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Translated by Edward Churton
GOOD measure of the seed that fell | |
| Not on rude thorns or arid stone, | |
| But the kind earth requited well | |
| With plenteous fruit, five score for one, | |
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| Was found in this good Saint, whose worth, | 5 |
| Appraised by lawful standard now, | |
| From Avila that gave her birth | |
| Prompts far and near the bedesman’s vow. | |
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| For not alone of grain so pure | |
| She gave full measure, just and true, | 10 |
| She brought, the treasure to secure, | |
| The girding cord and sackcloth too. | |
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| A saintly patriarch, two in one | |
| She played her part, in both entire, | |
| Now Angelo, half friar, half nun, | 15 |
| Teresa now, half nun, half friar. | |
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| In dreams she soared to Carmel’s height, | |
| And saw perchance the bush that bloomed, | |
| Wrapt in a shroud of fiery light | |
| With buds of glory unconsumed. | 20 |
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| Thence to the world returning down, | |
| She walked unsandalled evermore; | |
| But in strong tables, firm as stone, | |
| Her reverend Code Reformed she bore. | |
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| Or, like the Tishbite’s follower blest, | 25 |
| She tracked the car of heavenly love | |
| That bore him to his endless rest, | |
| And caught his mantle from above: | |
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| Thence love-inspired, to earth’s dark ways | |
| She turned, her convent-homes to rear, | 30 |
| In number like the nights and days | |
| In Spain’s star-spangled hemisphere. | |
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| Her convent-homes for souls distressed | |
| She reared, celestial sojournings, | |
| Whereto poor mourners flew for rest, | 35 |
| Like bees at eve with weary wings. | |
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| With such wise zeal her spirit glowed, | |
| With language meet for gray-haired men, | |
| The counsels from her lips that flowed | |
| Had graced a mitred prelate’s pen. | 40 |
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| Twin lights of Avila’s fair town | |
| They live, Tostado, learned sire, | |
| Whose lamp of truth shall ne’er burn down, | |
| And now Teresa’s signal-fire. | |
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| In Avila, right nobly born, | 45 |
| She grew, and Nature gave beside | |
| Such beauty as might well adorn | |
| The state of Juno’s bird of pride. | |
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| The rose, the lily in her cheek | |
| So graced her crystal form so fair, | 50 |
| That Flattery’s glossing could not speak | |
| Of charms that Nature gave not there. | |
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| But in the springtide of her youth, | |
| Proof to the fond, beguiling sin, | |
| The fragile crystal kept the truth, | 55 |
| The firmness of the rock within. | |
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| Unheeded round that virgin form | |
| The twines of flaunting flattery played; | |
| They withered, as at touch of worm | |
| The wanton Spring’s waste tendrils fade. | 60 |
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| So unbeguiled and fancy-free | |
| She like the bowering cedar grew, | |
| And pilgrims to that sheltering tree | |
| From heat or storm to covert flew. | |
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| Her penitential followers pale, | 65 |
| In ashy cowls, might match the crowd, | |
| That to the prophet’s boding wail | |
| At Nineveh in ashes bowed. | |
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| Such citizens from Europe wide | |
| Did this good anchorite enroll, | 70 |
| Till mortal urn no more might hide | |
| The flame of her ethereal soul. | |
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| O host of penitents so fair, | |
| That drink of Camel’s living springs, | |
| Whose forms the gown of camlet wear | 75 |
| With glory like an angel’s wings; | |
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| Religion, spread as soon as born, | |
| All flowering, while its plant was young; | |
| All fruitful on its virgin thorn; | |
| Forgive my too presumptuous song; | 80 |
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| Forgive me, if among your swans, | |
| Like the vain daw, I dare to come, | |
| To greet the Saint’s bright sun that dawns | |
| O’er her clear stream and mountain-home; | |
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| Forgive me, when her wondrous worth | 85 |
| More than loud trumpet’s voice might need, | |
| If I her praise sound weakly forth | |
| On my poor dull-toned shepherd’s reed. | |
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| Good mother, who her twofold flock | |
| Did in one blended rule combine, | 90 |
| As the good dresser from one stock | |
| Rears the twin boughs of one fair vine. | |
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| Laborers at every hour she drew | |
| To till her vineyard, man and maid, | |
| To tasks the vain world never knew, | 95 |
| Taught in the convent’s cloistered shade: | |
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| To hair-cloth, foe to soft delight, | |
| That with frail flesh so fiercely wars, | |
| Its bristling edge, like file, might bite | |
| E’en through the convent-grating bars; | 100 |
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| Or rather, like to horsehair sieves | |
| Sifting the corn-heaps fair and even, | |
| It purges out all husks, and gives | |
| The grain in measure pure for heaven. | |
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| Wise virgin! she with livelong toil | 105 |
| The watcher’s lamp so firm to bear, | |
| Has left her store of sacred oil | |
| To sparkle from her sepulchre; | |
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| And it shall burn more bright with years, | |
| Unwasted, till the Bridegroom come, | 110 |
| And the good seed she sowed in tears, | |
| Return in sheaves of gladness home. | |
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