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(Excerpt)
O THE BEAUTIFUL girl, too white, | |
| Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea, | |
| Just where the sea and the Loire unite! | |
| And a boasted name in Brittany | |
| She bore, which I will not write. | 5 |
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| Too white, for the flower of life is red; | |
| Her flesh was the soft, seraphic screen | |
| Of a soul that is meant (her parents said) | |
| To just see earth, and hardly be seen, | |
| And blossom in heaven instead. | 10 |
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| Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair! | |
| One grace that grew to its full on earth: | |
| Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare, | |
| And her waist want half a girdle’s girth, | |
| But she had her great gold hair. | 15 |
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| Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, | |
| Freshness and fragrance,—floods of it, too! | |
| Gold, did I say? Nay, gold ’s mere dross: | |
| Here, Life smiled, “Think what I meant to do!” | |
| And Love sighed, “Fancy my loss!” | 20 |
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| So, when she died, it was scarce more strange | |
| Than that, when some delicate evening dies, | |
| And you follow its spent sun’s pallid range, | |
| There ’s a shoot of color startles the skies | |
| With sudden, violent change,— | 25 |
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| That, while the breath was nearly to seek, | |
| As they put the little cross to her lips, | |
| She changed; a spot came out on her cheek, | |
| A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse, | |
| And she broke forth, “I must speak!” | 30 |
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| “Not my hair!” made the girl her moan,— | |
| “All the rest is gone or to go; | |
| But the last, last grace, my all, my own, | |
| Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know! | |
| Leave my poor gold hair alone!” | 35 |
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| The passion thus vented, dead lay she; | |
| Her parents sobbed their worst on that, | |
| All friends joined in, nor observed degree: | |
| For indeed the hair was to wonder at, | |
| As it spread—not flowing free, | 40 |
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| But curled around her brow, like a crown, | |
| And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap, | |
| And calmed about her neck—ay, down | |
| To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap | |
| I’ the gold, it reached her gown. | 45 |
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| All kissed that face, like a silver wedge | |
| Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair; | |
| E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege, | |
| As he planted the crucifix with care | |
| On her breast, ’twixt edge and edge. | 50 |
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| And thus was she buried, inviolate | |
| Of body and soul, in the very space | |
| By the altar; keeping saintly state | |
| In Pornic church, for her pride of race, | |
| Pure life, and piteous fate. | 55 |
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| And in after-time would your fresh tear fall, | |
| Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, | |
| As they told you of gold both robe and pall, | |
| How she prayed them leave it alone awhile, | |
| So it never was touched at all. | 60 |
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| Years flew; this legend grew at last | |
| The life of the lady; all she had done, | |
| All been, in the memories fading fast | |
| Of lover and friend, was summed in one | |
| Sentence survivors passed: | 65 |
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| To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth; | |
| Had turned an angel before the time: | |
| Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth | |
| Of frailty, all you could count a crime | |
| Was—she knew her gold hair’s worth. | 70 |
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| At little pleasant Pornic church, | |
| It chanced, the pavement wanted repair, | |
| Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch, | |
| A certain sacred space lay bare, | |
| And the boys began research. | 75 |
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| ’T was the space where our sires would lay a saint, | |
| A benefactor,—a bishop, suppose; | |
| A baron with armor-adornments quaint; | |
| A dame with chased ring and jewelled rose, | |
| Things sanctity saves from taint: | 80 |
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| So we come to find them in after-days, | |
| When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds | |
| Of use to the living, in many ways; | |
| For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds, | |
| And the church deserves the praise. | 85 |
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| They grubbed with a will: and at length—O cor | |
| Humanum, pectora cæca, and the rest!— | |
| They found—no gauds they were prying for, | |
| No ring, no rose, but—who would have guessed?— | |
| A double Louis-d’or! | 90 |
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| Here was a case for the priest: he heard, | |
| Marked, inwardly digested, laid | |
| Finger on nose, smiled, “A little bird | |
| Chirps in my ear”; then, “Bring a spade, | |
| Dig deeper!”—he gave the word. | 95 |
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| And lo! when they came to the coffin-lid, | |
| Or the rotten planks which composed it once, | |
| Why, there lay the girl’s skull wedged amid | |
| A mint of money, it served for the nonce | |
| To hold in its hair-heaps hid. * * * * * | 100 |
| Louis-d’ors, some six times five; | |
| And duly double, every piece. | |
| Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive, | |
| With parents preventing her soul’s release | |
| By kisses that keep alive,— | 105 |
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| With Heaven’s gold gates about to ope, | |
| With friends’ praise, gold-like, lingering still, | |
| What instinct had bidden the girl’s hand grope | |
| For gold, the true sort—“Gold in Heaven, I hope; | |
| But I keep earth’s, if God will!” | 110 |
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| Enough! The priest took the grave’s grim yield; | |
| The parents, they eyed that price of sin | |
| As if thirty pieces lay revealed | |
| On the place to bury strangers in, | |
| The hideous Potter’s Field. | 115 |
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| But the priest bethought him: “‘Milk that ’s spilt’— | |
| You know the adage! Watch and pray! | |
| Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt! | |
| It would build a new altar; that, we may!” | |
| And the altar therewith was built. | 120 |
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| Why I deliver this horrible verse? | |
| As the text of a sermon, which now I preach: | |
| Evil or good may be better or worse | |
| In the human heart, but the mixture of each | |
| Is a marvel and a curse. | 125 |
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| The candid incline to surmise of late | |
| That the Christian faith may be false, I find; | |
| For our Essays-and-Reviews’ debate | |
| Begins to tell on the public mind, | |
| And Colenso’s words have weight: | 130 |
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| I still, to suppose it true, for my part, | |
| See reasons and reasons; this, to begin: | |
| ’T is the faith that launched point-blank her dart | |
| At the head of a lie,—taught Original Sin, | |
| The Corruption of Man’s Heart. | 135 |
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