Little there is beyond a name and date
Upon the pale medallion on the wall
To tell how bird and beast were loved by “Kate”:
“A fount of sympathy” declares it all!

To all dumb things she felt herself akin,
Craving a voice to sing the unexpressed;
Though now she have the lilt of seraphin,
By the world's pathos she were still oppressed.

What is there in the plenitude of Life
To match the open portal of the mind,
Where all may enter with their grief or strife
And in another's art their solace find?

The password to her inner soul was Need;
She read the suffering as an open book;
And empty hearts, sadder than those that bleed,
Knew her by what she gave, not what she took.

Wise was her counsel in confessional;
Her instinct pointed to the surest way.
A woman wronged, perplexed, imperilled—all
A more than sister found in their dismay.

Men brought their secrets as a lover praise,
Knowing her nature was too large for blame.
She had the mother's magic when she lays
Cool unguents on the restless wound aflame.

In this frail world where what we waste or save,
Or do or fail, leaves something to regret,
I envy not the man beside a grave
With naught to be forgiven or forget.

She could forgive—how few who breathe the word
Can compass all the peace that it may mean.
The depth of her disdain, so seldom stirred,
Rippled away and left her soul serene.

Each hour was a new Future, not to be
Soiled by the blot of any error past;
Not by her will but by her nature she
Kept each day free from fetters of the last.

O Strength that lives in Silence! While I miss
The comrade irrecoverably gone,
Give me, of all her rich endowment, this:
The courage to go on, and on, and on.