University of Virginia Library

No—nothing more—forgive me if there be,
Sweet Mary-mother! but I do believe
There is no remnant left of what I was,
Nor any coward corner of my being
But feels the biting caustic gnaw and burn
And blister out its black obdurate stains
Of self unmortified; Oh, I have grown
The bride of Christ indeed!

Why have I not
Squeezed out and crush'd the scanty dribbling dregs
Of feminine nature that were yet unwrung,
And plunged in poison every yearning impulse,
And wholly drown'd the woman in the saint?
Have I been timid? Have I spared to drive
Right thro' the cankrous centre of my heart
Full many a hissing iron, that should kill
That venom'd core of feeling utterly?
Have I not choked the foul, unchasten'd will—
Lash'd with due stripes the elemental sin
Out of my wincing body, and tamed down
With hungry fastings oft the rank and gross
Unsanctified luxuriance of my flesh
In the bad days of girlhood,—and am clothed
With holy leanness like a child of God?
Do I not murder every wish and thought
That stirs beyond these walls, and quite abjure
And—and—yes, hate the presage horrible
That tells me such are coming? Do I not
Unwearied scour the circle of my soul
Lest any leavings of the world be there,—
And with delirious fury persecute
And hound thro' nook and crevice as they fly
Those wilful obstinate memories of home,
And things more dear, that used, O fatal sin!
To lie like mists upon my breviary,—
Till they are—almost—dead?....

It must be right;
'Tis not for women who are rich in faith,
Zealous in love, baptized with special grace
To follow Him along the path of Life,—
'Tis not for them to thread the lowly track
That Nature marks, to let the—Kyrie!
What means this quiver?—let the name of Love
Be whisper'd in their ears, nor waste their smiles
Upon a husband's face—their prayers profane
Over a household's welfare; nor descend
To soil the exquisite tissue of their lives
With common occupations: how should she,
Who should aye touch her beaded orisons
To listening saints, imbrue herself for ever
In loathsome coil of coarse domestic dues
Most alien to a woman, and consent,
Making a duty of a hideous sin,
To gird herself with children as a curse,
And all forsake the excellent reward
Of isolated virtue, to make one
Of those weak hearts who stoop to be the bridge
That links the generations? or how choose
To think them aught but false, who feign to see
E'en from her cradle the unveiling years
Mapp'd out for work and action in the world,—
Who prate of use, and purpose, and an end,—
And talk how she is queen of all that's fair,
And should with tide unfailing and sincere
Set the pure current of her influence
Thro' human hearts,—and should be full of nerve,
And quiet modest strength, to labour on
Beside the hearth, and in her several sphere
Teach the great things to flourish, or the small;
A mission'd spirit, having it at heart
Not less than man, to beautify and bless
And move to higher paths her native age.—
Oh, errors false and damnable! yet once—
But I have pruned those vagrant sympathies
As our good mother bade—“This is thy home;
Leave the blind age to swelter in its pools
Of reeking sin, and drift—and drift”—alas,
I must believe it!—“hopelessly to Hell.”
Oh, that some voice of penitence and prayer
Might reach those doom'd ones! That from every side
And sloping surface of the domed earth,
Perplex'd with clotted sweets—which, if I dared
Skim from its breast the leprous crust of sin
That once I saw not, I should call most fair—
That hence all forms of Woman, all that looks
Thro' feminine eyes and wears the sex of Eve,
Were banded up in one great sisterhood
Of pure and resolute virgins; then indeed
The human world would be divine!

But hush!
Saints are not human; their refined and rare
And immaterial natures are buoy'd up
From touch defiling of the vulgar soil,
And rais'd to meditative height supreme
Above the herd of sinners. And they say
I am in steady growth to be a saint:
Yet have I felt as if our woman's heart
Did need a something human, on the which
To lean, and prop your panting bosom up,
And bare yourself to the core, awakening
Thro' that close pressure dear responsive throbs
Born of your own—a something more than these
Creations evanescent of the brain,
And far abstractions of a differing world,
That do support us here. But, O forgive—
I have long striven and battled with the thought,—
Jesu-Maria, save me!

Yes, 'tis well;
I think I'm happy—penance does me good:
And Father Simon is a holy man:
And contemplation is a blessed thing:
And not a maiden ever loved her God
But school'd herself as I do, to the quick:—
Yes, I am—very—happy. Is it long
This method takes to make one ripe for Heaven?