Page:The Dial (Volume 69).djvu/682

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MALGRE LUI


Up to a crowded hill, where God's regard Was fixed upon her, and He gravely said:


"Anne Kinfoot, worthy mother and good wife, Your weakness and your faults are all forgiven. Go you, my child, to everlasting life, And take your husband also up to Heaven."


But she could see the Counsellors and Kings And brilliant bearers of a famous name, Tangled with snakes and horrid crawling things, Sent down to torture and eternal flame.


Then Mrs Kinfoot lied in agony: "Oh, Lord, I am as others of my class and station." She cried: "Oh, have me bound and burnt and gored, Oh, send me down to suffer my damnation!


"T swear I beat my children." Oh! despondent She was. "I am a sinner; I will tell How I escaped a ducal co-respondent Last year. My God, I must insist on Hell!"


But the great Judge was not deceived. He knew The worthy virtue of the Kinfoot line; Yet as she went to Heaven, constant, true, To principle, she murmured: 'Will you dine


To meet .. ." But dragged away, she dwells on high And notes, but rather disapproves, the eccentricity Of Saints and early Christians who try To lessen the burden of her domesticity.


She has to play upon a golden harp, Join in the chorus of the Heavenly choir; Her answers to the Saints are sometimes sharp, She longs to singe her wings and share the fire.

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