ONLY HE WHO MOURNS HER AND
HEAVEN THAT POSSESSES HER,
KNEW HER WHILE SHE LIVED
Ah, Death, it is you that have left the world cold and shady, with no sun over it. It’s you have left Love without eyes or arms to him, you’ve left liveliness stripped, and beauty without a shape to her, and all courtesy in chains, and honesty thrown down into a hole. I am making lamentation alone, though it isn’t myself only has a cause to be crying out; since you, Death, have crushed the first seed of goodness in the whole world, and with it gone what place will we find a second?
The air and the earth and seas would have a good right to be crying out—and they pitying the race of men that is left without herself, like a meadow without flowers or a ring robbed of jewellery.
The world didn’t know her the time she was in it, but I myself knew her—and I left now to be weeping in this place; and the Heavens knew her, the Heavens that are giving an ear this day to my crying out.
LAURA WAITS FOR HIM IN HEAVEN
The first day she passed up and down through the Heavens, gentle and simple were left standing, and they in great wonder, saying one to the other:
“What new light is that? What new beauty at all? The like of herself hasn’t risen up these long years from the common world.”
And herself, well pleased with the Heavens, was going forward, matching herself with the most perfect that were before her, yet one time, and another, waiting a little, and turning her head back to see if myself was coming after her. It’s for that I’m lifting up all my thoughts and will into the Heavens, because I do hear her praying that I should be making haste for ever.