Then he said
(Never looking at her, never lifting his head,
As though, at his feet, there lay visibly hurl'd
Those fragments), "It was not a love, 'twas a world,
'Twas a life that lay ruin'd, Lucile!"
XXVI.
She went on.
"So be it! Perish Babel, arise Babylon!
From ruins like these rise the fanes that shall last,
And to build up the future heaven shatters the past."
"Ay," he moodily murmur'd, "and who cares to scan
The heart's perish'd world, if the world gains a man?
From the past to the present, though late, I appeal;
To the nun Seraphine, from the woman Lucile!"
XXVII.
Lucile! . . . the old name--the old self! silenced long:
Heard once more! felt once more!
As some soul to the throng
Of invisible spirits admitted, baptized
By death to a new name and nature--surprised
'Mid the songs of the seraphs, hears faintly, and far,
Some voice from the earth, left below a dim star,
Calling to her forlornly; and (sadd'ning the psalms
Of the angels, and piercing the Paradise palms!)
The name borne 'mid earthly beloveds on earth
Sigh'd above some lone grave in the land of her birth;--
So that one word . . . Lucile! . . . stirr'd the Soeur Seraphine,
For a moment. Anon she resumed here serene
And concentrated calm.
"Let the Nun, then, retrace
The life of the soldier!" .
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