“My blood stood still and thick as ice,
And thought held thought, as in a vice,
The ages died, no death did bless
The death of nothingness.
“Each time the soul did undergo
The torture of a separate woe,
The demon fangs insatiate,
Of doubt, despair and hate.
“I woke and told the monk my dreams;
His voice was sad, he said, ‘Meseems
No part one slain in his soul’s blood
Shall have in Holy Rood.
“‘But brother,’ said the agèd man,
‘God works by many a diverse plan,
And once vicarious agony
Saved souls on Calvary.
“‘I know not but, with God in heaven,
Some grace to lost souls may be given;
By fasts and scourgings, prayers and pains,
Loose thou thy brother’s chains.’
“Yea, boy, have I not prayed to Heaven?
Has not life spoilt with bitter leaven
And fasts and scourgings, night and day,
The blood-guilt burnt away?
“But ever from the throat of hell
There booms a fearful passing bell
Of one, once slain in his soul’s blood,
Cast out from Holy Rood.
“The passions of the full-grown man
Concentre where his life began;
The boy’s love is not manifold,
It grips with single hold.
“The boyhood’s love is part of us,
No power can wrench it out, and thus
Love chained me to him in the gloom,
And I had wrought his doom.
“The thing was with me day by day,
And all my thinking underlay;
And even through hours when I forgot,
Ached as a canker spot.