Long and still was her gaze while they chafèd him there And breathed in the mouth whose last life had kissed her, But when they stood up--only _they_! with a start The shriek from her soul struck her pale lips apart: She has lived, and forgone him!
And low on his body she droppeth adown-- "Didst call me thine own wife, belovèd--thine own? Then take thine own with thee! thy coldness is warm To the world's cold without thee! Come, keep me from harm In a calm of thy teaching!"
She looked in his face earnest-long, as in sooth There were hope of an answer, and then kissed his mouth, And with head on his bosom, wept, wept bitterly,-- "Now, O God, take pity--take pity on me! God, hear my beseeching!"
She was 'ware of a shadow that crossed where she lay, She was 'ware of a presence that withered the day: Wild she sprang to her feet,--"I surrender to _thee_ The broken vow's pledge, the accursed rosary,-- I am ready for dying!"
She dashed it in scorn to the marble-paved ground Where it fell mute as snow, and a weird music-sound Crept up, like a chill, up the aisles long and dim,-- As the fiends tried to mock at the choristers' hymn And moaned in the trying.
Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk: "I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk. I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro, Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below. All things are the same, but I,--only I am dreary, And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary.
"Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the spring And smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering: The bees will find out other flowers--oh, pull them, dearest mine, And carry them and carry me before Saint Agnes' shrine." --Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring, And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring.
She looked up to the pictured saint and gently shook her head-- "The picture is too calm for _me_--too calm for _me_," she said: "The little flowers we brought with us, before it we may lay, For those are used to look at heaven,--but _I_ must turn away, Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear to gaze On God's or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face."
She spoke with passion after pause--"And were it wisely done If we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone? If we whose virtue is so weak should have a will so strong, And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong? To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and heaven,-- A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times seven? A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,-- Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!"