“Oh, who so happy now as I?
The Saints, my God,—
The shining Saints,—toward me fly,
Down yon bright road!
“O blessed patrons, are you there
To help, to stay me?
Yet hide the dazzling crowns you wear,
Or these will slay me.
“Veil in a cloud the light appalling!
My eyes are heavy.
Where is the chapel? Are you calling?
O Saints, receive me!”
So, in a trance and past all earthly feeling,
The stricken girl upon the pavement kneeling,
With pleading hands, and head thrown backward, cried.
Her large and lovely eyes were opened wide,
As she beyond the veil of flesh discerned
St. Peter’s gates, and for the glory yearned.
Mute were her lips now; but her face yet shone,
And wrapped in glorious contemplation
She seemed. So, when the gold-red rays of dawn
Early alight the poplar-tips upon,
The flickering night-lamp turneth pale and wan
In the dim chamber of a dying man.
And, as at daybreak, also, flocks arouse
From slumber and disperse, the sacred house
Appeared to open, all its vaulted roof
To part, and pillars tall to stand aloof,
Before the three fair women,—heavenly fair,—
Who on a starry path came down the air.
White in the ether pure, and luminous,
Came the three Maries out of heaven thus.
One of them clasped an alabaster vase
Close to her breast, and her celestial face
In splendour had that star alone for peer
That beams on shepherds when the nights are clear.
The next came with a palm in her hand holden,
And the wind lifting her long hair and golden.
The third was young, and wound a mantle white
About her sweet brown visage; and the light
Of her dark eyes, under their falling lashes,
Was greater than a diamond’s when it flashes.
So, nearer to the mourner drew these three,
And leaned above, and spake consolingly.
And bright and tender were the smiles that wreathed
Their lips, and soft the message that they breathed.
They made the thorns of cruel martyrdom,
That pierced Mirèio, into flowers bloom.
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