On the Sunday which we spent at Hampstead, and on which this occurred, I wandered about the churchyard in solitary wretchedness, as if a spirit of evil had possession of me, and kept me away
"From Mercy's inmost shrine."
When Edward joined me again, he was low and depressed; there was a struggle in his countenance, and we walked home in silence.
In the evening, as I was sitting writing in my own room, he came in; there was a deep shade of gloom in his face; and when I knelt by his side, and threw my arms round his neck he disengaged himself from me, and, leaning his head on his hand, said, with a voice of emotion, "I little thought when we married, that on the most sacred of all subjects, we felt so differently."
I drew from my bosom a paper, on which I had been writing the following lines, and held it out to him:—
"Self-banished, self-condemned, I stand alone,
And the closed doors between us seem to rise
In judgment and in wrath: a dull hard stone
Is in my breast; a cloud before my eyes.
I kneel; but my clasped hands are raised in vain;
They sink, weighed down by mem'ry's spell again.
My soul is mute, no melodies arise;
No sacred accents, from her shattered chords;
And speechless prayers alone, in broken sighs,
Struggle for utterance, and find no words.
But is there not a strange mysterious cry,
A mute appeal in each unconscious sigh—
A silent prayer in every secret tear,
Which man discerns not, but which God will hear?"
Edward gave me back the paper, and said coldly, "Poetry is not religion; and sentiment is not piety."
"But they may lead to them, Edward."
"They mislead you, I fear."
He turned away and took up a book; so did I: it was the Bible; and as I opened it, my eyes fell on the following passage:— "Hadst thou know, even thou, in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thy sight." How long? my God, how long?