“What does this woman thank God for?”
The other women said,
Looking on one who knelt apart
With lifted head.
“What is this marvelous ecstasy
That shines within her eyes?
Has she more rapturous joy than we?
Is she more wise?”
The woman heeded not; she kissed
The beads of her rosary;
And last she kissed the cross, and said,
“God, I thank Thee!
“None knoweth why I thank Thee, God,
Save Thou―Thou who art wise!” . . .
The light grew on her face; she smiled
Into God’s eyes.
“Thanksgiving” as it appears in Higginson’s The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).