One forward step,—the closing door
Creaks out, as frightened or in pain;
Her eyes are on the ground again—
Two men are standing close before.
“My love,” sighs one, “my life, my all!”
Her lifted foot across the sill
Sinks down,—and all things are so still
You hear the orange blossoms fall.
But fear comes not where duty is,
And purity is peace and rest;
Her cross is close upon her breast,
Her two hands clasp hard hold of this.
Her two hands clasp cross, book, and she
Is strong in tranquil purity,—
Ay, strong as Samson when he laid
His two hands forth, and bowed and prayed.
One at her left, one at her right,
And she between, the steps upon,—
I can but see that Syrian night,
The women there at early dawn
’T is strange, I know, and may be wrong,
But ever pictured in my song;
And rhyming on, I see the day
They came to roll the stone away.
XIV.
The sky is like an opal sea,
The air is like the breath of kine,
But oh her face is white, and she
Leans faint to see a lifted sign,—
To see two hands lift up and wave
To see a face so white with woe,
So ghastly, hollow, white as though
It had that moment left the grave.
Her sweet face at that ghostly sign,
Her fair face in her weight of hair,
Is like a white dove drowning there,—
A white dove drowned in Tuscan wine.