From gracious deeds exhale the perfumes rare
Of active rest, glad care, and hopeful trust
The soul snuffs these, well pleased, and seems to share,
For once, a joy in concord with the dust.
Thus simple deeds, through Love, make known th' unknown—
That immaterial most substantial gain
Which makes of earth a heaven all its own.
And claims from spirit-land no sweeter reign.
So, while I learn in thine own atmosphere
To live, guard thou with patience all my ways,
For chance compels when weakness rules, and fear
Of self brings blackest night unto my days;
E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn,
And darkness breaks before the blushing morn.
He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language—whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more likely, the song that perfect love sings in the heart has no possible language, but is part of 'the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world,' and to which we have all been trying to put words, in religions and poems.
"In twenty thousand years from now," he said, smiling, "archæologists will be fighting over a discussion as to whether, in these early days, any superstition still existed. Just before they come to blows over the matter my sonnets will be found, produced, and deciphered, and there will be rejoicing on one side to have it proved that at a certain time Anno Domini (an era supposed to refer to one Abraham or Buddha) man still claimed that a local god existed called 'Margaret,' who was evidently worshiped with fervor.
"But certainly," he added, as he read the sonnet for the third time, "their mistake will not be such a palpable one as that about the Song of Solomon."
CHAPTER XX.
Never but once to meet on earth again!
She heard me as I fled—her eager tone
Sank on my heart, and almost wove a chain
Around my will to link it with her own,
So that my stern resolve was almost gone.
"I can not reach thee! whither dost thou fly?
My steps are faint. Come back, thou dearest one!
Return, ah me! return!"—The wind passed by
On which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.
Shelley, The Revolt of Islam.
After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything from hara-kari to marrying somebody else.