XIII.
How swiftly in this frame the primal seeds
Of purity and peace revive anew!
One wave of sleep the stain of evil deeds
Effaces, as with Heaven's baptismal dew.
The pure white flame through all its ashes burns:
The effluent being to its source returns.
XIV.
So hang their hands that would have done me wrong;
So sweet their breathing whose unkindly spite
Provoked the bitter measures of my song;
So they might slumber, sacred in my sight,
As I in theirs:—why waste contentious breath?
Forget, like Sleep, and then forgive, like Death!
XV.
I bowed my head: the sleeper gently smiled,—
How far he lay from every sting and smart!
Some sinless dream his wandering thought beguiled,
And left its sweetness in his open heart.
The God that watched him in the lonely glen
Sent me, consoled and patient, back to men.
DOCTOR JOHNS.
XL.
It would lead us far too widely from the simple order of our narrative to detail the early history of Madame Arles; and although the knowledge of it might serve in some degree to explain the peculiar interest which that poor woman has shown in the motherless Adèle, we choose rather to leave the matter unexplained, and to regard the invalid enthusiast as one whose sympathies have fastened in a strange way upon the exiled French girl, and grow all the stronger by the difficulties in the way of their full expression.