I muse no longer on the present—no—
My life is with the future or the past,
And both are mingling in a magic flow,
Like turbid waters in a fountain cast.
The past—-oh, whether fair, or dark, or both,
Is but a picture mirror'd on the wave.
The moral sicknesses—guile, anger, sloth—
Arise as spectres from a yawning grave;
What boots it that misfortune paled my cheek.
That penury and pain obscured my way?
Sorrow is voiceless; 'tis remorse that speaks
In awful tones of merited decay,
And of the worm that dieth not—the vale
Of never-ending, still-beginning death.
Methinks I hear the harsh, continuous wail,
The sobs and catchings of convulsive breath.
Guilt unatoned for—thoughts and words of sin—
How do they rise up, burning as on glass!
The evil pent the wishful heart within
Asking for vengeance! O the hideous mass
Of wickedness heap'd up, long, long conceal'd!
But now as by a lightning flash reveal'd.
Woe! woe! the Eternal Judge's fiery dart
Hath pierced the labyrinthine cells within,
Where underneath the pulses of my heart
Dwells the mysterious form of crouching sin.
Thoughts, baneful wishes,—ay, as well as deeds,
Against me in strong phalanx are array'd.
In vain these tears—in vain this bosom bleeds:
I look upon myself, and am dismay'd,
Powerless, and weak, and agonized I cry,—
And hear the words, "Lost sinner, thou must die!"
Clouds roll around me, and from an abyss,
Drear, dark, profound, behold a hideous form!
Closer and closer serpents coiling hiss,
And thunders boom along a sky of storm.
There is no deed to offer thee of good,
Thou mocking fiend! laugh on without restraint!
I seem as borne along a sulphurous flood,
Too meteorically wild to paint.
The couch heaves under me, my sight is gone,—
I am with the accuser, and alone!
Alone! alone! O tell me not 'tis so.
That I must grapple powerless with the foe.
Jesus, thou Lamb of God, arise! arise!
Arrest these doubts, these daring blasphemies.
It was for sinners thou didst shed thy blood,
For guilty mortals, not for angels' good.
Listen! attend! a sinner asks for aid,—
For me that blood was spilt, for me thou wast betrayed.
As when a night of storms has sped away.
And robed in florid hues appears the day,
Stealingly, gently lighting up the skies
With gleams, as from a seraph's smiling eyes,
Thus o'er my spirit breeds a gracious calm,
O'er my deep wounds is poured a healing balm.
Methinks the mild Redeemer stands above,
And pleads his righteousness, his cross, his love;
While angels' voices wafted straight from heaven
Proclaim, "Thy Savior calls! thou art forgiven!"
From The Hibernian Magazine.
THE CAPUCHIN OF BRUGES.
"Three monks sat by a bogwood fire—
Bare were their crowns, and their garments grey,
Close sat they by that bogwood fire.
Watching the wicket till break of day."
Ballad Poetry.
Saving the color of their garments, which, instead of grey, were of a dark brown, and the omission of any allusion to their long flowing beards, the above lines convey as accurate an idea as any words could of the parties that occupied the spacious guest-chamber of the Capuchin convent of Bruges on the last night of October, 1708.
Seated round the capacious hearth, on which, without aid of grate, cheerfully blazed a pile of dark gnarled logs dug up from the fens, which, in the days of Caesar, were shaded by the dense forests of Flanders, three lay-brothers of the order kept watch for any wayfarer that might require hospitality or information on the evening in question. Their convent stood—and a portion of it still stands—at the southern extremity of the town, close beside the present railway station. But Bruges was not, a century and a half ago, what it is today. War, and the recent decline of its ancient commerce, rendered it, at [{238}] the period of which we write, anything but a safe or attractive locality for either tourist or commercial traveller to visit. There was no "Hotel de Flandre," or "Fleur de Blé," or even "Singe d'Or,'" for the weary itinerant to seek refreshment or lodging. Neither were there gens-d'armes in the streets, nor affable shopkeepers in their gas-lit magasins, as at present, to whom the benighted stranger might apply for information regarding the locality in which his friends resided. The convents and monasteries, however, with which Belgium was then, as now, studded, were ever open to the traveller, be his rank or condition what it might, and pre-eminent for their hospitality were the Capuchin fathers.
The night was a wild one; and the dying blasts of October seemed bent on a vigorous struggle ere they expired.
"What an awful storm!" exclaimed Brother Anselm, rising to secure the huge oak window shutters that seemed, as if in terror, every moment ready to start from their strong iron fastenings.