XIV.

Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet

With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at meat

With him who made her such, and speak'st him fair, Leaving God's wandering lamb the while to bleat

Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air :

Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wan
And haggard than a vice to look upon.

XV.

Now

many months flew by, and weary grew To Margaret the sight of happy things;

Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew;

Shut round her heart were now the joyous wings

Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue,

Though tempted much, her woman's nature clings To its first pure belief, and with sad eyes

Looks backward o'er the gate of Paradise.

XVI.

Not wholly desolate, nor quite shut out

From peace, are hearts that love, though hopelessly; Though, with rude billows compassed all about,

They toss, lone shipwrecks, on a dreary sea,

Yet love hath glories which the eye of doubt
Withers to look on, for he holds the key
Which opens in the soul that inner cell,

Where in deep peace the heavenly instincts dwell.

XVII.

So Margaret, though Mordred came less oft,

And winter frowned where spring had laughed before,

In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed,
And in her silent patience loved him more:
Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft,
And a new life within her own she bore
Which made her tenderer, as she felt it move
Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love.

XVIII.

This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back,

And be a bond forever them between ;

Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack

Would fade, and leave the face of heaven serene ; And love's return doth more than fill the lack,

Which in his absence withered the heart's green : And yet a dim foreboding still would flit

Between her and her hope to darken it.

XIX.

She could not figure forth a happy fate,
Even for this life from heaven so newly come;

The earth must needs be doubly desolate
To him scarce parted from a fairer home:
Such boding heavier on her bosom sate

One night, as, standing in the twilight gloam,
She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy verge
At whose foot faintly breaks the future's surge.

XX.

Poor little spirit! naught but shame and woe
Nurse the sick heart whose lifeblood nurses thine:
Yet not those only; love hath triumphed so,

As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine :
And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foe
To purity, if born in such a shrine ;

And, having trampled it for struggling thence,
Smiles to itself and calls it Providence.

ΧΧΙ.

O mockery, that aught unruth and hard

Behind God's name its ugly face should veil!

Sad human nature, that o'er flint and shard

With bleeding feet shrink'st onward wan and pale, Believing 't is thy doom to be ill-starred,

Since e'en Religion sanctions the foul tale,

And hating God, because man's creeds but grant What they his blessings call, toil, woe, and want!

XXII.

As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to rise
From out her thought, and turn to dreariness
All blissful hopes and sunny memories,

And the quick blood doth curdle up and press
About her heart, which seemed to shut its

eyes

And hush itself, as who with shuddering guess

Harks through the gloom and dreads e'en now to feel

Through his hot breast the icy slide of steel.

XXIII.

But, at that heart-beat, while in dread she was,
In the low wind the honeysuckles gleam,

A dewy thrill flits through the heavy grass,
And, looking forth, she saw, as in a dream,
Within the wood the moonlight's shadowy mass:
Night's starry heart yearning to hers doth seem,
And the deep sky, full-hearted with the moon,
Folds round her all the happiness of June.