. . "Lucile?
Thus we meet then? . . . here! . . . thus?"
"Soul to soul, ay,
Eugene,
As I pledged you my word that we should meet again.
Dead, . . ." she murmur'd, "long dead! all that lived in our lives--
Thine and mine--saving that which ev'n life's self survives,
The soul! 'Tis my soul seeks thine own. What may reach
From my life to thy life (so wide each from each!)
Save the soul to the soul? To thy soul I would speak.
May I do so?"
He said (work'd and white was his cheek
As he raised it), "Speak to me!"
Deep, tender, serene,
And sad was the gaze which the Soeur Seraphine
Held on him. She spoke.
XXIII.
As some minstrel may fling,
Preluding the music yet mute in each string,
A swift hand athwart the hush'd heart of the whole,
Seeking which note most fitly must first move the soul;
And, leaving untroubled the deep chords below,
Move pathetic in numbers remote;--even so
The voice which was moving the heart of that man
Far away from its yet voiceless purpose began,
Far away in the pathos remote of the past;
Until, through her words, rose before him, at last,
Bright and dark in their beauty, the hopes that were gone
Unaccomplish'd from life.
He was mute.
XXIV.
She went on
And still further down the dim past did she lead
Each yielding remembrance, far, far off, to feed
'Mid the pastures of youth, in the twilight of hope,
And the valleys of boyhood, the fresh-flower'd slope
Of life's dawning land!
'Tis the heart of a boy,
With its indistinct, passionate prescience of joy!
The unproved desire--the unaim'd aspiration--
The deep conscious life that forestalls consummation
With ever a flitting delight--one arm's length
In advance of the august inward impulse.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249