| |
(Excerpt)
FAIR, saint of passion, placidly reclining, | |
| Thy glowing breast contained in marble death, | |
| While Love’s soft planet on thy brow is shining, | |
| A sister heart to thine would lend its breath. | |
| |
| ’T is with a thrill of joy I see beside thee | 5 |
| The form that might not pass the convent grate, | |
| And gather that the happiness denied thee | |
| On earth makes blessed thine immortal state. | |
| |
| Not as Love’s votary do I invoke thee, | |
| Nor as the glorious sibyl of despair; | 10 |
| But as the nun, when deeper voices woke thee | |
| From thy wild fever-dream to toil and prayer. * * * * * | |
| And here begins to mine thy spirit’s mission: | |
| How fared it with thee, in thy cloister cell? | |
| Did heaven console thee with its dreams elysian, | 15 |
| Or felt thy plundered heart the flames of hell? | |
| |
| When thy first force of agony went from thee, | |
| And left thee stunned and swooning, faint and dull, | |
| How did thy garb of holiness become thee? | |
| Was it ennobling? was it weariful? | 20 |
| |
| The saints who were thy refuge, grew they vengeful, | |
| Or smiled they mournfully on thy retreat? | |
| Hadst thou repose after a fate so changeful? | |
| Did God’s dear love make expiation sweet? | |
| |
| Say, did that soul of temper so elastic, | 25 |
| Like a bent bow, of its own tension break; | |
| Or did the chaos of thy thoughts grow plastic, | |
| And from the hand divine new moulding take? | |
| |
| For it was long,—through many a tedious morrow | |
| Thy wildered mind its task austere pursued, | 30 |
| Scourged on by conscience, driven back by sorrow, | |
| A Queen of Phantoms, ruling solitude. | |
| |
