University of Virginia Library

I miss thy voice, dear friend. The hours are long,
And vexing thoughts bewilder. Wilt thou give
Thy counsel to thy pupil? None save thee
Can guide me through the tangled maze and dark;
No eye but thine see clearly through the mist;
No voice so breathe, in music of sweet sounds,
The wisdom that ennobles. As it is,
Again I travel o'er the path we trod,
Read the same books, at evening and at morn
Remember thee in every orison,
And count the hours till thou come back again,
And, bright as is the sunlight on the hills,
Thy presence shine on me. Meantime I ask
That insight which, through earth, and heaven, and deep,
Finds nothing hidden, soars above the stars
With wing that never flags, to spare for me
The crumbs that from the rich man's banquet fall
To glut the beggar's hunger. I would know
The mystery of our reason and our speech:
These words of ours, that speak of truth and good,
Man, angel, God; ... what are they? May we hold
God gave them to us, outward signs of things
That lie within the veil? Has every name,
So lightly used, its primal archetype
Eternal in the heavens? And do we reach
Through them the living truth, our “good” and “fair”
The symbols of a beauty and a good
We yet scarce dream of? Or, rejecting that,
As but itself a dream which mocks the thought
With visions of a world which is not ours,
Which altogether is not, must we treat
These words with which we travel high and far,
As but the coinage of our minting brain,
Fools' money, wise men's counters? And if so,
Why cheat our souls with all this endless toil,
This weary strife of tongues, when yet at last
We get no nearer to the living truth,
(If truth there be,) but play an infant's game,
Destroying, building, all our systems fair
Houses of cards that rise and have their day,
And never shelter give to weary souls,
Nor keep their ground against the storms of time?
I pass o'er other questions. May we hold
Our numbers, measures, weights as patterns drawn
From that high Wisdom which has ordered all,
This goodly world, yon firmament of stars,
By number, weight, and measure? Music's laws,
So wondrous in their working, giving voice
To thoughts that lie beyond the grasp of words,
To feelings deep below the fount of tears,
Are they too echoes of a nobler song,
The spheral music of the circling stars,
The anthems of the angels?

Passing these,
I hasten on and upward. Holier ground
I dare to tread on, look with eager eye
Where angels veil their faces, shrink not back
From boldest searching. Once I lived my life,
As others live, in girlhood's reverent fear;
Matins and vespers drew my thoughts to God;
I prayed the saints to shield my soul from harm;
Our Lady smiled from out her gilded shrine,
And won me with her beauty. Feast and Fast
Brought their due changes as the seasons ran,
And I observed them in the childlike faith
That this was all my duty. Then thy form
Rose, like a meteor on the darkened sky;
Thou camest, Master mine, and lo! thy words
Were as a key to ope the secret store
Of Wisdom's treasures. Now the wondrous thoughts
Of Prophet and Apostle clearer grew;
The words and deeds of Him above them both
Were as an open scroll; and so we tracked
The march of Truth across the waste of Time,
Fair, glorious, terrible, as though we saw
An army with its banners. Many a name
That led the vanguard of that mighty host
Became to us familiar. Jerome first,
Who wrought his task in Bethlehem's holy cave,
And from his cell did govern women's hearts,
Marcella, Paula, as thy lightest word
Has governed mine. And then Augustine came,
Wild, reckless, wandering, till the mighty prayer
Of Monica prevailed, and all the flood
Of wild desire lay calm, and clear, and hushed,
And mirrored back the likeness of his Lord,
As sleeping waters in a mountain lake
Give back the golden sunlight. Origen,
Him too we read of, with his wondrous hope,
Wide-spreading o'er the universe of God,
And purgèd eyes that saw behind the veil
Of outward symbol. Nor was other food
Wanting in those our banquets. Virgil told
His tale of great Æneas, and the love,
Impassioned, fatal, of the Tyrian queen,
Or how the minstrel seer of old sought out,
And found, and lost, his loved Eurydice.

Ah, friend! thou too hast found, ..... and wilt thou lose?
Thy music's spell has roused my soul from sleep
That was as death, and shall thy eager glance,
Thy love's wild frenzy, passionate embrace,
Hurl me to death again? No; go thy way;
Be to the world what thou hast been to me,
Dispel the darkness, bid the discords hush,
Give truth free speech, and rise to all the height
Of thy great calling. Men admire thee now;
They list with rapture to thy honeyed speech;
Old dotards curse thee, and the bold and young
Own thee their master. Go and conquer then;
March onward till thou reach the dizzy peak
Of lonely power, and from the apostle's throne
Put forth thine arm with power to bind or loose;
Smite thou the kings and mighty ones of earth,
Shield thou the poor who delve and toil for bread,
Break thou the bonds and set the captives free:
Be as the Prophet-Priest of this our day,
And with thy bright cloud-piercing intellect,
Lead thou the Church, through all the dreary waste,
The land of wanderings, to the brighter hopes,
The vision of the future. And for me,
When this shall be, and I, in lowliest shade,
Have found my refuge, I will sometimes ask
In evening's dreams, “And does he think of me,
Whom once he guided up the slopes of Truth,
And do his prayers rise up, as mine for him,
For her who loved him ....” Yes, the word must pass,
“With love so eager, passionate, intense,
That it would fain forget itself in death,
And be as though it were not?” To renounce
All honour, hope, enjoyment, welcome shame,
Reproach, and solitude; no more to see
The face so loved, nor hear the voice that thrills
The inmost soul; for very love's dear sake
To crush love out, that so no cloud may come
Between thee and thy fortunes;—this be mine,
And thine be .... what God sends thee.

And so that life is ended. Rest at last,
After long wandering on the troubled sea,
Comes to the sailor shipwrecked, tempest-tost;
The fevered sufferer sinks to dreamless sleep,
And never more shall that clear eye flash fire,
Against his foes or mine, nor that strong voice
Rise high above the babbling strife of tongues,
In mightiest self-assertion. Bernard now
May leave his dust to moulder in the grave,
And rest in peace. And I, who hear, am calm;
No master-passion melts my soul in tears,
My sorrow does not overflow its bounds.
My heart is calm to search and scan its grief.
Yes! I who once found all my world in him,
Who for him lost fair fame, and holy peace,
Who night and morning dreamt of nought but him,
Who breathed his name in every secret prayer,
I hear the tidings, “He at last is gone,”
As though 'twere but a neighbour whom one greets,
From week to week with nod of kindly mood,
And else knows nought of.

Yet with him there lies
All that my soul once knew of light and warmth,
All the bright day-dreams of my opening life;
Long since they died, and in the grave of love
Embalmed I laid them. Now the vault is oped
That he may lie there. Soon the years shall bring
Their longed-for end, and then the shadowy gates,
Thrown wide, shall welcome me. Meantime I live,
And do my work, and travel o'er the past,
And weigh and scan his merits who was once
The idol of my passion. Now I see
How poor the idol, how the head of gold
Passed on to baser metal, mire and clay;
The lordly, wide-embracing intellect
To low desire, that tainted, poisoned all,
The canker that devoured the goodliest bloom
And made it fruitless. So, alas! it was
With him, with me. The noblest gifts of God,
The worthiest work as vessel of the Truth,
He cast aside, flung reckless in the mire,
Lost his true life, and left Christ's chosen bride
For me, poor frail one. Dare I murmur now
That this all vanished like a fevered dream,
And had its stern awakening, that for me
Came scorn, reproach, life worn before its time,
Hair gray, cheeks faded, sky o'ercast and dim,
The throbbings of a heart that will not heal.
Yes, I have paid the forfeit. Not for me
The blessing which the poorest peasant wife
Finds in the name of Mother: guilt and shame,
These threw their shadows o'er my new-born joy,
And he, my child, my boy, my Astrolabe,
(Name telling of ill stars and evil days,)
Was taken from me. Not for me the bliss
Of infant's lips, soft touch, and joyous smile:
I might not part the golden locks that streamed
On either side the clear and noble brow,
Nor teach the soul its song of joy and praise,
Nor when the boy was ripening to the man,
Receive the homage, hearty, frank, and true
Of son to mother. Far and far away,
Beyond the frozen snows on Alpine heights,
The boy grew up; and now the man lives on,
And little knows the story of his birth,
Nor heeds the prayers which, day by day, rise up
Like incense from the altar of my heart.

This was my heavy burden: and for him,
The partner of my passion and my sin,
A ceaseless strife of fightings and of fears,
Wrong past all speech, a life without a home,
Fame grasping its own shadow, bitter hate
From those who loved the darkness more than light;
Or, harder still to bear, distrust and grief
From those who loved the light, and lived in truth,
And saw in him the root of every ill,
A will self-centred, scorn of lowlier souls,
The pride that in the chambers of its heart
Sets up its secret idols? No, my God,
I give Thee thanks for all. There might have been
Far heavier judgment. Thicker veil of night
Might still have hid the evil. Fame and power
Might have been his beyond his heart's desire,
Chief place among the shepherds of the flock,
Gray hairs, full honour, and a name to live
Among the saints of God. Ah! tenfold worse
That life of semblance with its show of health,
Its inward rottenness, than all the pain,
The sharp, keen goads that gave not rest nor peace
Until their work was done, and all the soul
Was cleansed and humbled. False those dreams of yore;
Truth's chosen ones are cast in other mould,
Her victories won by other strategy;
No skill of speech, nor daring, prompt to try
New paths through all the cloud-girt Infinite,
No life where sense and soul hold equal sway,
And soon sense masters soul. Her seal is set
On those who love her for herself alone,
Who woo with lowly heart her favouring smile,
And seek her wisdom secretly; pure souls,
On whom no touch of sense has left its stain,
Who go their way through gathering mists and clouds,
Light-bearers in the darkness. They can own
God's footprints in the story of the past,
His love through all the present, and, far off,
Hail the bright future. Once I dreamt that he
Would bear that light, and, foremost, near the throne,
Take rank with those, the star-crowned cherubim,
Excelling most in knowledge. Now I see,
His name upon the charts of life shall stand
To tell of shoals on which the noblest ship
Made utter wreck, and men shall point to it,
Some, half in scorn, and some, in tenderer grief,
“Lo! this was Abelard.”

Be mine the shame,
If spirits hear from out the gates of death
The converse of the living, still to bear
That long, long penance of a tainted name,
The sin remembered, all the rest forgot;
Only do Thou, divinest Paraclete,
Who dost not scorn the bruised and contrite heart,
To whom we turned in bitterness of soul,
Only do Thou give wisdom, e'er the night
Shall fall, to do Thy work, Thy freedom give,
And though the cares that harass and perplex,
Give patience, meekness, hope; and thus, at last,
Cleanse this poor heart from all its earthly love,
And fill it with the love that changes not,
The Charity Eternal.