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Making a cross upon the wall

With the bars of my windows narrow and tall;
And I prayed to it, as I had been wont to pray,
From early childhood, day by day,
Each morning, as in bed I lay!

I was lying again in my own room!

And I thanked God, in my fever and pain,
That those shadows on the midnight plain
Were gone, and could not come again!
I struggled no longer with my doom!

This happened many years ago.
I left my father's home to come
Like Catherine to her martyrdom,
For blindly I esteemed it so.

And when I heard the convent door
Behind me close, to ope no more,
I felt it smite me like a blow.
Through all my limbs a shudder ran,
And on my bruised spirit fell
The dampness of my narrow cell
As night-air on a wounded man,
Giving intolerable pain.

But now a better life began.
I felt the agony decrease

By slow degress, then wholly cease,
Ending in perfect rest and peace!
It was not apathy, nor dulness,
That weighed and pressed upon my brain,
But the same passion I had given

To earth before, now turned to heaven
With all its overflowing fulness.

Alas! the world is full of peril!

The path that runs through the fairest meads,

On the sunniest side of the valley, leads
Into a region bleak and sterile!

Alike in the high-born and the lowly,
The will is feeble, and passion strong.
We cannot sever right from wrong;
Some falsehood mingles with all truth;
Nor is it strange the heart of youth
Should waver and comprehend but slowly
The things that are holy and unholy!
But in this sacred and calm retreat,
We are all well and safely shielded

From winds that blow, and waves that beat,
From the cold, and rain, and blighting heat,
To which the strongest hearts have yielded.
Here we stand as the Virgins Seven,
For our celestial bridegroom yearning;
Our hearts are lamps for ever burning,
With a steady and unwavering flame,
Pointing upward, for ever the same,
Steadily upward toward the Heaven!

The moon is hidden behind a cloud;
A sudden darkness fills the room,
And thy deep eyes,
amid the gloom,

Shine like jewels in a shroud.

On the leaves is a sound of falling rain;

A bird, awakened in its nest,

Gives a faint twitter of unrest,

Then smoothes its plumes and sleeps again.

No other sounds than these I hear;

The hour of midnight must be near.
Thou art o'erspent with the day's fatigue
Of riding many a dusty league;
Sink, then, gently to thy slumber;
Me so many cares encumber,

So many ghosts, and forms of fright,
Have started from their graves to-night,
They have driven sleep from mine eyes away:
I will go down to the chapel and pray.

V.

A COVERED BRIDGE AT LUCERNE.

PRINCE HENRY.

GOD's blessing on the architects who build
The bridges o'er swift rivers and abysses
Before impassable to human feet,

No less than on the builders of cathedrals,
Whose massive walls are bridges thrown across
The dark and terrible abyss of Death.
Well has the name of Pontifex been given
Unto the Church's head, as the chief builder
And architect of the invisible bridge

That leads from earth to heaven.

ELSIE.

How dark it grows!

What are these paintings on the walls around us?

PRINCE HENRY.

The Dance Macaber!

ELSIE.

What?

PRINCE HENRY.

The Dance of Death!

All that go to and fro must look upon it,
Mindful of what they shall be, while beneath,
Among the wooden piles, the turbulent river
Rushes, impetuous as the river of life,
With dimpling eddies, ever green and bright,
Save where the shadow of this bridge falls on it.

ELSIE.

O, yes! I see it now!

PRINCE HENRY.

The grim musician

Leads all men through the mazes of that dance,
To different sounds in different measures moving;
Sometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a drum,
To tempt or terrify.

ELSIE.

What is this picture?

PRINCE HENRY.

It is a young man singing to a nun,

Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneeling
Turns round to look at him; and Death, meanwhile,
Is putting out the candles on the altar!

ELSIE.

Ah, what a pity 't is that she should listen

Unto such songs, when in her orisons

She might have heard in heaven the angels singing!

PRINCE HENRY.

Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bells,

And dances with the Queen.

ELSIE.

A foolish jest!

PRINCE HENRY.

And here the heart of the new-wedded wife,
Coming from church with her beloved lord,
He startles with the rattle of his drum.

ELSIE.

Ah, that is sad! And yet perhaps 't is best
That she should die, with all the sunshine on her,
And all the benedictions of the morning,

Before this affluence of golden light

Shall fade into a cold and clouded gray,

Then into darkness!

PRINCE HENRY.

Under it is written,

"Nothing but death shall separate thee and me!"

ELSIE.

And what is this, that follows close upon it?

PRINCE HENRY.

Death, playing on a dulcimer. Behind him,
A poor old woman, with a rosary,

Follows the sound, and seems to wish her feet
Were swifter to o'ertake him. Underneath,

The inscription reads, "Better is Death than Life."

ELSIE.

Better is Death than Life! Ah yes! to thousands
Death plays upon a dulcimer, and sings
That song of consolation, till the air

Rings with it, and they cannot choose but follow
Whither he leads. And not the old alone,
But the young also hear it, and are still.

PRINCE HENRY.

Yes, in their sadder moments.

"T is the sound

Of their own hearts they hear, half full of tears,
Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water,
Responding to the pressure of a finger

With music sweet and low and melancholy.
Let us go forward, and no longer stay
In this great picture-gallery of Death!
I hate it! ay,
the very thought of it!

Why is it hateful to you?

ELSIE.

PRINCE HENRY.

For the reason

That life, and all that speaks of life, is lovely,
And death, and all that speaks of death, is hateful.

ELSIE.

The grave itself is but a covered bridge,

Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!

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