are to live and do the right,
We are weak men in anger, we who fight
The daily battle, bravely and serene,
Until at home cross-currents intervene;
A word or action wearies us, and lo,
Unto our bolted privacy we go,
Forgetting love, forgetting to be mild
To patient wife and little pleading child!
O little hand, that knocked so long for me!
O little voice, with teardrops in your plea!
Out of my silent chamber I would fly
If I could hear once more your plaintive cry,
If I could reach across the vanished years
And lift you up and wipe away the tears
And through these passionate memories in eclipse
Lay my forgiveness on your little lips!
No bolt or bar upon my door tonight!
Here at the window in the evenlight
I lean my ears to summon once again
The sound of memory in its sweet refrain,
And as the zephyr sweeps the apple bloom;
I lean, O dear one, to thy little tomb!
I call to thee across the mists to come-
Why art thou silent and the echoes dumb?
You would be welcome, darling, if you came
In the soft night of summer, or the flame
Of dewey morning on the green-girt hill,
With your immortal lips to kiss and thrill
O door that closed upon you that fair day,
It should be opened, little one, to stay,
For grief has taught me through the contrite years
The cost of anger when we pay with tears!
(Folger McKinsey)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Night Poems, War & Peace Poems, Cry Poems, Home Poems, Summer Poems, Anger Poems, Sin Poems, Memory Poems, Romantic Love PoemsBased on Keywords: privacy, teardrops, wearies, contrite, dewey, green-girt, cross-currents