XI. FROM MARY CHURCHILL TO THE DEAN.

Charles does me honour, but‘ twere vain

To reconsider now again,

And so to doubt the clear-shown truth

I sought for, and received, when youth,

Being fair, and woo'd by one whose love

Was lovely, fail'd my mind to move.

God bids them by their own will go,

Who ask again the things they know!

I grieve for my infirmity,

And ignorance of how to be

Faithful, at once to the heavenly life,

And the fond duties of a wife.

Narrow am I and want the art

To love two things with all my heart.

Occupied singly in His search,

Who, in the Mysteries of the Church,

Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven,

I tread a road, straight, hard, and even;

But fear to wander all confused,

By two-fold fealty abused.

Either should I the one forget,

Or scantly pay the other's debt.

You bid me, Father, count the cost.

I have; and all that must be lost

I feel as only woman can.

To make the heart's wealth of some man,

And through the untender world to move,

Wrapt safe in his superior love,

How sweet! How sweet the household round

Of duties, and their narrow bound,

So plain, that to transgress were hard,

Yet full of manifest reward!

The charities not marr'd, like mine,

With chance of thwarting laws divine;

The world's regards and just delight

In one that's clearly, kindly right,

How sweet! Dear Father, I endure,

Not without sharp regret, be sure,

To give up such glad certainty,

For what, perhaps, may never be.

For nothing of my state I know,

But that t'ward heaven I seem to go,

As one who fondly landward hies

Along a deck that seaward flies.

With every year, meantime, some grace

Of earthly happiness gives place

To humbling ills, the very charms

Of youth being counted, henceforth, harms:

To blush already seems absurd;

Nor know I whether I should herd

With girls or wives, or sadlier balk

Maids’ merriment or matrons’ talk.

But strait's the gate of life! O'er late,

Besides,‘ twere now to change my fate:

For flowers and fruit of love to form,

It must he Spring as well as warm.

The world's delight my soul dejects.

Revenging all my disrespects

Of old, with incapacity

To chime with even its harmless glee,

Which sounds, from fields beyond my range,

Like fairies’ music, thin and strange.

With something like remorse, I grant

The world has beauty which I want;

And if, instead of judging it,

I at its Council chance to sit,

Or at its gay and order'd Feast,

My place seems lower than the least

The conscience of the life to be

Smiles me with inefficiency,

And makes me all unfit to bless

With comfortable earthliness

The rest-desiring brain of man.

Finally, them, I fix my plan

To dwell with Him that dwells apart

In the highest heaven and lowliest heart;

Nor will I, to my utter loss,

Look to pluck roses from the Cross.

As for the good of human love,

‘ Twere countercheck almost enough

To think that one must die before

The other; and perhaps‘ tis more

In love's last interest to do

Nought the least contrary thereto,

Than to be blest, and be unjust,

Or suffer injustice; as they must,

Without a miracle, whose pact

Compels to mutual life and act,

Whether love shines, or darkness sleeps

Cold on the spirit's changeful deeps.

Enough if, to my earthly share,

Fall gleams that keep me from despair.

Happy the things we here discern;

More happy those for which we yearn;

But measurelessly happy above

All else are those we guess not of!