The Literal, Limited God of a Fanatic and
Father Adam Stock-taking in Eden.
What did he whisper to this living child as she parted from him? “Heard melodies are sweet; but those unheard are sweeter.”
When, in the confident phrase of her father, Marcela de Carpio “espoused the eldest son of God,” her mystic nuptials called forth the truest “song-feast” ever held. The herald of old might bid the poets appear and compete for a monarch’s pleasure. Order a tournament of song, indeed! Mahomet was profound enough to go to the mountain. When the beautiful love-child of Lope de Vega and Micaela de Luzan took the veil, the ceremony was graced by all the dignity and circumstance which the Church could lavish in outward expression of the passion and fervor of the forceful old days of her power.
All the poets of the day, great and small, seemed to have been summoned to this marriage feast, and all the poets of the day, great and small, vainly tried to transcribe the living poem their eyes beheld when that fair bride of Christ passed before them in a transport of ecstasy.
At that time many great ladies were taking the veil with equal pomp and state, but no such tribute was paid them. What an absolutely inexplicable power is personality! Marcela de Carpio never published a line, and at this time had probably never written one. How did these minor poets recognize this fair daughter of Sappho? Was she “formed like a golden flower”? What a wonderful people are poets! But listen, for Sister Marcela’s bridal song is with us yet, she pipes so clear and sweet:
I. “Let them say to my lover That here I lie! The thing of his pleasure, His slave am I.
II. “Say that I seek him Only for love, And welcome are tortures My passion to prove.