NOT YET.
Methought the King of Terrors came my way:
Whom all men flee, and none esteem it base.
But lo! his smile forbidding me dismay,
I stood—and dared to look him in the face.
“So soon!” the only murmur in my heart:
For I had shaped the deeds of many years—
Ambitioning atonement, and, in part,
To reap in joy what I had sown in tears.
Then, turning to Our Lady: “O my Queen!
’Twere very sweet already to have won
My crown, and pass to see as I am seen,
And nevermore offend thy Blessed Son:
Yet would I stay—and for myself, I own:—
To stand, at last, the nearer to thy throne.”