Tu pleurais ce matin; je veux te consoler.
Dis-moi ce doux secret pendant que je l'embrasse.
Que veux-tu, mon Louis? Et l'enfant, à voix basse:
Des ailes pour m'envoler!”
No one can fail to be struck with the sudden stillness that follows the mother's anxious striving to drive away the cloud that would hang over her little one; with the awe and fear, too, that fill her heart; with the mystery in the whispered answer of the strange mysterious child given back from death in answer to her passionate prayer. It sets us thinking of that other mother whose grief so touched the Master's heart that he spoke the word, “and he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.” Did that young man go home so grave, with never a smile to light his face, so strangely altered, that, after the first burst of gladness, his mother, clasping him to her bosom, dared not rejoice?
Of the more serious pieces, perhaps not one equals in force “La plus grande Douleur.” It is the old tale, always new though so oft repeated: the old tale that startles, shocks, and brings sharp pain as for the first time it comes home to each one, telling that that strong bond which binds friends closer, draws classes nearer, makes nations firmer, has snapped and riven two hearts asunder; that the newly-awakened intellect first meeting early faith has turned aside, has chosen a road far other than that on which till now both friends had travelled hand in hand; that that “little superficial knowledge of philosophy that inclines man's mind to atheism” has come between them like an icy barrier, chilling the old friendship and making everything so dark and strange which before was warmth and light between them; and with effect so drear, so piercing, too, and sharp, that the unchanged heart feels any pain than that would be light to bear:
“Oui mon Dieu! nous pouvons, sans que l'âme succombe,
Laisser notre bonheur à ce passé qui tombe;
Nous pouvons au matin former un rêve pur,
Tout d'amour et de paix, tout de flamme et d'azur,