Still, all will be well: "Let us leave God alone." And now she will "withdraw from earth and man to her own soul," will "compose herself for God" . . . but even as she speaks, the flood of gratitude to her one friend again sweeps back, and she exclaims,
"Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath
Shall bear away my soul in being true![159:1]
He is still here, not outside with the world,
Here, here, I have him in his rightful place!
* * * * *
I feel for what I verily find—again
The face, again the eyes, again, through all,
The heart and its immeasurable love
Of my one friend, my only, all my own,
Who put his breast between the spears and me.
Ever with Caponsacchi!*nbsp;. . .
O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death!
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I' the coming course, the new path I must tread—
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that!
* * * * *
Not one faint fleck of failure! Why explain?
What I see, oh, he sees, and how much more!
* * * * *
Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God?
Say—I am all in flowers from head to foot!
Say—not one flower of all he said and did,
But dropped a seed, has grown a balsam-tree
Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place
At this supreme of moments!"
She has recognised the truth. This is love—but how different from the love of the smilings and the whisperings, the "He is your lover!" He is a priest, and could not marry; but she thinks he would not have married if he could:
"Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit,