A woman trod the city street
And blessed it by her passing feet.
So calm a step and so serene
A brow had graced some honored queen
Within whose crown had long been worn,
Beneath the gems a bleeding thorn,
But who upon her queendom stood,
Above her tortured womanhood,
And ruled her loyal people well,
Because she ruled herself. So fell
This woman's presence on the street,
Made purer by her passing feet.
Though humbly clad, her lifted face
Was lighted by so fine a grace
Men turned to note the way she took,
Or met, with conscious, startled look,
The soul that leaned from out her eyes,
Intense and pitiful and wise; —
A wondrous, wistful, solemn gaze,
To be remembered through the days.
Her name it is not mine to know,
Nor what strange youth had left her so.
I know she passed me, while I stood
Surprised by sense of brotherhood.
The long street wavered, and I saw
The beauty of the starry law
By which each shifting figure moved
My fellow and my friend beloved.
And trembling with the sweet, new sense,
The rapture of benevolence,
I looked for her whose glance could find
The secret spring of humankind,
But she had vanished down the street,
To bless it by her passing feet.