“While he may die ere touch one least loose hair
“You drag at with the comb in such a rage!”
“Tell him to come? Ah, but, for charity,
“A truce to fooling! Come? What,—come this eve?
“Peter and Paul! But I see through the trick— (1361)
“Yes, come, and take a flower-pot on his head
“Flung from your terrace! No joke, sincere truth?”
O’ the face of her,—the doubt that first paled joy,
Then, final reassurance I indeed
Was caught now, never to be free again!
What did I care?—who felt myself of force
To play with the silk, and spurn the horsehair-springe.
“And in your own name? I presumed so much,
“Knowing the thing you needed in your heart.
“But somehow—what had I to show in proof?
“He would not come: half- promised, that was all,
“And wrote the letters you refused to read.
“What is the message that shall move him now?
“I will be standing on the terrace, say!
“I would I had a good long lock of hair
“Should prove I was not lying! Never mind!” (1380)
“Fearing a trick!”
And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up
To God the strong, God the beneficent,
God ever mindful in all strife and strait,
Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme,
Till at the last He puts forth might and saves.
An old rhyme came into my head and rang
Of how a virgin, for the faith of God, (1390)
Hid herself, from the Paynims that pursued,
In a cave’s heart; until a thunderstone,
Wrapped in a flame, revealed the couch and prey:
And they laughed—“Thanks to lightning, ours at last!”
And she cried “Wrath of God, assert His love!
“Servant of God, thou fire, befriend His child!”
And lo, the fire she grasped at, fixed its flash,
Lay in her hand a calm cold dreadful sword
She brandished till pursuers strewed the ground,
So did the souls within them die away, (1400)
As o’er the prostrate bodies, sworded, safe,
She walked forth to the solitudes and Christ:
So should I grasp the lightning and be saved!
Whereby I guessed there would be born a star,
Until at an intense throe of the dusk,
I started up, was pushed, I dare to say,
Out on the terrace, leaned and looked at last
Where the deliverer waited me: the same
Silent and solemn face, I first descried (1410)
At the spectacle, confronted mine once more.
The manhood, wasted then, was still at watch
To save me yet a second time: no change
Here, though all else changed in the changing world!
In some such sense as this, whatever the phrase.
“Friend, foolish words were borne from you to me;
“Your soul behind them is the pure strong wind,
“Not dust and feathers which its breath may bear: (1420)
“These to the witless seem the wind itself,
“Since proving thus the first of it they feel.
“If by mischance you blew offence my way,
“The straws are dropt, the wind desists no whit,
“And how such strays were caught up in the street
“And took a motion from you, why inquire?
“I speak to the strong soul, no weak disguise.
“If it be truth,—why should I doubt it truth?—
“You serve God specially, as priests are bound,
“And care about me, stranger as I am, (1430)
“So far as wish my good,—that miracle
“I take to intimate He wills you serve
“By saving me,—what else can He direct?
“Here is the service. Since a long while now,
“I am in course of being put to death:
“While death concerned nothing but me, I bowed
“The head and bade, in heart, my husband strike.
“Now I imperil something more, it seems,
“Something
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