Mea Culpa Poem by Anna Johnston MacManus

Be pitiful, my God!
No hard-won gifts I bring–
But empty, pleading hands
To Thee at evening.

Spring came, white-browed and young,
I, too, was young with Spring.
There was a blue, blue heaven
Above a skylark's wing.

Youth is the time for joy,
I cried, it is not meet
To mount the heights of toil
With child-soft feet.

When Summer walked the land
In Passion's red arrayed,
Under green sweeping boughs
My couch I made.

The noon-tide heat was sore,
I slept the Summer through;
An angel waked me–'Thou
Hast work to do.'

I rose and saw the sheaves
Upstanding in a row;
The reapers sang Thy praise
While passing to and fro.

My hands were soft with ease,
Long were the Autumn hours;
I left the ripened sheaves
For poppy-flowers.

But lo! now Winter glooms,
And gray is in my hair,
Whither has flown the world
I found so fair?

My patient God, forgive!
Praying Thy pardon sweet
I lay a lonely heart
Before Thy feet.