The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Does any one know about Amory Hill?
What an unrestful mind she had,
Questioning everything, good and bad,
Subtle in thought, and firm of will!
Beautiful, too, in her way: but what
Ever could come of a girl like that?

Oh, you remember the large grey eyes;
What a keen look in them did lie,
Fain to be told the reason why
We ever held anything true or wise!
And say what you might, she would still find out,
Somehow or other, a ground for doubt.

Under the Word she must see the Thing,
Never content with the neatest phrase;
The coin might be of the ancient days,
But still she must try if it truly ring,
And bite it too with her dainty teeth,
For it migth look well, and be false beneath.

No matter how old a lie might be,
Age, she said, could not make it true;
No matter though truth be fresh and new,
It was the pleasanter sight to see,
Like a fresh star your eyes behold
Where never a star had been seen of old.

Liked! how could she be liked, a girl
Who'd squat her down in a quiet nook
Out of the way, with a folio book,
While all the rest of us were in a whirl
Of work or talk? And she did not heed,
If only we left her at peace to read.

Of course, her doubts and her questions tried
Every one's patience, more or less,
And the older folk, when they felt the stress,
Were fain their ignorance to hide,
And sent her off, with a sharp rebuke,
Back again to her folio book.

Somehow she never took it ill,
Whatsoever you chanced to say;
But not in the least did it change her way;
She soon had another question still:
Never the same one twice, for now
She would puzzle it out by herself somehow.

What could come of a girl like that,
Who would not walk on the common road,
Who fretted at bearing the common load,
And did not know what she would be at,
And was not sure of the common creed,
And gave not her dress a moment's heed?

O Amory Hill! Amory Hill!
And yet how good she was and nice,
Scorning a meanness, and hating a vice,
With a brave true heart and a patient will,
Loving the truth, and not afraid!—
What has come of the grey-eyed maid?

II

I thought you had heard of Amory Hill:
It made at the time a mighty stir,
But nobody now-a-days thinks of her.
We wonder at nothing, good or ill,
After two or three days are past—
That is enough for a comet to last.

Amory grew, as you might expect,
From a doubting, questioning, restless elf

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To a woman who brooded by herself
About the Church, and the Lord's Elect,
About the fate of the quick and dead,
Doubting the more, the more she read.

At a Revival some one got
A hold of her for a little while;
And she sang their hymns with an angel's smile,
And tried to live on their shallow thought;
But back the questions came, and then
Oh, she was deep in her doubts again.

She writ a Book that I tried to read,
But could not tell what it was about—
Just like thoughts that she had thrown out
Into the darkness of thought and deed,
And heard them in the silence roll
Back again on her yearning soul.

Poor girl! she wandered, here and there,
From pastures green where the grace was rife,
Seeking the Way and the Truth and the Life,
And finding but shadows and dim despair,
Till she came to the perilous brink of Faith,
Beyond which lieth the realm of death.

Star after star had all gone out,
Darkest night was on all her sky;
And moaning as one who is ready to die,
Ah me! she said, Must I live without
God and His Christ and the hope divine,
That erewhile gladdened this life of mine?

Then one laid hold of her, drew her back
From the dismal gloom of that deadly brink,
Told her that now she must cease to think,
And then no wisdom her soul should lack;
If to the Church she would only bow,
It would do all of her thinking now.

Bland his speech was, and mild his look;
Was he an angel come from heaven
To save the soul that was tempest-driven
There where in terror and pain it shook?
And what had all of her thinking brought,
Except despair of all certain thought?

So straightway into his arms she fell,
Cast away Reason, and swallowed the Creeds,
Mumbled her aves, and counted her beads,
And said it was good in peace to dwell
With Nuns who had not a thought in their head—
But is it the peace of the living or dead?

She does much good to the sick and poor,
Going about in that quaint odd dress
With the little book which her fingers press:
But then she did quite as much good before,
For Amory Hill was always sweet,
And came like a sunbeam along the street.

III

Who would know me for Amory Hill,
Once the plague and the tease of School,
Querying lesson, and breaking rule?
And yet I fear I am Amory still,

355

Under the white cap and the hood
Of the patient, merciful Sisterhood.

I've tried, till I think there is no use trying
To be anything other than I was made;
I've sought the light, and I've sought the shade,
I've crushed my thought, when it rose defying,
I've nursed submission, and fondled pain,
Yet ever the thoughts come back again.

Weary, I'm weary; what shall I do?
Oh, will that chatter of theirs not cease?
Here I had hoped to have quiet peace
In the daily round of duties true,
And the tranquil hymn, and the whis— pered prayer,
Freed from the burden of trouble and care.

Once I wrestled, in earnest thought,
With weighty problems of truth and faith,
With the high issues of life and death,
And what we should not do, what we ought:
But here our wrestle is not to think—
Can it be more sinful to see than wink?

Does God, indeed, mean that we should not bear
The burden of thought? or fashion a life
Of peace, instead of the noble strife
Inspiring ever the soul to dare,
And make fresh conquests, if it may,
On the realm of darkness, day by day?

Oh, but this is rebellion, this is sin:
So they tell me, and I have tried
To crush it out, and have done, beside,
Many a penance for letting it in.
But is it sinful? and can it be right
To close the shutters, when God is Light?

This is the hour when they sit and talk,
Oh such nothings! and not without
Touches of malice too, all about
What they saw in the daily walk
To visit the sick and the poor, when they
Looked on the world and its wicked way.

But why is the world more wicked than they?
They were silly girls ere they tool the vow,
And they're just as silly sisters now.
Ribbons and gawds may be put away,
And love and marriage be counted shame,
Yet heart and mind may be still the same.

How should they differ from what they were?—
Hear! how they chatter as school-girls do,
And gossip about the folk they knew,
And who was married, and who was there:—
I blame them not, if they did not blame
The world as wicked for doing the same.

Are all the people who try to do good
As little-minded as those I've known?
Ere I came here, how I used to groan
At Dorcas meetings in angry mood!
And the District Visitors need, I'm sure,
Quite as much visiting as the poor.

Oh, how I shrank from the vulgar talk.
The fuss, and the hard mechanical way
Of saving so many souls a day
By dropping tracts in a morning walk!
Not so, I said, would the work be done
Here by the consecrated Nun.

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But here or there, it is all the same,
The talk alike, and the fuss and fret,
And the vulgar methods of clearing debt,
And the mechanical ways and lame
For doing of spiritual work, without
The faintest thought what you are about.

And then this drilling of hands and lips!
So many hours of work a day,
So many hours to praise and pray,
All of our time cut into snips,
And just as you get your mind in swing,
There goes the bell with its ting, ting, ting!

Was I mistaken in coming here?
Was it a hasty step I made?
I am still free to go back, 'tis said;
And I was not meant for a Nun, I Fear.
But they are all pleased with their happy lot,
And what would they think if they knew my thought?

It's nonsense what people were wont to say
About the misery vows may bring,
About the hearts that are suffering,
And the glad bright youth as it wastes away;
There is nothing to waster, for they have no mind,
Nor heart, nor passion of any kind.

And yet I feel that I am not free.
Oh, the subtle threads that are wound
About us here till our souls are bound,
And there's nothing for it but just to be
As silly as all the rest, and make
A merit of it for Jesus' sake.

I gave up my former life in dread
Of the rush of thoughts to my eager soul,
Terrible as the waves that roll
Over the weary swimmer's head;
But now if I leave this, it will be
In scorn of its dull vacuity.

Ay, if I leave it! but dare I go?
Do I not know what would be said
Better it were to be lying dead
Than pine away with a poison slow
Of lies that would tingle in every vein,
And break the heart with a nameless pain?

Ah! rebel nature could not endure
The vacant mind and the weary day,
The effort to keep all thought away,
But for the work 'mong the sick and poor:
It is among them that I find my good,—
If they would not pain me by gratitude.