A woman spends all her strength trying to reconcile two people she loves — two who are deeply estranged yet share the same household. Her days and nights are consumed by this single hope, and the effort wears down her body and heart. Worse, her patient love seems only to make their anger burn hotter. The speaker watches with sympathy and a sense of painful irony: the harder she tries, the further peace seems to move. Then she dies, and in the silence after her passing, the very thing life could not accomplish happens. The two who had not spoken for years stand together, clasp hands, and look at each other with tears. The mood is sorrowful and tender, touched by quiet tragedy — reconciliation arrives, but only through loss, and the woman who wanted it most is not there to see it.
The Reconciler — Summary
She knew but one desire, one single aim Consumed her days and robbed her nights of rest — To reconcile the two whom she loved best, Who, long estranged, yet of one household came; And while for this she strove, her gentle frame And tender heart were often sore distressed, For all her longing love and pain repressed Seemed but as fuel added to the flame.
But on that day of silence when she passed By unseen pathways to the distant spheres, What life had failed to do, death wrought at last, For they who through the long, embittered years Had spoken not, now stood with hands locked fast, And looked into each other's face with tears.