Explore "Margaret of Cortona" by Edith Wharton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
FRA PAOLO, since they say the end is near, / And you of all men have the gentlest eyes, / Most like our father Francis; since you know / How I have toiled and prayed and scourged and striven, / Mothered the orphan, waked beside the sick, / Gone empty that mine enemy might eat, / Given bread for stones in famine years, and channelled / With vigilant knees the pavement of this cell, / Till I constrained the Christ upon the wall / To bend His thorn-crowned Head in mute forgiveness . . .
Three times He bowed it. (but the whole stands writ, / Sealed with the Bishop's signet, as you know), / Once for each person of the Blessed Three -- / A miracle that the whole town attests, / The very babes thrust forward for my blessing, / And either parish plotting for my bones -- / Since this you know: sit near and bear with me.