Sonnets and Other Poems Chiefly Religious :: :: University of Virginia Library

Canst thou recall thy Marguerite so,
With tearless eye and tranquil breath,
Nor seek, nor greatly care, to know
Which may now hold her, life or death?

Would it were death! “the dead are well;”
The tears dry soon above a grave.
But is she in an earthly hell?
And couldst not thou have tried to save?

But if her destiny to control
Who charmed thy youth was past thy power,
Thou shouldst not mourn a ruined soul
Thus lightly, like a withered flower!

And has the stream of change and chance
Borne aught more precious yet to thee
Than her, thy blue-eyed flower of France,
Thy pearl of Leman's Alpine sea?

“Sweetness and light”—are these thy aim?
She taught thy spirit to be sweet.
Pause at the thought, and let it claim
A bitter tear for Marguerite.

And light—the holy light of truth?
She was no star, thy course to guide;
But in the darkness of thy youth
We saw thee clinging to her side.

But darkness now for thee is past,
Forgotten with the vanished years.
Sweetness and light are thine at last,
And thou hast done with doubts and fears.

Sweetness, to charm away their woes
Who breathe hard breath, eat bitter bread;
Light, to become the life of those
Who dwell in darkness, like the dead.

But whence thy sweetness? whence thy light?
Are they of Him whom sinners slew,
Who rose in God the Father's might,
And hailed the woman whom He knew?

No, these thou deemest old-world tales;
Things that in waking dreams have been.
To save thy Marguerite, nought avails
The Christ who saved the Magdalene.

These symbolize thy creed alone;—
A vacant cross, a sealed-up tomb;
An angel leaving fast the stone,
A light that makes more dense the gloom;

And in the gloom a form is seen,
Kneeling, but at no Saviour's feet.
Is it the sorrowing Magdalene?
Is it thy once-loved Marguerite?