Long and still was her gaze while they chafèd him there
And breathed in the mouth whose last life had kissed her,
But when they stood up – only they! with a start
The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart:
She has lived, and forgone him!
XXV
And low on his body she droppeth adown —
"Didst call me thine own wife, belovèd – thine own?
Then take thine own with thee! thy coldness is warm
To the world's cold without thee! Come, keep me from harm
In a calm of thy teaching!"
XXVI
She looked in his face earnest-long, as in sooth
There were hope of an answer, and then kissed his mouth,
And with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly, —
"Now, O God, take pity – take pity on me!
God, hear my beseeching!"
XXVII
She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay,
She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day:
Wild she sprang to her feet, – "I surrender to thee
The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary, —
I am ready for dying!"
XXVIII
She dashed it in scorn to the marble-paved ground
Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird music-sound
Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim, —
As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn
And moaned in the trying.
FOURTH PART
Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk:
"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk.
I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro,
Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below.
All things are the same, but I, – only I am dreary,
And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary.
"Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring
And smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering:
The bees will find out other flowers – oh, pull them, dearest mine,
And carry them and carry me before Saint Agnes' shrine."
– Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring,
And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring.
She looked up to the pictured saint and gently shook her head —
"The picture is too calm for me– too calm for me," she said:
"The little flowers we brought with us, before it we may lay,
For those are used to look at heaven, – but I must turn away,
Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear to gaze
On God's or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face."
She spoke with passion after pause – "And were it wisely done
If we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone?
If we whose virtue is so weak should have a will so strong,
And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong?
To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and heaven, —
A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times seven?
A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast, —
Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!"
Then breaking into tears, – "Dear God," she cried, "and must we see
All blissful things depart from us or ere we go to Thee?
We cannot guess Thee in the wood or hear Thee in the wind?
Our cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind?
Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal, to need thee on that road,
But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God.'"
Her mother could not speak for tears; she ever musèd thus,
"The bees will find out other flowers, – but what is left for us?"
But her young brother stayed his sobs and knelt beside her knee,
– "Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast never a word for me?"
She passed her hand across his face, she pressed it on his cheek,
So tenderly, so tenderly – she needed not to speak.
The wreath which lay on shrine that day, at vespers bloomed no more.
The woman fair who placed it there had died an hour before.
Both perished mute for lack of root, earth's nourishment to reach.
O reader, breathe (the ballad saith) some sweetness out of each!
A ROMANCE OF THE GANGES
I
Seven maidens 'neath the midnight
Stand near the river-sea
Whose water sweepeth white around
The shadow of the tree;
The moon and earth are face to face,
And earth is slumbering deep;
The wave-voice seems the voice of dreams
That wander through her sleep:
The river floweth on.