IX.

The pride that claims here

'On earth to itself (howsoever severe

To itself it may be) God's dread office and right

'Of punishing sin, is a sin in heaven's sight,

And against heaven's service.

'Eugène de Luvois,

'Leave the judgment to Him who alone knows the law.

'Surely no man can be his own judge, least of all

'His own doomsman.'

Her words seem'd to fall

With the weight of tears in them.

He look'd up, and saw

That sad serene countenance, mournful as law
And tender as pity, bow'd o'er him and heard
In some thicket the matinal chirp of a bird.

She continued, in life we have met once again,
'And once more life parts us. Yon day-spring for me
'Lifts the veil of a future in which it may be

'We shall meet never more. Grant, oh grant to me yet

6 The belief that it is not in vain we have met!

'I plead for the future. A new horoscope

I would cast: will you read it? I plead for a hope:

'I plead for a memory; To restore or to spare. 'Be the memory mine.

yours, yours alone,

Let the hope be your own,

'Once of yore, when for man 'Faith yet lived, ere this age of the sluggard began, 'Men, aroused to the knowledge of evil, fled far From the fading rose-gardens of sense, to the war 'With the Pagan, the cave in the desert, and sought

'Not repose, but employment in action or thought,

Life's strong earnest, in all things! oh think not of me, 'But yourself! for I plead for your own destiny:

I plead for your life, with its duties undone,

With its claims unappeased, and its trophies unwon;

And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead

For all that you miss, and for all that you need.'

XI.

Through the calm crystal air, faint and far, as she spoke,
A clear chilly chime from a church-turret broke;

And the sound of her voice, with the sound of the bell,
On his ear, where he kneel'd, softly, soothingly fell.
All within him was wild and confused, as within

A chamber deserted in some roadside inn,
Where, passing, wild travellers paused, over-night,
To quaff and carouse; in each socket each light

Is extinct; crash'd the glasses, and scrawl'd is the wall

With wild ribald ballads: serenely o'er all,

For the first time perceived, where the dawn-light creeps faint. Through the wrecks of that orgy, the face of a saint,

Seen through some broken frame, appears noting meanwhile
The ruin all round with a sorrowful smile.

And he gazed round. The curtains of Darkness half drawn
Oped behind her; and pure as the pure light of dawn
She stood, bathed in morning, and seem'd to his eyes
From their sight to be melting away in the skies
That expanded around her.

XII.

There pass'd through his head

A fancy-a vision. That woman was dead

He had loved long ago-loved and lost! dead to him,
Dead to all the life left him; but there, in the dim
Dewy light of the dawn, stood a spirit; 'twas hers;
And he said to the soul of Lucile de Nevers:

O soul to its sources departing away!

Pray for mine, if one soul for another may pray.

'I to ask have no right, thou to give hast no power,

'One hope to my heart. But in this parting hour

'I name not my heart, and I speak not to thine.

Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul of mine,

'Does not soul owe to soul, what to heart heart denies,
Hope, when hope is salvation? Behold, in yon skies,
'This wild night is passing away while I speak:
'Lo, above us, the day-spring beginning to break!
'Something wakens within me, and warms to the beam.
'Is it hope that awakens? or do I but dream?
'I know not. It may be, perchance, the first spark
'Of a new light within me to solace the dark
'Unto which I return; or perchance it may be
The last spark of fires half extinguish'd in me.

'I know not. Thou goest thy way: I my own:

For good or for evil, I know not. Alone

'This I know; we are parting. I wish'd to say more,

'But no matter! 'twill pass. All between us is o'er.

Forget the wild words of to-night. 'Twas the pain

'For long years hoarded up, that rush'd from me again.

'I was unjust: forgive me.

Other words, other deeds.

Spare now to reprove

It was madness, not love,

'That you thwarted this night. What is done is now done. 'Death remains to avenge it, or life to atone.

'I was madden'd, delirious! I saw you return

'To him—not to me; and I felt my heart burn

'With a fierce thirst for vengeance—and thus . . . let it pass! 'Long thoughts these, and so brief the moments, alas! Thou goest thy way, and I mine. I suppose

'Tis to meet never more. Is it not so? Who knows, 'Or who heeds, where the exile from Paradise flies? Or what altars of his in the desert may rise? 'Is it not so, Lucile? Well, well! Thus then we part Once again, soul from soul, as before heart from heart!'

XIII.

And again, clearer far than the chime of the bell,

That voice on his sense softly, soothingly fell.

Our two paths must part us, Eugène; for my own

'Seems no more through that world in which henceforth alone 'You must work out (as now I believe that you will) The hope which you speak of. That work I shall still

(If I live) watch and welcome, and bless far away. Doubt not this. But mistake not the thought, if I say,

That the great moral combat between human life

'And each human soul must be single. The strife

'None can share, though by all its results may be known. 'When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone. 'I say not, indeed, we shall meet never more, 'For I know not. But meet, as we have met of yore, I know that we cannot. Perchance we may meet 'By the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd, in the street, 'Or in solitude even, but never again

'Shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugène. For we know not the way we are going, nor yet

'Where our two ways may meet, or may cross. Life hath

set

'No landmarks before us. But this, this alone,

I will promise: whatever your path, or my own,

'If, for once in the conflict before you, it chance

'That the Dragon prevail, and with cleft shield, and lance 'Lost or shatter'd, borne down by the stress of the war, You falter and hesitate, if from afar

I, still watching (unknown to yourself, it may be) 'O'er the conflict to which I conjure you, should see 'That my presence could rescue, support you, or guide, In the hour of that need I shall be at your side, To warn, if you will, or incite, or control;

And again, once again, we shall meet, soul to soul!'