Part 12 (1/2)

I know the garden-close of sin, The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers, I long have roamed the walks and bowers, Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in, When soon or late the angry powers Come down to seek the wretch who cowers, Expecting judgment to begin.

The pleasure long has pa.s.sed away From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread My doom will find me where I lie.

I dare not go, I dare not stay.

Without the walks, my hope is dead, Within them, I myself must die.

URSULA

There is a village in a southern land, By rounded hills closed in on every hand.

The streets slope steeply to the market-square, Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair, With roofs irregular, and steps of stone Ascending to the front of every one.

The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth, Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.

Upon the northern hill-top, looking down, Like some sequestered saint upon the town, Stands the great convent.

On a summer night, Ten years ago, the moon with rising light Made all the convent towers as clear as day, While still in deepest shade the village lay.

Both light and shadow with repose were filled, The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.

No foot in all the streets was now astir, And in the convent none kept watch but her Whom they called Ursula. The moonlight fell Brightly around her in the lonely cell.

Her eyes were dark, and full of unshed woe, Like mountain tarns which cannot overflow, Surcharged with rain, and round about the eyes Deep rings recorded sleepless nights, and cries Stifled before their birth. Her brow was pale, And like a marble temple in a vale Of cypress trees, shone shadowed by her hair.

So still she was, that had you seen her there, You might have thought you were beholding death.

Her lips were parted, but if any breath Came from between them, it were hard to know By any movement of her breast of snow.

But when the summer night was now far spent, She kneeled upon the floor. Her head she leant Down on the cold stone of the window-seat.

G.o.d knows if there were any vital heat In those pale brows, or if they chilled the stone.

And as she knelt, she made a bitter moan, With words that issued from a bitter soul,-- 'O Mary, Mother, and is this thy goal, Thy peace which waiteth for the world-worn heart?

Is it for this I live and die apart From all that once I knew? O Holy G.o.d, Is this the blessed chastening of Thy rod, Which only wounds to heal? Is this the cross That I must carry, counting all for loss Which once was precious in the world to me?

If Thou be G.o.d, blot out my memory, And let me come, forsaking all, to Thee.

But here, though that old world beholds me not, Here, though I seek Thee through my lonely lot, Here, though I fast, do penance day by day, Kneel at Thy feet, and ever watch and pray, Beloved forms from that forsaken world Revisit me. The pale blue smoke is curled Up from the dwellings of the sons of men.

I see it, and all my heart turns back again From seeking Thee, to find the forms I love.

'Thou, with Thy saints abiding far above, What canst Thou know of this, my earthly pain?

They said to me, Thou shalt be born again, And learn that worldly things are nothing worth, In that new state. O G.o.d, is this new birth, Birth of the spirit dying to the flesh?

Are these the living waters which refresh The thirsty spirit, that it thirst no more?

Still all my life is thirsting to the core.

Thou canst not satisfy, if this be Thou.

And yet I dream, or I remember how, Before I came here, while I tarried yet Among the friends they tell me to forget, I never seemed to seek Thee, but I found Thou wert in all the loveliness around, And most of all in hearts that loved me well.