| |
| OH, listen, for my soul can bear no more; | |
| I crave not pardon; that I cannot win: | |
| Yet hear me, Father, for I must outpour | |
| My tale of deadly sin. | |
| |
| This night I passed through dim and loathsome lairs, | 5 |
| Where dwell foul wretches, that I feared to see: | |
| Yet would to God my lot were such as theirs! | |
| They have not sinned like me. | |
| |
| And then I saw that lovely girl who stood | |
| Here, where I stand, some venial fault to show: | 10 |
| I was as fair, as innocently good, | |
| One long, long year ago. | |
| |
| High thoughts were mine, and yearnings to endure | |
| Some noble grief, and conquer heaven by pain: | |
| Alas, I was a child; my prayers were pure, | 15 |
| Yet were they all in vain. | |
| |
| Love came and stirred my breast; nor fierce or vile, | |
| But springing stainless, like some mountain stream; | |
| And I was happy for a little while, | |
| And lived as in a dream. | 20 |
| |
| Thou art a priest, and dwellest far apart; | |
| In vain I speak of joys thou hast not known: | |
| Even to him I scarce could show my heart, | |
| Although it was his own. | |
| |
| Nay, look not in my face! One night he came, | 25 |
| And I sprang forward, giddy with delight: | |
| Father! His blood-stained hands! His eyes aflame! | |
| His features deadly white! | |
| |
| Ah, wherefore ask me more? Some hated foe— | |
| But ’tis a common tale—thou knowest all: | 30 |
| A word, a gesture; then a sudden blow; | |
| And then—a dead man’s fall. | |
| |
| Dumbly I heard, and could not weep or sigh; | |
| Gone was all power of motion, e’en of breath; | |
| But from my heart rose up one silent cry, | 35 |
| My first wild prayer for death. | |
| |
| “Farewell,” he said, “farewell! Yet bury deep | |
| My bloody secret, that it shall not rise; | |
| Or it will track and slay me, though I sleep | |
| Nameless, ’neath foreign skies.” | 40 |
| |
| Such boon he craved of me, his promised wife: | |
| Earth’s hope, heaven’s joy, for him I lost the whole: | |
| Some give but love, and some have given life, | |
| But I gave up my soul. | |
| |
| “Embrace me not,” I said. But ere he went | 45 |
| One long impassioned kiss he gave me yet: | |
| Still, still we loved—oh, Father, I repent— | |
| Would God I could forget! | |
| |
| Ah, not to fiery love would Christ deny | |
| The gift of mercy that I cannot seek: | 50 |
| Father, a guiltless man was doomed to die, | |
| And yet I did not speak. | |
| |
| Mine was the sin; for me it was he died, | |
| Slain for the murder that my Love had wrought: | |
| How blest was he, when Death’s gate opened wide, | 55 |
| And heaven appeared unsought! | |
| |
| But I, who dared not seek the Virgin’s shrine, | |
| Whose very faith was madness and despair, | |
| Lived lonely, exiled far from Love Divine, | |
| From peace, from hope, from prayer. | 60 |
| |
| None dreamt that I consumed with secret fire, | |
| Nor knew the sin that withered up my youth: | |
| I wasted with a passionate desire | |
| Only to tell the truth. | |
| |
| But now they say that he I love is dead; | 65 |
| Calmly I listen; see, my cheeks are dry; | |
| My heart is palsied, all my tears are shed; | |
| And yet I would not die. | |
| |
| Let me do penances to save his soul, | |
| And pray thy God to lay the guilt on me; | 70 |
| Strong is my spirit; I can bear the whole, | |
| If that will set him free. | |
| |
| For could my expiating woe and shame | |
| Raise him to Paradise, with Christ to dwell, | |
| Then were there joy in purgatorial flame— | 75 |
| Nay, there were Heaven in Hell. | |
| |
| And then, perchance, when countless years are past, | |
| Ages of torment in some fiery sea, | |
| The grace of God may reach to me at last; | |
| Yes, even unto me. | 80 |
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