And out of his poor banishment he would walk,
She followed him, knowing the very hour,
And all her heart was flooded through with pity,
Because she knew the leprosy left still
A Naaman untainted and lovely. 
Then in her mind was the proud woman a loathing,
Who dared to waste a marvel such as this,
The right in the world’s knowledge so to love. 
O pitiful evil blasting so great a flesh,
Walling a spirit so governing itself
In spite of desolation.  A maid’s thought thus
Knew how the frames of mastery can suffer.

.....

Sometimes at night when not even lepers walked,
Solitary in the Syrian meadows she
Would wander in the old perplexity
That the moon makes of love.  Never, she knew,
Could any adoration that she brought
Touch even the Lord Naaman’s banishment,
The Naaman fallen from the time when even
Great ladies dare not speak the thing they felt. 
She was nothing, or the world could never know
If she was more than nothing; a maid to bind
Tresses for beauty that was not her own. 
And yet she knew that she had beauty too,
A little hermit beauty that might spend
Royally if it dare and a man would speak,—­
Royally, Naaman, but he could not hear. 
But still for all the silence of her lips,
And heart with promise nothing known, she loved—­
Loved the sad leper walking in the dusk,
Loved the great lord, loved even his leprosy,
Since by it he came a little down to her,
Loved him, and knew that her love was the sum
Of all that loving, and must be.  But even so,
She knew her love an honester thing than any
That the proud woman had.  O moon, she thought,
Could you not make me truly tell this love,
This love pulsing along my blood and brain,
As midnight surges going through the sky? 
And long she pondered how she best might serve.

.....

Then one day when the fans moved, and she stood
Ministering with her perfumes at the couch,
Her mistress, with eyes that meant the thought was nothing,
Said, “Is it not grievous that my lord goes thus?”
And the maid felt the colour at her throat
Flow round her neck and flood up to her temples,
But knowing, feared not, or put her fear aside,
And said “Would God my lord were in Samaria,
To seek Elisha there, a prophet, lady,
Whom God hath taught to cure whom he will cure.” 
She spoke, and the bright bowl trembled in her hands,
And fear because of her words made the tongue dry
As the woman looked with still cold eyes upon her. 
But the word passed from lip to lip, and the king
Heard it, and sent for Naaman and said,
“A girl among the slaves that you brought in
From Israel has spoken a strange thing,
Of one Elisha, a prophet whom they obey,
Saying that he could bid the blemish off
That is cheating Syria of her proudest man. 
Now therefore journey to him, and I will send
Word to Israel’s king, that he shall bless
Favours from us in whom his fortune lies,
Bidding him call this prophet to your cause. 
Go, and the love of Syria go with you.”