Yet among the few devotional pieces in the earlier series we find one of the best:
The Peace of God.
We ask for peace, O Lord!
Thy children ask thy peace;
Not what the world calls rest,
That toil and care should cease;
That through bright sunny hours
Calm life should fleet away,
And tranquil night should fade
In smiling day:
It is not for such peace that we would pray.
We ask for peace, Lord!
Yet not to stand secure,
Girt round with iron pride,
Contented to endure;
Crushing the gentle strings
That human hearts should know,
Untouched by others' joy
Or others' woe:
Thou, dear Lord! wilt never teach us so.
We ask thy peace, Lord!
Through storm, and fear, and strife,
To light and guide us on
Through a long, struggling life:
While no success or gain
Shall cheer the desperate fight,
Or nerve what the world calls
Our wasted might;
Yet pressing through the darkness to the light.
It is thine own, Lord!
Who toil while others sleep;
Who sow with loving care
What other hands shall reap:
They lean on thee entranced
In calm and perfect rest:
Give us that peace, Lord!
Divine and blest,
Thou keepest for those hearts who love thee best.
Very like this in sentiment are several of her best pieces, "Per Pacem ad Lucem," "Ministering Angels," and "Thankfulness." There are a number also addressed to the Virgin Mary, the best of which are too long for insertion. It is this which will restrict our quotations to one more piece, which breathes that lofty ardor that every struggling Christian has felt in his brighter hours of exaltation, and sighed to know that common moods cannot rise to it.
Our Titles.
Are we not Nobles? we who trace
Our pedigree so high
That God for us and for our race
Created earth and sky,
And light and air and time and space,
To serve us and then die?
Are we not Princes? we who stand
As heirs beside the throne,
We who can call the promised land
Our heritage, our own;
And answer to no less command
Than God's, and his alone?
Are we not Kings? both night and day,
From early until late,
About our bed, about our way,
A guard of angels wait;
And so we watch and work and pray
In more than royal state.
......
Are we not more? our life shall be
Immortal and divine.
The nature Mary gave to thee,
Dear Jesus, still is thine:
Adoring in thy heart I see
Such blood as beats in mine.
O God! that we can dare to fail
And dare to say we must!
O God! that we can ever trail
Such banners in the dust,
Can let such starry honors pale
And such a blazon rust!
Shall we upon such titles bring
The taint of sin and shame?
Shall we, the children of the King,
Who hold so grand a claim,
Tarnish by any meaner thing
The glory of our name?
But, although just to-day, in the present undeveloped state of woman's intellect, Miss Procter may strike us most by her advance in thought beyond her sex, she has a far higher claim on us for the admiration due to true womanhood. Where do these poets school their souls, that they come forth full of the experience of threescore years and ten? We know that Miss Procter died in the prime and summer of her days, with most of the great epochs and experiences of a woman's life yet before her. It is not even said that she ever loved; for the sake of him who should lose her, we hope it may be so. Yet her poems hold more tenderness and truth, more of real love, its anxiety, faith, fulfilment, more of woman's inner life, than any ten of the sweet soft natures who have taken these things to be their sole province; who fancy their inkstands are in their souls, and devote a lifetime of harmless harpings to rhyming some flutterings of heart and more flutterings of nerves. Here, as everywhere, we meet with Miss Procter's unfailing force and clearness, and tremble at first to meet it. For of all agonizing things (as many a sensitive nature can testify) there is none like the unconscious cruelty of pure intellect when it comes to deal with the strange intuitions, the noble unreason, the holy follies of the heart. But hand in hand with her inborn analysis comes such a womanhood, so deep, so delicate, so full of sympathy and sweet counsel, as passes words. This union it is, as we said before, that stamps Miss Procter a poet. We men cannot half appreciate this; the sisterhood of sex that her poems must establish with women who have loved and suffered is for some woman only to set forth.
It is difficult to choose any one poem which stands pre-eminent in these qualities. One which will show her insight into the seemingly contradictory impulses of a woman's breast is
A Woman's Question.
Before I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine;
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee.
Question thy soul to-night for me.
I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret:
Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet?
Or is thy faith as clear and free
As that which I can pledge to thee?
Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe
Untouched, unshared by mine?
If so, at any pain or cost,
Oh! tell me before all is lost.
Look deeper still. If thou canst feel
Within thy inmost soul
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow,
But in true mercy tell me so.
Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now—lest at some future day
My whole life wither and decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit Change,
Shedding a passing glory still
On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone—
But shield my heart against thy own.
Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day,
And answer to my claim
That fate, and that to day's mistake—
Not thou had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou
Wilt surely warn and save me now.
Nay, answer not—I dare not hear,
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So comfort thee, my fate—
Whatever on my heart may fall,
Remember, I would risk it all.
The strength of this is in the rendering of that eloquent instinct of love which intuitively strikes the most responsive chord. Here it hits on the strongest appeal a woman can make to a man—to save her against himself. And no one can deny the boldness and beauty of the closing turn of thought.
The following poem bears a strong resemblance to the last in tone and train of analysis, with an element of calm fruition instead of the utter devotion. The one is love's June of trust; the other its September of fulfilment.
A Retrospect.
From this fair point of present bliss,
Where we together stand,
Let me look back once more, and trace
That long and desert land
Wherein till now was cast my lot,
And I could live, and thou wert not.
......
What had I then? A hope that grew
Each hour more bright and dear,
The flush upon the eastern skies
That showed the sun was near.
Now night has faded far away,
My sun has risen, and it is day.
A dim ideal of tender grace
In my soul reigned supreme;
Too noble and too sweet, I thought,
To live save in a dream;
Within thy heart to-day it lies,
And looks on me from thy dear eyes.
Some gentle spirit—love, I thought—
Built many a shrine of pain;
Though each false idol fell to dust,
The worship was not vain,
But a faint radiant shadow, cast
Back from our love upon the past.
And grief, too, held her vigil there;
With unrelenting sway,
Breaking my cloudy visions down,
Throwing my flowers away:
I owe to her fond care alone
That I may now be all thine own.
Fair joy was there: her fluttering wings
At time she strove to raise;
Watching through long and patient nights,
Listening long eager days:
I know now that her heart and mine
Were waiting, love, to welcome thine.
Thus I can read thy name throughout,
And, now her task is done,
Can see that even that faded past
Was thine, beloved one.
And so rejoice my life may be
All consecrated, dear, to thee.