I wish that I might write,—which were far easier, if it were but fact,—that all the patience and courage of the Pure Heart of Diver's Bay, all the constancy that sought to bring order and decency and reverence into the cabins there, met at last with another external reward than merely beholding, as the children grew up to their duties and she drew near to death, the results of all her teaching; that those results were attended by another, also an external reward; that the youth, who came down like an angel to fill her place when she was gone, had walked into her house one morning, and surprised her, as the Angel Gabriel once surprised the world, by his glad tidings. I wish, that, instead of kneeling down beside her grave in the sand, and vowing there, "Oh, mother! I, who have found no mother but thee in all the world, am here, in thy place, to strive as thou didst for the ignorant and the helpless and unclean," he had thrown his arms around her living presence, and vowed that vow in spite of Bondo Emmins, and all the world beside.
But it seems that the gate is strait, and the path is ever narrow, and the hill is difficult. And the kinds of victory are various, and the badges of the conquerors are not all one. And the pure heart can wear its pearl as purely, and more safely, in the heavens, where the white array is spotless,—where the desolate heart shall be no more forsaken,—where the BRIDEGROOM, who stands waiting the Bride, says, "Come, for all things are now ready!"—where the SON makes glad. Pure Pearl of Diver's Bay! not for the cheap sake of any mortal romance will I grieve to write that He has plucked thee from the deep to reckon thee among His pearls of price.
* * * * *
CAMILLE.
I bore my mystic chalice unto Earth
With vintage which no lips of hers might name;
Only, in token of its alien birth,
Love crowned it with his soft, immortal flame,
And, 'mid the world's wide sound,
Sacred reserves and silences breathed round,—
A spell to keep it pure from low acclaim.
With joy that dulled me to the touch of scorn,
I served;—not knowing that of all life's deeds
Service was first; nor that high powers are born
In humble uses. Fragrance-folding seeds
Must so through flowers expand,
Then die. God witness that I blessed the Hand
Which laid upon my heart such golden needs!
And yet I felt, through all the blind, sweet ways
Of life, for some clear shape its dreams to blend,—
Some thread of holy art, to knit the days
Each unto each, and all to some fair end,
Which, through unmarked removes,
Should draw me upward, even as it behooves
One whose deep spring-tides from His heart descend.
To swell some vast refrain beyond the sun,
The very weed breathed music from its sod;
And night and day in ceaseless antiphon
Rolled off through windless arches in the broad
Abyss.—Thou saw'st I, too,
Would in my place have blent accord as true,
And justified this great enshrining, God!
Dreams!—Stain it on the bending amethyst,
That one who came with visions of the Prime
For guide somehow her radiant pathway missed,
And wandered in the darkest gulf of Time.
No deed divine thenceforth
Stood royal in its far-related worth;
No god, in truth, might heal the wounded chime.
Oh, how? I darkly ask;—and if I dare
Take up a thought from this tumultuous street
To the forgotten Silence soaring there
Above the hiving roofs, its calm depths meet
My glance with no reply.
Might I go back and spell this mystery
In the new stillness at my mother's feet,—