The Cricket in the Path
She passed through the shadowy garden, so tall and so white,
Her eyes on the stars and her face like an angel’s upturned,
And it seemed to my thought that the dusk round her head with the light
Of an aureole burned.
But where she had trodden unseeing, I found on the path
A cricket, so frail that her light foot had maimed it, yet strong
To valiantly pipe, tiny hero, a faint aftermath
Of its yesterday song.
And I whispered, “Alas, Little Brother, why must it befall
That the passing of angels but cripples and leaves us to die?
Poor imp of the greensward, God trumpets me clear in thy call;
Thou art braver than I.
“The Bright Ones of Heaven have trodden me down as they passed;
I crawl in their footsteps a trampled and impotent thing.
I know not the reason, nor question henceforth. To the last,
While I live, I will sing.”
Amelia Josephine Burr