Publicans And Sinners

I have not pitied those whose lives
   were sin,
And shame and sorrow, pain and
   poverty,
Not half so much as those whose
   even way
Leads changeless onward, dull and
   stark and gray.

For I have seen them on a winter
   night
Make friends of foes and hold high
   revelry
While those whose souls were up-
   ward bound to God
Have passed each other by without
   a nod.

Gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes
   and thieves,
Look with what pious pains we plot
   their doom!
With what religions and what gov-
   ernments
We conjure, to deny them standing
   room !
And like the Pharisee we still
   condemn
The Christ who pours out wine, or
   weeps with them.

New York Call, May, 1921.

^__Elizabeth N. Barr.

The High Winds of Home
Elizabeth N. Barr
(Olathe: privately published. 1922)
Pages 34-35