Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PILGRIMAGE, by NANCY BARR MAVITY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PILGRIMAGE, by                    
First Line: I put off my smoke-dimmed garment
Last Line: And my heart sang aloud for a sign!
Subject(s): Pilgrimages & Pilgrims; Wellesley College


I PUT off my smoke-dimmed garment,
I put on white for gray;
For I would go on pilgrimage
At the opening of the day;

To a nameless saint, whose altar
Is hidden I know not where,
To be healed of the heavy sickness
My soul like a cloak must wear.

The dull brown road before me
Like a fluttering pennon ran;
And the tingling dust in my nostrils
Smelled sweeter than roses can.

The wayside shrines were many --
But which was the one I sought?
One was of ancient branches
With murmuring leaves inwrought;

One a sun-dazzled wheat field
Where the wind made a shadow road
That rippled and wavered and beckoned,
And in streams unchannelled flowed.

One lay where the moonlight-colour
Of oats, green-silvered, shone;
And one where the purpling clover
Close to my feet had grown.

But the brown road fled before me,
And would not let me stay
To kneel at the shrines of the wayside,
To lift up my heart and pray.

So who was the saint, I know not,
Who quiet healing wrought;
For the road that had turned like a fancy,
Lay straight as an iron thought;

Led back to my house of labour,
To my garment of smoke-dimmed grey,
And home from my pilgrimaging
At the closing of the day.

But lo! It was girdled with sunshine
(O where was the miracle shrine?)
And my garment shone as the rainbow,
And my heart sang aloud for a sign!





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