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 a poem 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY RANDALL SHIPPEY 
 
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 NEW YORK 
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Copyright, 190 J/., by Robert Grier Cooke 
 
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 The author of Soeur Marie has solved the problem 
 of the soul that she sought to explain : — Eight years 
 ago she passed from tliis life. The poem is an origi- 
 nal attempt, of a woman, to give an answer to the 
 questions of the soul. It owes little to books, but 
 much to conversation and experience of the heart. 
 There will be found in the poem a minor tone of music 
 running through its lines app^rt from the incident 
 and metre — who can say.'' Does not the soul in 
 Earth-life, now and then, come clearly to knowledge 
 and expression of itself.'' It is always insistent, but 
 material needs engross the intellect and rarely can 
 the soul compel recognition. A few through the 
 ages have kept truth, some find it, and it is given 
 when it will be received. 
 
^oeur JEarte 
 
 I KNEW her only as a gray-garbed nun 
 Whose gentle mission took her wheresoe'er 
 A wearied body or grief-sickened heart 
 Had need of rest and that sure heahng wrought 
 By her soft touch and low sweet-cadenced voice. 
 
 By what thrice-blessed chance she came to be 
 The star that fixed my Hfe's uncertain course, 
 Were briefly told: — The kindly, keen-eyed friend 
 Whose ready skill to read the cause of things 
 Beneath their seeming, came thro' many years 
 Of ceaseless work among his suffering kind. 
 Discerned my need and sent me Sceur Marie. 
 
 "A nurse for you." So said the kind, keen eyes 
 When first they saw my languid look infold 
 The restful garb and quiet, tender face. 
 No more it seemed a thing to question then. 
 To my sick heart and thought-refusing brain, 
 Than if he'd shut a rose, dew-kissed, within 
 My helpless hand and said, " a flower for you." 
 
 1 
 
How many days and nights she patient watched 
 Within that darkened room, I never knew ; 
 For memory dates from that fair morning when 
 Like one new-born, I woke to know and feel 
 The something more that marked the watcher there 
 From those gray shapes that peopled all my dreams. 
 
 How soft she moved with that sure poise and grace 
 No art can teach but only consciousness 
 Of having found the mission and the place 
 By Heaven intended. So the lily moves 
 On slender, swaying stem her regal head, 
 Each undulating motion : — saying : — " See 
 How beautiful a thing it is to be ! 
 O gracious moment that conceived it meet 
 That I should grow and just be fair and sweet! " 
 
 When from that haunted, grief-englamoured room 
 First ventured I into the great clean world, — 
 My world of arching skies and sweet new air — • 
 'Twere hard to tell if most I joyed or grieved. 
 
 Thro' all the long, slow, convalescing days 
 Conspired the gracious ministrants of health — 
 The tempered air, the smiling April sun. 
 The happy birds, the little growing things 
 To lure the soul back to its cage again. 
 And Soeur Marie's low voice and gentle touch 
 
 2 
 
Seemed but a chord the more in that full theme, 
 The jubilate of the waking spring. 
 
 And ah! the deep, sweet joy to feel again 
 That boundless heart — the mighty mother heart 
 That knows no change, still beating warm and true ; 
 Within her tireless arms to lie at rest, 
 A child once more ; to be again caressed 
 After long parting; — were that not joy? — and yet, 
 Do hearts 'neath mother-kisses straight forget 
 All tears and aches, or but the keener sense 
 By contrast with her touch the bleeding wounds 
 Fresh stabbed by hands less gentle? 
 
 Lethean-sweet 
 The peace and rest of those long dreamful days 
 To my worn spirit. One by one the keys 
 That grief had worn to wearying dissonance, 
 Regained their rightful tones. My lyric soul 
 Awoke to feel once more its myriad strings 
 A nearing subtle, full, symphonious touch 
 With nature's music. But as daily grew 
 The harmony more perfect, so increased 
 The one o'er-strained chord's discrepant sound, 
 .Grown thrice discordant where would else abound 
 Fine consonance and peace inviolate. 
 
 What taught the heart that beat so evenly 
 Beneath that soft gray garb, to feel the hurt 
 
 3 
 
Deep hidden in another, or to trace 
 With such un-erring swiftness to the cause, 
 I could not then divine ; so when my nurse 
 Let fall one day the volume from her hands 
 And clasping mine, at once began to speak 
 As she had read more clearly in my look 
 My inmost soul than from the printed book 
 The author's thought, in my first great surprise 
 I turned in half resentment from her eyes. 
 
 But not like others was my Soeur Marie, 
 And stooping o'er me as an angel might 
 She gently whispered, " Child, I know your pain ; 
 May I not know the hidden cause as well? 
 
 Forgive, if too abruptly thus aside 
 I thrust the veil so closely drawn to hide 
 Your aching wound ; 'tis but that I may find 
 Some means of swifter healing, that so keen 
 I make the hurt. — Look in my eyes, dear soul, 
 And read if aught has moved me thus to speak 
 All uninvited, save the tender throb 
 Of woman's love to woman. — Do not fear 
 To let poor nature have her way ; outpour 
 As freely all your pent-up pain as though 
 Your heart alone were listener. Dear one, know 
 The power to read your suffering thus doth prove 
 " My right divine to share it, — right of love." 
 
 4 
 
What magic lingered in her simple words 
 I cannot say ; but this I know, they wrought 
 A mighty change within: up-rose the flood 
 Of stormy feeling: — barriers builded strong 
 Of stern reserve on piers of granite pride 
 Were swept away. Upon that gentle breast 
 I bowed my head and let the hot tears flow. 
 By tender words and tactful questioning 
 She won my halting, still-reluctant tongue 
 To freer speech until at last was told 
 The bitter story of my loss and wrong. 
 Thrice bitter from such wretched commonness 
 As bars its right of repetition here. 
 
 A battle lost; — an upright nature lured 
 From honor and from love; — a ruined home;- 
 A broken heart ; — a wife's unswerving faith 
 Dragged in the dust. Such scorious elements 
 Have based most oft that unheroic tale, 
 A woman's story, since the world begun. 
 Who knows not all the sequel ere is done 
 The dull prelude? Yet nothing common-place 
 In its recital found my Soeur Marie. 
 My watchful pride, alert to guard my hurt 
 From prying, or from merely pitying eyes. 
 Detected naught in her fair, speaking face 
 But sweet compassion — ^that fine sympathy 
 
A lofty soul feels for another soul 
 Held of itself a part. 
 
 Her clasping hands 
 In silent eloquence, attested oft 
 
 How well she guessed what shafts but slightly pierced 
 Which deepest sunk, and which had left behind 
 The subtlest poison. While she listened so 
 It almost seemed her own had been the hurt 
 Instead of mine. 
 
 I can recall no word 
 She spoke in comfort or in counsel then ; 
 But when the days in passing so had made 
 Familiar this new sharing of my grief 
 That I no longer shrank from open speech. 
 She turned one day, and in that low-keyed voice 
 That made her converse seem no less a part 
 Of nature's music than the tender sighs 
 Soft breathed above us thro' the wind-kissed pines. 
 She questioned thus : — " If it be not too great 
 Presumption on the part of one who comes 
 With but a recent claim upon your trust. 
 May I old friendship's right so far usurp 
 To ask you somewhat of your future plans .^^ " 
 
 A moment I was dumb, so strange to me 
 Her question seemed, and then I made reply : 
 " I have no plans. 'Tis only those who hold 
 6 
 
Some purpose dear who motive find for plans. 
 There are, I know, some natures so endowed 
 With self-igniting, deathless elements, 
 That disappointment only seems to serve 
 As fuel to their hope. Not so with mine : 
 I staked my all and lost. Henceforth for me 
 To live, is to endure as best I may 
 The common lot, but not to hope or plan." 
 
 A silence fell ; in dreary retrospect 
 I gazed adown the changeful, stormy years 
 That summed my past: — a charred and blackened 
 
 waste 
 Where straight young growths with leaf and bloom 
 
 had been 
 Flame-swept with still their promise undefined. 
 
 O bitter moment in a woman's life 
 That brings the awful willingness to blot 
 From memory all the sacred name of " wife " 
 Evokes of joy, if so may be forgot 
 The deathless grief ! That moment came to me 
 In that brief silence; — was its passion writ 
 Upon my face? Perchance, for Soeur Marie 
 Next spoke as she indeed had fathomed it. 
 
 " Dear, in your nature lie, thick-sown, the germs 
 Of strength and energy ; no accident 
 
 7 
 
That may retard the growth, can sap the life 
 
 Stored up within them. You are one of those 
 
 Who, thro' a long ancestral line have come 
 
 To rich inheritance of heart and brain : 
 
 One rare possession, — yours by truest right 
 
 Of self-accretion, — that fine, flexile will 
 
 That lends itself a ready instrument 
 
 To mighty purposes, renders you more free 
 
 Than many be to choose and shape your life. 
 
 To sit in passive, dumb endurance thro' 
 
 The years that stretch from now to listless age^ 
 
 Were wanton waste thro' wilful negligence 
 
 Of riches, — not capriciously bestowed 
 
 By partial Providence, — but garnered up 
 
 Atom by atom, painfully and slow. 
 
 Thro' countless lives by countless millions lived. 
 
 You think my words too earnest, — all too grave 
 The import I ascribe to one small life.? 
 O could you know the depth of reverence 
 And awe a pure and richly dowered soul 
 Can stir within me, rather would you be 
 Amazed that I in such poor, common speech 
 A theme so sacred dare so near approach ! 
 
 In all the heights and depths of all the worlds 
 Of which imagination holds conceit. 
 Go find me aught whose worth and majesty 
 
 8 
 
Dwarf not beside a single human soul. 
 
 What else so vast in possibilities ; 
 
 So broad to grasp creation's mighty plan; 
 
 So keen to search its subtlest secrets out ; 
 
 So deep to sound the purposes that be 
 
 Forever and forever fathomless? 
 
 And what in boundless aspiration soars 
 
 So high to touch the God-hood it adores? 
 
 Say not that any words these lips can frame 
 Too earnest be ! Would that the gift were mine 
 To thrill you with such fervid eloquence 
 You could not choose but let your thought expand 
 Beneath its glow, till lifting it should soar 
 Above these clouds so heavy with your tears, 
 And in the bright air pulsing with the warmth 
 Of God's own love should meet the holy truth 
 That waits the recognition of your soul." 
 
 She ceased, and in her pure, up-lifted face 
 I gazed in wonder, so transfigured seemed 
 Its outlines. Thro' the wide, calm, steadfast eyes 
 All luminous with feeling, softly streamed 
 The white effulgence from the altar flame 
 That lit the inner temple of her soul. 
 Was it this light, or her impassioned words, 
 Or might of both that so resistless moved 
 Upon the night and chaos of my world? 
 
 9 
 
A heart too often cheated of its hope 
 Is prone to guard full jealously the door 
 Where promise enters. If my Soeur Marie 
 Had sought, by wisest words to conjure forth 
 The ghosts of such ambitions and desires 
 As wrought me such disaster in their death, 
 She must have failed; but something in her speech 
 Struck deeper than the burnt-out strata where 
 The tender germs of hope had blighted been. 
 Some deep, long-buried world of consciousness 
 Seemed touched and quickened till in dim array 
 Came thronging forth the pictures it had stored 
 Of purer aspirations, fairer hopes 
 Than life as I had known it, fostered faith 
 To realize and mold to living forms. 
 
 I could not voice at once the surging thoughts 
 That swept my being as a tidal wave 
 Rising from memory's sea ; but when the ebb 
 That follows fast upon the mightiest flow 
 Had left me free to scan the fresh-laved shore, 
 I found strange creatures, — bits of weed, and shells 
 That sang a sad sea-music to my ear: — 
 The songs of half-remembered long-agos. 
 
 Wild longings woke, and restless questionings 
 Pressed upward to my lips, where doubtful words 
 Some hint of their significance conveyed 
 
 10 
 
To Soeur Marie. She gave them clearer form 
 And force more definite in speech somewhat hke 
 this : — 
 
 " Is it so new, this thought that every soul, 
 However meanly dowered, or richly graced, 
 Is but the growth of ages : — that we come 
 Into the world or well or ill equipped 
 According to our merit, and the stage 
 Of progress that as conscious beings we 
 Have reached in common with the growing race? 
 
 I know how strange at first this doctrine falls 
 On ears accustomed to those rock-walled creeds 
 Whose thund'rous booms alarm the fleets of reason. 
 
 From childhood we unthinkingly accept 
 The common teaching that each new-born soul 
 Comes as a fresh creation from God's hand; 
 Nor dare to question why the handiwork 
 Is laid aside in so unfinished form. 
 Or why such crude conceptions shadow forth 
 To travesty divine imagination. 
 
 Between perverted reverence that fears. 
 And indolence that shirks the fullest use 
 Of human rights, we crush the insistent " Why " 
 That seeks to force an entrance for the light 
 Of brave research that would solution find 
 For many a painful riddle in our life. 
 
 11 
 
We speak of God as Justice, Truth and Love, 
 Nor heed the bitter facts of every-day 
 That rise in stern dispute. We see around 
 Us want and woe and jealousy and strife 
 And hate and fear and hardened selfishness, — 
 Off -sprung from inequalities that we 
 Affect a resignation to accept 
 As part and purpose of an all-wise plan. 
 
 Yet who that truly thinks, or fearless looks 
 At life in all its aspects, can discern 
 Thro' light of human love and justice, aught 
 To draw his worship toward a Being who 
 Has so created and so fixed by law 
 Each soul and its conditions that to strive 
 Were worse than vain? 'Twould better far accord 
 With what our inmost hearts can recognize 
 Of love and justice, to believe that He 
 Who gives us being, gives us equal chance 
 To climb by divers upward-leading ways — 
 That each may choose according to his will — 
 To that attainment and that perfect rest 
 The spirit longs for. As each human soul 
 From every other differs, so no two 
 The self-same path shall choose: neither shall seek 
 The self -same goal. Yet each alike shall find 
 Complete fulfilment of his true desire, — 
 See God indeed, and know that He is good ! " 
 
 12 
 
Her words that found their joyous echo in 
 My heart of hearts, awoke besides such doubts 
 As had their root in long-f amihar creeds ; — 
 Not all unquestioned neither yet denied. 
 So thus I asked : — " How can you reconcile 
 This faith in God's impartial love that gives 
 An equal chance to all, with that so far 
 From equal distribution of good gifts 
 We see on every side? How comes it that 
 These inequalities and wrongs exist 
 To work such woe? " 
 
 She smiled, then gently answered: 
 " Let us turn a page in nature's book, for there. 
 Unspoiled by poor translation, we may read 
 God's freshly written text. One summer day 
 I climbed a richly wooded peak that rose 
 In fair New England's range ; the forest stood 
 In all its native grandeur of wild growth 
 Untouched by woodsman's craft; and high and wide, 
 So leaf-form, tint and texture ail were lost 
 In deep, o'er-shadowing gloom, the towering crowns 
 Were proudly reared. Yet marked I how the trunks 
 Of Beeches, Poplars, Maples, even Oaks, 
 For generations striving toward the sky, 
 Had gained far less in girth than two decades 
 Of growth in sunny freedom should achieve. 
 
 I marvelled with a sense of keenest pain 
 13 
 
To see these scions of a kingly race 
 
 So puny and so starved ; but wandering on 
 
 I noted here and there a giant stem 
 
 Wrapped in its swarthy, tattered cloak of tan, — 
 
 The very type of rough and savage king. 
 
 At first I failed to guess the monarch's name 
 So loftily he bore his shaggy head 
 Amid the sombre shade; but when anon 
 An unkempt lock, down drooping from the rest, 
 Betrayed him of the Hemlock's gypsy race, 
 I smiled and no more wondered at the small- 
 Girthed oaks and puny maples. Here the wild, 
 Free Ishmael of the wood had nurture found 
 Best suited to his needs, and growing strong 
 And lusty in his youth, had far outstripped 
 And over-topped the young patricians who 
 In weakliness had quailed beneath his frown. 
 
 This picture I have oft recalled and oft 
 Have wondered by what chance or what design 
 Of Nature's fickle will, this upstart king 
 Had gained his despot sway. The sources whence 
 He drew his sustenance, I recognized 
 To be less deep than those the gentler race 
 Stretched finer souls to feed from. Him, I knew 
 Heredity's great law would yet compel 
 To yield his might-won throne, and then methought, 
 
 14 
 
Perchance when come the true and rightful heirs 
 Into their own, that haply they shall find 
 New source of strength and richer elements 
 Of life because of this usurper's reign. 
 
 The fancy pleased me and I loved to think 
 'Twas all in line of purpose subtly planned 
 By that wise planner, Nature, whose fixed law 
 Gives justice to her children. Low and high. 
 Strong, weak, bad, good, the perfect and the crude, — 
 Each has its turn: each sees its one glad day 
 Of triumph and of conquest: knows for once 
 The fulness of its power, then dies content. 
 
 Nor is this all: — beneath the outward show 
 Of love impartial, lies a deeper law 
 Of higher justice based on larger love: 
 For when to satisfy the righteous claim 
 Upon her motherhood, wise nature gives 
 To those short-lived, crude, coarse, and selfish things 
 She brings to being, all their greed will take, 
 'Tis not to rob her dearer children, whom 
 She destines for a broader, richer life 
 And higher purpose. That were never love, 
 And nature is most loving and most wise : 
 For while the claim of each she satisfies, 
 She also sees that each in living out 
 To full fruition all its selfish greed 
 
 15 
 
Demands of being, so shall minister 
 All unawares, to other lives, and yield 
 At last in full content its store of will — 
 Intensified and focused by self-love — 
 To energize and aid some higher life. 
 
 In great creation's fine economy 
 Naught serves itself alone. The seeming foul 
 Gives fuller life and beauty to the fair : 
 Evil is good disguised: good knows no ultimate 
 To-day's perfection hints to-morrow's dream 
 Of loftier ideals. But my theme I fear 
 Has lured me further than I meant to stray 
 Into that realm — to me most dear and real — 
 Where bright imagination sits supreme, 
 Fair queen and regal mistress of the mind. 
 
 I know you see my fancy's trend and draw 
 From my most free translation vastly more 
 Than lends itself to fixed forms of speech. 
 Nor need I point for you the analogue : — 
 As nature with her own, so even He, 
 The loving power she mirrors, deals with His. 
 And nothing He has fashioned can be lost. 
 Forgotten, or neglected: neither let 
 To taste that bitter, heart-corroding draught 
 We term injustice. 
 
 16 
 
When the time shall come 
 For the last trial at those composite sums 
 We call our lives, and we are smiling shown 
 The method of their working, and the way 
 We missed the rule and strangely overlooked 
 Some plain, prime factors : when for us is found 
 The final answer, and with other sums 
 Our own we shall compare, to find that none 
 Than ours was easier of solution : none more full, 
 Complete and perfect in its last result; 
 Then shall we know that that soul-chilling thing 
 We named " injustice " nowhere findeth place 
 In the true plan. Bom of our mortal loves. 
 Ignorance and passions, it holds no elements 
 Long to survive death of the mortal in us." 
 
 A curious consciousness of some unseen 
 Subjective self, responding ardently 
 To all the outlined and suggested truths 
 Her words conveyed, possessed me, tho' my mind 
 Quite failed to clearly grasp their larger import. 
 
 No comment seemed at once appropriate, 
 And with the hope indelibly to fix 
 On memory's scroll the graphic imagery 
 Of her unstudied speech, I silent sat. 
 Till lengthening shadows warned my gentle nurse 
 That my too brief, blue-vaulted day was ended. 
 
 17 
 
Ere April's pledges fairly were redeemed 
 In foliate May, my fast returning strength 
 Permitted me to seek the scented wood 
 Whose dim cathedral vistas from afar 
 Had long allured. Here stood the patriarch pines, 
 Those wise high-priests of Nature, set to guard 
 Her old alchemic rites, and tirelessly 
 To chant her changeless hymns of incantation. 
 
 Beneath their outstretched, peace-invoking hands 
 For hours together, Sceur Marie and I 
 Roamed in our ever-fascinating quest 
 Of coyly-hiding, thickly-clustering vines 
 All blossom-gemmed. Spring's sweetest harbinger, 
 And then in some moss-cushioned, sunny nook 
 We'd sit for quiet converse, while we culled 
 Our fragrant treasure over. 
 
 Thus apart 
 From all the pettiness of indoor life 
 And narrowing conventions, I could come 
 Somewhat in touch with that large restfulness 
 That so enhanced the ever-varying charm 
 And strong attractiveness that Sceur Marie's 
 Whole presence breathed. This restfulness I grew. 
 By my slow processes to recognize 
 As largely due to her rare, subtle, keen. 
 Profoundly mystic sympathy with nature. 
 And yet I know there was a something else — 
 
 18 
 
A something not so readily explained 
 
 In her assured serenity and poise. 
 
 And powerfully this subtle something drew 
 
 And held my interest, so intangible 
 
 And all-elusive was it to my mind's 
 
 Most keen pursuit; nor would it let me rest 
 
 For fast-increasing wish to analyze 
 
 And clear-define it. 
 
 More and more each day 
 Her conversation evidenced a broad, 
 Unique experience of what I named — 
 For lack of other term — " religious life " ; 
 And yet so altogether genuine was she, 
 So obviously original her every phrase 
 And turn of speech, even her mode of thought 
 And line of argument, that much was I perplexed 
 To reconcile her fresh, sweet sentiments 
 And wholesome ethics, with my preconceit — 
 Not flattering — as touching on the views 
 And canting habit of religious zealots. 
 
 I tried to think my ignorance of the ways 
 And faiths of all recluses so had lent 
 This halo of vague mystery I felt 
 Surrounding Soeur Marie: and so dismissed 
 The oft-recurring puzzle; nor perceived 
 What time it fast was ripening to solution. 
 
 19 
 
My undisguised pleasure in her speech, 
 What-e'er the time or subject, naturally 
 Induced from her a happy unrestraint 
 And frankness of expression, thro' which I 
 Was free to scan at will her inner life, 
 While consciousness of spiritual poverty 
 On my own part, before her opulence 
 Most often kept me silent. 
 
 But one day 
 Her more than common warmth and unreserve 
 So startled me, — discovering as it did 
 Apparent firm persuasion on her part 
 Of my complete response and sympathy, — 
 That I began to feel tliis silentness 
 Had been unpardonable. A tingling sense 
 Of inward shame at my unworthiness. 
 And deep chagrin that she should so mistake 
 My sentiments, wrought upon me. Soeur ]Marie 
 Might even think that she had found a firm 
 True proselyte, or — barring this, — at least 
 A faithful sympathizer, predisposed 
 To favor her pecuhar creed or order. 
 
 A strong revolt from this so likely chance 
 Of flagrant misconception, plus the sense 
 Of all the depths and distances that yawned 
 Impassable between us, quickened me 
 
 SO 
 
To hasty protest, and inadvertently 
 
 Compelled the breach of that cold reticence 
 
 That held me mute whenever spiritual 
 
 And personal themes approached consociation. 
 
 An opportune remark from her, at length 
 
 Gave me the wished for opening, and then 
 
 I stood not on the order of my speech : — 
 
 " But Soeur Marie, the wisdom of your words — 
 
 Tho' plainly I perceive for such as you. 
 
 Yet are they not entirely wise for me. 
 
 By widely different worlds we have been shaped,- 
 
 Our natures tuned to wholly different keys. 
 
 Had I in early life been taught as you, — 
 
 Had I absorbed the creed of selflessness 
 
 And sweet humility: been set apart 
 
 Por special service: learned the blessedness 
 
 Of pure — unselfish striving for the good: — 
 
 In short had education placed a goal 
 
 For me like that which upward lures your soul, 
 
 And all such souls as consecrate themselves 
 
 Like you in early youth, it might not be 
 
 Impossible that there is that within 
 
 My inmost nature that should make of me 
 
 A woman who like you could live the life 
 
 And joy in living. 
 
 But think how different 
 Have been my aims, my hopes and purposes. 
 
 21 
 
To bring the fragments of a nature wrecked 
 Upon the stormy sea of worldhness, 
 And lay upon that holy altar where 
 Naught but the first and best should offered be, 
 Were veriest sacrilege. Ah! Soeur Marie, 
 I feel the fulness of your sympathy 
 And bless you for it. Still I can but know 
 That there are chapters in my shipwrecked life 
 You can but guess at. Shielded by your name 
 And order, you perforce have haply missed 
 Experience which alone can fully teach 
 How hearts can feel and how completely break. 
 You think that I can find new ideals, hopes, 
 To build myself around. — ^Ah! had you known 
 In all your gentle life a love and loss 
 Like mine, sweet friend, no need were now to 
 
 frame 
 In words to you the bitter hopeless truth — 
 My soul has lost the power to strive again." 
 
 In simple honesty I longed to prove 
 What soon or late my friend was doomed to find. 
 That all her loving efforts had been vain. 
 And in the earnestness of my desire 
 To make myself and my position clear, 
 I grew oblivious of Soeur Marie 
 And shaped my words to fit the saintly nun. 
 
 22 
 
Her utter stillness and her unresponse 
 To my long speech recalled me to myself, 
 When deep contrition seized me; for the face, 
 Always so calm and pure, was shadowed o'er 
 With such a look as moved me swift to say : — 
 " Have I so hurt you? Pardon, Soeur Marie! " 
 
 She took my proffered hands and mutely bent 
 Her face above them, while I remorseful sat 
 Waiting for her to speak. 
 
 " Dear heart," at last she said, 
 " No need is there to crave or grant excuse. 
 'Twas not your words that hurt, but memories 
 Long buried, that have thrilled to life again 
 And quivering agony. 
 
 I see that you. 
 Mis-led by my vocation, garb and name, 
 Have read me and my motives all amiss. 
 
 You asked me nothing of my past, and I 
 Presumed that you had rightly guessed or heard 
 Some knowledge of my order. This gray garb 
 Marks me not one of that great sisterhood 
 Who count themselves most blest and nearest Christ 
 When closest shut from Christ's great suffering 
 
 world. 
 With no religious order, faith, or creed 
 Am I identified: nor am I bound 
 
By any code that righteous men have fixed 
 As needful hedge for most of mortal kind. 
 
 In life's great school of human joy and pain 
 Long years ago I took my full degree. 
 I learned that good and evil, right and wrong, 
 Joy, sorrow, peace and pain, are only names 
 For such so infinitely varied states 
 As each may only enter for himself 
 And for himself define. In me was fought 
 That battle where the spirit meets its last. 
 Worst enemy, — the Self, — and conquering 
 Or conquered, evermore must justly know 
 Its weakness or its strength. The victory 
 So hardly won and at such frightful cost 
 That long the doubt remained if victory 
 It really were, — or only truce perforce, — • 
 Left my spent spirit sorrowing in the dust, 
 All shorn of victor's pride. 
 
 Ah ! no one — none 
 ■" Hath knowledge how much blood it costs ! " and 
 Was mercifully dazed, nor fully woke 
 To the keen sense of all my fearful loss 
 In that fierce struggle, till within my soul 
 Had dawned full knowledge of my priceless gain. 
 
 I went into the contest fettered, bound : — 
 The brand of many a coward master on me. 
 
 24 
 
Tradition, fear, love of the world's dear praise. 
 Distrust of my own powers and doubt of God's, 
 All lashed my soul and mocked its claims to freedom. 
 And crudest of all that crippled me, — 
 Dragging so at my heart strings, — was the strong. 
 Deep-rooted love for the dear foe I challenged. 
 
 Not mine, ah no ! not mine, — such victory 
 As there was gained ! For when my weak heart fal- 
 tered. 
 And must straightway have yielded, lo ! an arm 
 That never fails the valiant who succumbs 
 Not till he must, was stretched in my defence. 
 
 When next we met, — my king of foes and all 
 That horde that once through him had fettered me, 
 I fearless faced them, knowing I was free. — 
 
 And now unshackled by the iron law 
 Of the world's right, I take the one straight way 
 My feet must follow, — be it rough or smooth 
 Or lead where-e'er it may, — so I but see 
 The light ahead that leads my spirit on 
 To larger life and wisdom. 
 
 They who hold 
 Such freedom dangerous, and strive to map 
 Such various roads as all may safely walk 
 Nor go amiss, are right and wise: — 'tis true 
 
That many — mayhap all — at some time need 
 
 Such guidance and restriction as the learned 
 
 In moral lore can offer and enforce. 
 
 But here and there among the multitude 
 
 Some soul, full sharply tried because full strong 
 
 To stand the test, is by such trial freed 
 
 From bondage to the common law. To such, 
 
 The codes that one time proved such needful props. 
 
 Become grave obstacles to further growth: 
 
 How then to pass these hurtful bounds and yet 
 Hold fixed and true to each unwritten law 
 They sharp define, is that grave question which 
 Such souls must face and solve if they would climb 
 The eternal heights of peace. 
 
 Dear, strong, brave woman, — ^loving, constant, 
 true, — 
 Unwittingly your soul has borne the test 
 Of pain's baptismal fires. You think the flames 
 That scorched so deep have blasted root and germ 
 Past hope of resurrection. 'Tis not so. 
 The happy garden of your girlish dreams. 
 So full of promise and fresh budding hopes, 
 Is swept away, I grant, and nevermore 
 On earth shall grow its like for you again. 
 
 But tell me, dear, — nor think I ask to pain, — 
 Nor yet to judge as if I had discerned 
 
 ^6 
 
Some fault of nature in you, — 'tis as if 
 My very self I questioned, — tell me then 
 If in that garden there had nothing grown 
 Beyond your strength to weed : that you now feel 
 Were well destroyed. Could you this moment pray 
 To have the whole restored? Free now to choose, 
 Would you have back unchanged in anything 
 Your vanished world? Your eyes have answered 
 
 me. 
 That darkening shade of pain and lurking fear 
 Tells all I need to know. 
 
 And yet for me 
 Who hold my past, — e'en all my saddest past — 
 A faithful counsellor, trusty guide and friend 
 To lead me thro' such shadow-misted ways 
 As mark my untried future, it would seem 
 Strange mockery indeed to bid you turn 
 From your dead world and hasten to forget. 
 
 Forgotten merely, pain's residium 
 Will linger and corrode beneath the scar 
 That marks the outward healing ; but if held 
 In safe solution by humility 
 And wise submission. Time's sure alchemy 
 Will so transmute pain's crudest elements 
 That only in their purest ultimate, 
 Beneficient and healing, shall they rise 
 To mingle with the spirit." 
 
The subtle, sweet, 
 Compelling dominant, that ever set 
 Some new chord vibrant in me, thrilling it 
 To yearning, vague, elusive, wavering touch 
 With something dear and distant, like the dim, 
 Far, half-remembered music of a dream, 
 Was in her accents. And from somewhere 'neath 
 The glacier-hardened crust where stonily 
 Had lain my heart, there leapt a sudden flame. 
 
 Whence came this rare white soul of womanhood 
 I knew as Soeur Marie.? Whence all her wisdom? 
 By what privilege, vouchsafed to her beyond 
 The common right of mortals, had she gained 
 This certainty of knowledge, this calm peace. 
 This strength, this poise, this saint's courageousness. 
 That all my soul with sudden passion envied.? 
 
 The questions that I framed gave little hint 
 Of the fierce, strong, imperious demand 
 For fuller knowledge of her that this slight 
 Revealment of herself had roused within me. 
 
 " How is it then," I queried, " that you wear 
 This nun's attire, and sacrifice your life 
 To gentle service, seeking no return 
 For all you give in lavish tenderness 
 Of your heart's best, thro' these dear angel hands.? — 
 Sweet Sister of Compassion that you are! 
 
With gifts like yours, the unattainable 
 Of this world's goals could scarce exist, and yet 
 You seem indifferent, or wholly free 
 From worldly aims. Why are your hopes and dreams 
 So lifted and remote from all that stirs 
 The common heart and wakes it to ambition? 
 
 Since you disclaim the cloister I confess 
 Myself perplexed indeed, concerning you. 
 Some spiritual order sometime, surely, must 
 Have nurtured you, else how come you to be 
 Your dear peculiar self, — and how called Soeur 
 Marie.?" 
 
 "A faith and order spiritual indeed. 
 Though not religious, — in the straightened sense: 
 Ecclesiastical, — I do acknowledge. 
 'Tis true they call me ' Soeur,' and many led 
 By that, my mission, and this gray attire 
 To hasty inference, conclude that ' nun ' 
 Is my appropriate title. Ne'er-the-less 
 The word's a sobriquet and hardly fitting. 
 
 You must have marked how different is my garb 
 From that made so familiar to your eyes 
 By pale recluses, or those gentle Soeurs 
 De Merci, who like shadowy spirits strayed 
 
 ^9 
 
From some dead planet, take their silent way 
 Among us, yet not of us. 
 
 Be it far 
 From my sincere intention to suggest 
 Comparisons invidious ; the pure 
 Devoted, patient lives and countless deeds 
 Of sacrifice and noiseless charity 
 That stand accounted, to that faithful band 
 Commands from me respect and reverence 
 Most genuine and deep. And, lest fuller light 
 Upon their faith and principles might shame 
 A present judgment, let me not presume 
 To criticise what certainly would seem 
 But slavish bending to a priestly rule 
 And superstitious custom in their rites, 
 And curious grave-like vestments. 
 
 Be all that 
 However as it may, it not concerns 
 My present subject save as it may serve 
 To emphasize some points of difference 
 Between them and my order. Not for us 
 The pale disfiguring band that straightly hides 
 The noblest feature of the human face ; — 
 That feature where, if anywhere, God stamps 
 The impress of His thought. — Neither the close- 
 Wound curve-concealing wimple, nor the veil 
 Do we affect, but leave each happiest grace 
 
 30 
 
Of form and feature beautiful and free 
 
 As nature modelled it. No sympathy 
 
 Have we with those harsh creeds whose tenets teach 
 
 The beauty of holiness but quite forget 
 
 The holiness of beauty. We believe 
 
 Omniscience was Omniscient still, e'en when 
 
 It fashioned woman ; so in reverence hold 
 
 His every gift a dear and sacred trust, 
 
 And seek in love and gratitude to know 
 
 How we may best employ it to perfect 
 
 His purpose in us. 
 
 Since gracious lines and curves 
 And tender tints, that rest and satisfy 
 The heart's dumb ache for beauty, are no less 
 His holy handiwork when they enshrine 
 A human soul, than when they're chaliced round 
 The lily's censer, we esteem it part 
 Of perfect service to keep beautiful 
 And pure, his temple wherein for the day 
 We call a life, at least, we're dopmed to worship. — 
 Nay — not doomed, — ^permitted rather, for 'tis fair 
 And good to dwell in, — full of music too, — 
 Save we ourselves wake discord in its echoes. 
 
 We must be clothed, and reasons practical 
 And very far removed from sentiment 
 Or thoughts fanatic, constrained us to adopt 
 
 31 
 
Some quite distinctive dress. First it protects; 
 
 Next simplifies our needs, and sets us free 
 
 From fashion's thrall ; and last, but far from least 
 
 Of such advantages as daily use 
 
 Confirms for this soft gray, we find it rests 
 
 The jaded nerves whose need necessitates 
 
 Employ of many an art to soothe and strengthen." 
 
 "And forcibly indeed can / attest 
 
 The excellence in practice of that last 
 
 Consideration. But greatly do I grudge 
 
 This interruption and sincerely hope 
 
 You will continue. Somehow you have roused 
 
 An interest in my mind more eager and intense 
 
 Than words can evidence. But I do not mean 
 
 To question deeper than my slender claim 
 
 To special favor warrants ; and the least 
 
 Your inclination moves you to disclose 
 
 Shall quite suffice. Still if the privilege 
 
 Extended me permits it, I would like 
 
 To venture this one question: — What consists 
 
 Or constitutes the body corporate 
 
 Of this alluring dream of sisterhood 
 
 That scarcely yet seems more than dream to me? 
 
 Is it an order fixed and limited 
 
 By local habitation and a name? 
 
 Strange as it seems no doubt, I'm not aware 
 I ever heard till now of its existence. 
 
 32 
 
still I confess that scarce another mind 
 Of passable attainments, harbors less 
 Of accurate information which relates 
 To recluse lives and orders, than my own. 
 
 When first I saw you, in the indolence 
 Of mental weariness I scarcely thought 
 Of you at all ; but rested in the warmth 
 Your presence shed much as the leafless stem 
 Rests in the subtile aura of the spring. 
 
 Some vague association lingering 
 Behind descriptions I had sometime read — 
 But quite forgotten — of the good gray nuns. 
 Sufficed to set at rest such flickerings 
 Of curious interest concerning where 
 To place you, as I doubt not must have crossed 
 My languid mind; and your identity 
 Once settled for me, nothing subsequent 
 Chanced to disturb it." 
 
 "And far indeed from an z^ncompliment 
 Was your mistaken inference," she rejoined 
 With the rare smile lighting her countenance, 
 " For all the virtues of that sisterhood 
 I do revere and humbly emulate. 
 I doubt me tho' if those same blessed saints 
 Were equally self-gratulate to know 
 
 33 
 
That such a hopeless heretic had passed 
 As haihng from their cloister. Still perhaps, 
 On second thought, their very life would lead 
 To juster comprehension of the faith 
 And motive of our order than we win 
 From many a liberal (?) worldling. 
 
 But let me not neglect your pertinent 
 And no-wise ill-timed question: — which in view 
 Of the pure sentiments that prompted it 
 I'm more than pleased to answer, and no fear 
 That any others you may wish to ask 
 Can be inapt or anything but welcome. 
 
 A habitation and a name as well 
 We do possess; but still are over young 
 As an established order to have earned 
 Such marked distinction as would make us known 
 Save to a kindred few. And since we find 
 Seclusion most essential to sure growth 
 We leave for those who value it such fame 
 As readily accrues to whoso seeketh. 
 
 The title that we bear commemorates 
 That royal woman and ill-fated queen 
 Whose wrongs bear shameful witness to the codes 
 That stood for manliness in ancient Persia. 
 
 34 
 
Hail, noble queen ! Queen always, tho' discrowned 
 And broken-hearted. Honor to thy name 
 Who bravely bore the censure of thy lord. 
 And such humiliation as those cold, 
 Despotic, scheming diplomats devised 
 To heap upon thee, rather than concede 
 Obedience where discourteous command 
 Proved kingly grace and manly reverence lacking ! 
 
 Peerless thou art forever in thy lone 
 And lofty courage. First who dared obey 
 Thine own unerring instincts, and thy pure 
 All-womanly perception of the right, 
 Tho' weighed against thy kingdom. Thou didst win 
 A mightier than those despots took from thee, 
 And hast bequeathed it to thy royal daughters ! 
 Grief is their portion: suffering and loss 
 Too oft befall them : yet no precious pearl 
 Of their inheritance shall ever go 
 To purchase ease, nor regal circumstance, — 
 Nor even thrones, — still are they always royal. 
 
 You have divined our title, and I now 
 Will tell you where but little while ago 
 We fixed our dwelling-place, — our "Vashti's Home." 
 Ay, verily a home ! For there we rest 
 And work and grow by giving our heart's best 
 Each unto all in ready helpfulness. 
 
 35 
 
For so in little deeds and thoughts of love, 
 In generous comprehension, — in the full 
 Ungrudging recognition of the needs 
 And claims of others, — does the spirit find 
 Its sweetest source of nurture for the life 
 That lifts and broadens into symmetry 
 And perfect grace and fragrant blossoming. 
 
 Ah ! how I wish that I might picture you 
 That sunny home ! — the home of purity 
 And peace and happiness that every good, 
 Sweet, loving woman longs for! 
 
 Do you know 
 That dear, enchanted lake that bears the name 
 Of old world music ; resting like a babe 
 In fairy cradle, shyly smiling back 
 In blue-eyed wonder into smiling skies 
 That bend so low above it where it lies 
 Close-guarded by the soft Wisconsin hills? 
 
 Ah ! you do know it ! then no need to say 
 The spot for our " Heimgarten " scarce could be 
 More fitly chosen. 
 
 The interest that I see 
 Depicted in your face must later plead 
 My strong excuse for offering what may seem 
 A somewhat egotistical account 
 Of how this home of ours came into being. 
 
 36 
 
The focal germ round which have since a»ccrued 
 Such kindred germs as faith and energy 
 Have fostered into most surprising growth, 
 Received its first real ray of quickening life 
 From the rare friend whose well-tried sympathy 
 Rings always true, and whose wise-heartedness, 
 In many of my life's emergencies, 
 Has proved so safe a guide and sure dependence. 
 
 Look not such wide surprise. However strong 
 A woman's spirit may be, still her heart 
 Must find some genial, firm-based human rock 
 Less plastic than itself to rest upon. 
 If her fine soul is not to free itself 
 For kindlier spheres ere yet it has attained 
 Full growth and ripeness in the earth garden. 
 
 'Tis fineness and not weakness, that unfits 
 The fibre feminine for steady, long. 
 Persistent and successful buffeting 
 With the fierce winds of adverse circumstance 
 In cold unsheltered places. And if God 
 Had not seen fit to fashion in these times, 
 One man of royal instincts, — nobly true 
 And chivalrous of heart to comprehend 
 The best in womanhood ; — and given him 
 A steady brain and strong and helpful hand. 
 And kept him pure to speak His message thro', — 
 
 37 
 
I would not now, my friend, be here with you 
 To bear glad witness to the miracle. 
 
 One day — the only one my memory marks 
 From a long file of days that wretchedness 
 Had flattened to a dead monotony, — 
 He came, as was his custom at that hour. 
 And looking with that searching glance of his 
 Into my eyes and holding my weak hand, 
 He said, with emphasis that served to fix 
 My languid interest — too inclined to roam 
 From the dull theme of oft-recounted symptoms,- 
 
 ' My friend, you're dying of a slow disease 
 That only women die of. A crisis grave — 
 Perhaps fatal even — is nearing fast; 
 But while I warn you, I must also say 
 That we have left untried one hopeful means 
 By which this dread disease may yet be baffled.' 
 
 He took swift note of my unspoken question, 
 And then made haste to parry it unanswered. 
 
 ' No, never mind the name. A name, you know, 
 Is like a winged seed that sows itself. 
 To grow in time a hundred other seeds 
 Till soon we have a harvest — sometimes good, — 
 More often evil, for ill things you know 
 Are somehow more prolific than the good, — 
 
If haply shorter-lived. We'll talk of how 
 To fight this ill of yours by strategy ; 
 Then you shall name it in an epitaph 
 Some day when you are happy.' 
 
 ' Talk not to me,' I cried, ' of happiness! 
 You do not know how cruelly that word 
 May sometimes torture!' And then that he had 
 
 meant 
 Should happen, happened; for the poor, pent heart 
 So sorely over-charged with the full weight 
 Of tears that would not flow, had found relief. 
 
 He did not try to stay that hurrying flood 
 Of hot but healing tears, but let me weep 
 Till nature could no more. Then presently, — 
 With that peculiar gentleness that marks 
 His simplest word or gesture,-^— clasped the hand 
 That still was trembling from the storm, and said : — 
 
 ' These tears will save you : if not quite the cure 
 I had in mind, still maybe 'tis as well 
 That nature should forestall me. Now I mean 
 To forestall nature.' Then his smile grew grave : — 
 ' Can you not give that tired heart of yours 
 Relief another way, and tell me what 
 Is slowly breaking it ? ' 
 
 E'en to this day 
 I know not how it came that all that load 
 
 39 
 
Of hard, humiliant sorrow I had meant 
 To keep forever sealed within my lips, 
 Had slip't its bounds and passed them. But I know- 
 That more than half its dull distracting weight 
 Went with my friend when easier duties came 
 To call him from my side that summer day. 
 
 You know the skill that many a stricken mind, 
 Restored and whole, has cause to bless him for; 
 And I'll not weary you with long account 
 Of how he turned my thoughts by slow degrees 
 Away from hurtful grooves, and tactfully 
 Set all the misery-choked, discouraged springs 
 Of sympathy again to healthful flowing. 
 
 One day his theme would be some dread disease 
 That highest human skill seemed powerless 
 To more than palliate; — the next perhaps 
 He'd paint some scene of wretched suffering 
 That need not be if but the practical 
 And simple means to supplement his work 
 Were at command. Here mayhap I must share 
 Some bitter sorrow that the fresh-turned sod 
 Must shortly cover: — there, far sadder woe 
 Appealed, where ached a heart full poignantly 
 For that no grave would hide its peaceless dead. 
 
 He drew me thus, unwittingly to myself, 
 40 
 
Up by his side, where, in the searching light 
 
 Of actual fact, these painful pictures lay 
 
 Unsoftened by such shadows as my own 
 
 Dark sorrow might at closer view have lent them. 
 
 And such his generous tact, my threatening reefs 
 
 Were safely rounded ere I grew aware 
 
 What priceless lessons in the blessed art 
 
 Of tender helpfulness and pitying love, 
 
 And sympathy, that leads to self-forgetting, 
 
 He in his wisdom had been teaching me. 
 
 Thro' simple gratitude I first was moved 
 To study how I best could complement 
 His altruistic labors: then it fell. 
 As if in natural order, that ere long 
 He scarcely thought to question if in straits 
 He might rely on me for help and counsel. 
 'Twas thus, one day when he had sought my aid 
 In solving what for him had so far proved 
 A baffling human problem, — while we still 
 Were vainly puzzling over it, — it chanced 
 That half in jest, the slender blade of thought 
 That afterward attained such magnitude 
 Sprang up between us. 
 
 He had grown distraught 
 And paced my study floor with nervous strides, 
 Unceasing back and forth, distractingly, 
 
 41 
 
Until by my own nervousness compelled 
 To break his absent mood, I smiling said 
 
 ' Why this dissatisfaction, might I ask? 
 Is it because the famed efficiency 
 Of woman's intuition put to test, 
 Has this time proved an ignominious failure? 
 
 I know this morning's work has poorly served 
 To raise your man's respect for what we claim 
 As our peculiar feminine distinction. 
 But hold your judgment, friend ; give me the night 
 To weigh this problem — which you can but grant 
 Is very far from simple, — and by this 
 To-morrow, I can safely promise you 
 Your confidence restored in woman's wit.' 
 
 My banter served its purpose, for at last 
 He ceased his restless walk, regarding me 
 A moment, still abstracted, ere he spoke: — 
 
 ' I plead not guilty to the ungallant 
 Reflections your most hastily deduced 
 Conclusions would impute, — 'though I must own 
 The justice of your primal observation. 
 The woman's intuition cannot fail 
 Where once you have engaged the woman heart ; 
 And I've no apprehensions on the score 
 Of how you mean to finally dispose 
 Of my hard problem. What has caused in me 
 
 42 
 
The mood you rightly named " dissatisfaction," 
 Nothing concerns your capability 
 Or will have to serve my needy proteges, 
 But touches on a far more vital question. 
 
 Your eyes are more than clear, your judgment sure, 
 Wherever other lives' necessities 
 Make dumb appeal: then wherefore should you be 
 So more than blind, or else indifferent. 
 To what your own starved nature mutely prays for? 
 
 I know what you would say ; — you're making fair 
 And steady progress toward your normal health; 
 But that does not content me. What I want 
 For you is nurture, sunshine, air and space, 
 Such as your being urgently demands. 
 For growth and free expansion. — You need a home.' 
 
 ' A home.'* ' I said, perplexed, for where we talked, 
 'Mid spacious walls and soft accessories 
 To ease and busy leisure, I was sure 
 He knew me rightful mistress. 
 
 ' Yes, a home. 
 He quietly repeated. ' Give the word 
 Its fullest weight of Anglo-Saxon meaning. 
 A home is not what merely shelters us. 
 Or lends such prestige as the social world 
 Accords to what helps build it. Home is where 
 The heart is nourished, cultured, exercised 
 
 43 
 
To the full measure and the use of all 
 
 Its latent powers and possibilities, 
 
 And strengthened for true service in the world. 
 
 So rich a womanhood as yours is starved, 
 Repressed and warped from its S3rmmetrical 
 And full unfoldment, when it fails that close 
 And constant interchange of sympathy, — 
 That happy exercise of heart and brain 
 In tenderness and care for weaker things — 
 That constitutes the spirit of a home. 
 I am dissatisfied because for lack 
 Of right environment, one glorious type 
 Of strong, complete and rounded womanhood 
 That might be, is not.' 
 
 ' Indeed, you greatly over- 
 estimate 
 My meagre store of possibilities ! ' 
 I answered calmly and with some reserve; 
 For this implied forgetting on his part 
 Of what so hard and bitter fate enforced 
 My present lonely life, had wounded me. 
 And then my calmness suddenly gave place 
 To warm, indignant protest: — 
 
 ' Do you then, 
 In common with the most of men, believe 
 That that most arduous of human tasks: 
 That loftiest and holiest of all aims : 
 
 44 
 
 \ 
 
The founding on firm ground, the building sure: 
 
 The watching, warding, keeping undefiled. 
 
 Wholesome and holy, home and all the word 
 
 Originally stood for: — filling it 
 
 With life and light and music, made of joy 
 
 And peace and purity, — you think 
 
 Such work as this belongs alone to woman? 
 
 If the best that she by single effort. 
 
 Can achieve, when freed from clog or hindrance, 
 
 Seems to you so far from perfect, what of that 
 
 Most wretched semblance that so often stands 
 
 For home when haps it that the fateful hand. 
 
 In honor pledged to aid and further her 
 
 In all her noblest aims and purposes, 
 
 Proves wantonly destructive, or at best 
 
 A hopeless drag to all her energies? 
 
 A home should be, I grant you, all the best 
 That poet pen can picture or suggest. 
 But never on life's canvas shall we see 
 Such picture realized until in man 
 Is bom the knowledge and the will to do 
 His honest, faithful part. — Is horn! Ay, there 
 We have the key to man's regeneration ! 
 She who weaves from her own subtile fibre, 
 Marvellously, in ways she wots not of. 
 The living calyx where a soul is caught 
 And safely cradled; she whose sacred trust 
 
 45 
 
None but the whitest angels up in heaven 
 
 Dare of themselves assume, — the fashioning 
 
 Of tender things that ever-more must bear. 
 
 For beauty or for blemish, every least 
 
 And lightest impress of the modeler's hand, — 
 
 Whether it be the careful master-stroke 
 
 Or ignorant handling, — she it is who first 
 
 Must be set free, uplifted, purified; 
 
 Made strong with courage, wise and nobly fit 
 
 To wear her priceless crown of motherhood. 
 
 Before the world can look for better men.' 
 
 ' All true,' assented he, ' but will you stop 
 Where thousands have, content to recognize 
 A vital truth, nor seek expedients 
 To make it practical? You who perceive 
 So far so clearly, can you not descry 
 Some means to compass what so ardently 
 Your reverent spirit prays to see accomplished? 
 Admit that man's regeneration waits 
 On woman's spiritual emancipation, still 
 The question of a better race of men 
 Remains in status quo. Man's moral plane 
 Is not so high as woman's, therefore how 
 Shall he help her to rise? The only means 
 To uplift woman-kind 'twould seem inheres 
 In womanhood itself; nor can I see 
 
 46 
 
How man can help her, — save perhaps he lends 
 His strength as fulcrum to her moral lever. — 
 Indeed it rather seems to me that man 
 For ages past, has so contributed 
 His powers to further feminine ambitions. 
 How more could he advantage her? In fact, 
 What is it that seditious woman needs 
 Or waits for to effect her own redemption? ' 
 
 His final query, partly quizzical 
 And partly earnest, piqued my woman's pride 
 To quick retort. 
 
 ' The woman's need,' I said, 
 * Is man's need also, tho' her wants, I grant. 
 Are mainly different and something less 
 Irrational — e'en tho' savants do see fit 
 To sit in judgment on her strong demands 
 For ' higher education ' and the right 
 To free employment of her faculties 
 Along self -chosen lines. I feel no call 
 To argue in behalf of ' Woman's Cause,' 
 And only speak for all humanity 
 When moved to plead for any information ; — 
 For man and woman make two equal halves 
 To be redeemed as one or lost divided. — 
 But whether the human race shall gain or lose 
 Thro' special training and unfettered use 
 
 47 
 
Of woman's intellect, I hold it to be 
 
 A question that should shame a thinking age 
 
 To speechful silence. 
 
 The one doubtful point 
 WTiich well may agitate the wisest heads 
 Of these enlightened times, is whether yet 
 The truest means to healthful discipline 
 And culture of the ' genius humanus ' 
 Of either sex, has been exemplified 
 Or e'en discovered. Humanity, poor waif, 
 Scarce conscious what it misses, stands forlorn 
 At Wisdom's gate and waits with patient eyes 
 For its true Alma Mater to come by 
 And pity its neglected orphanage.' 
 
 Our friend here took occasion to defend 
 Our splendid halls of learning, pointing out 
 The excellence of their methods; and, alert 
 In all his masculine regard and jealousy 
 For settled institutions, bade me state 
 Where I could point improvement, ' ere I swept 
 Our educational systems thus aside 
 With all a woman's fine inconsequence.' 
 
 And thus full fairly challenged, what could I 
 But summon all my wits to prove him wrong 
 In thinking me a mere iconoclast.'^ 
 But hardly less than he was I surprised 
 
 48 
 
At what Utopian vision sprang to life 
 And vivid outline 'neath the actinic warmth 
 Of my impulsive words. Never before 
 Had my vague heresies resolved themselves 
 To well-defined objections; nor till now, 
 My cherished dreams of some far nobler plan 
 Of education than the world yet knew 
 Found solid ground for near anticipation. 
 
 At first with genial tolerance, tinged perhaps 
 With curiosity our friend gave ear 
 To my swift flow of speech; but presently 
 His look of half-amusement changed to keen, 
 Attentive interest, till, before I reached 
 The climax of my optimistic dreaming, 
 His interest grew and quickened into warm, 
 Enthusiastic sympathy that fired 
 My final utterance, and lent the thrill 
 And eerie fatefulness of prophecy. 
 
 ' That great wave,' I concluded, ' preordained 
 To give the world its next grand impetus 
 Millenialward, needs all the conscious strength 
 The race can garner up and concentrate 
 To meet its swift incoming and to launch 
 In safety all our priceless hopes upon it. 
 Only such wisdom as the heart distils 
 
 49 
 
From purity and love can generate 
 This needed strength ; and how to re-create 
 The human heart and teach it to perform 
 Its holy office, seems to me the one 
 Divinely hallowed task that worthily 
 Awaits some fervent soul's full consecration.' 
 
 His eyes shone mistily : — * Who knows,' he said, 
 ' But you yourself are destined to fulfill 
 That Heaven-appointed mission? ' Then he rose 
 And clasped my hand and left me gravely thoughtful. 
 
 When God maps any work for us, I'm sure 
 He also maps the means to its completion; 
 And ere I had admitted to my mind 
 As fairly feasible, our friend's suggestion, 
 He brought me plans so plainly practical 
 And well thought out, that I could nothing less 
 Than pledge him my sincere cooperation: — 
 Tho' gravely doubting still the fittingness 
 Of that unique responsibility 
 His confidence so readily assigned me. 
 
 An enterprise resolved upon, with some 
 Is half accomplished, and ere many months 
 Had passed, our thought had taken partial shape 
 In solid stone and marble. A lustrum now 
 
 50 
 
Has watched the fair unfolding of that dream 
 That all my life had haunted ; and the deep 
 Unselfish satisfaction so far reaped 
 Were worth another life's probationship 
 Sacrific even as Heaven required of me." 
 
 Strong as my interest was, the gentle hush 
 Upon her face constrained me to repress 
 My eager wish for more, till the sweet smile 
 Invited me to speak; then clamorously 
 A score of questions each claimed precedence. 
 She answering, thus resumed : — " I hardly know 
 What first suggested ' Vashti's ' as the name 
 Most fitting for our Home ; but once it found 
 Consideration with us, nothing else 
 Would seem admissible. Our aim in part 
 You see, was evolution of the best 
 And highest qualities of womanhood. 
 In such environment as would afford 
 Room for their free employment in some cause 
 Whose issue should requite love's labor vested. 
 And such a cause we knew our final aim 
 Indubitably furnished; for the hope 
 Of speeding, e'er so slightly, toward the goal 
 Of perfectness, one human entity. 
 Seemed work that even angels might rejoice 
 To have assigned them. 
 
 51 
 
Right environment 
 And right association we beHeved 
 The two essential principles involved 
 In youthful education: and a child 
 Could not, we argued, constantly respire 
 The pure and vital atmosphere we meant 
 Our home should insulate, except to store 
 That spiritual elixir which insures 
 To good inheritance development 
 Harmonious and full. The woman meant 
 By Heaven's most plain intention to create 
 And keep such atmosphere, is never found 
 Of natural choice, outside the sheltering arms 
 Of love and home. 'Tis such and only such — 
 As fate has stranded and left desolate, 
 Who rightly can esteem a home like ours, 
 Or bring to it its grand desiderata. 
 These are the Vashti's, sorrow-taught, but brave, 
 Who've walked uprightly their appointed ways 
 Thro' bitterness and trial, gaining thus 
 The tender heart, the sweet humility, 
 The patience and the dignity of soul. 
 That mark them worthy of their chastening. 
 
 We do not look for such as these where throng 
 Competitors for privilege to race 
 Beside the strong, hard-driven sons of Adam. 
 
 The genius-of-the-world's most tempting lure 
 52 
 
To man's ambition, looks the veriest toy 
 To what the full-orbed woman cherisheth 
 Within her heart of hearts as worth achievement. 
 
 Bereft of home and all the dear delights 
 Of loving ministration ; shorn of all 
 Her heart had offered worship to: deprived 
 Of such sweet, natural means of growth and 
 
 grace 
 As motherhood, love-heralded, affords her, 
 Brave, large-souled, tender Vashti ! What can she 
 But let her hungry heart and eager brain 
 Consume themselves, except for her to found 
 Some kingdom worthy of her royal sceptre? 
 
 Our home is such a kingdom ; and the proud, 
 Sincere devotedness and reverence 
 Of her most loyal subjects, prove how wise 
 And just, and love-inspiring is her reign. 
 
 Her subjects? You should see them! Nobly- 
 poised, 
 Sweet, gracious women, gentle girls, and rare, 
 Exotic types of small humanity 
 That left unhomed, are welcomed to our care. 
 
 No one can buy the right to dwell with us. 
 But those we know possessed in large degree 
 
 53 
 
Of woman's finest gifts, and also freed 
 By circumstance from all the natural ties 
 That love and duty make so sweetly binding, — 
 Such we seek out and ask to hide with us ; — 
 At first, a while as guest, the better thus 
 To judge if they can pledge the sisterhood 
 Full fealty and support. And this explains 
 How came our friend to ask of me, — instead 
 Of one more versed in strict pathology, — 
 To watch beside you while he strove to lead 
 You safely past the Valley of the Shadow." 
 
 My cheek flushed warm as suddenly I sensed 
 The gaping gulf between the buoyant health 
 That thrilled me now, and those numb, stricken days 
 That found me Soeur Marie. And all my heart 
 Throbbed in the grateful hands that silent reached 
 To clasp the two that in such love had served me. 
 
 She was the first to speak, and all the warm, 
 Soft tenderness of her sweet womanhood 
 Caressed me in her voice: 
 
 " Dear, will you come 
 While yet the witchery of June is round it, 
 And prove if too alluringly my love 
 Has sketched the picture of our happy Rest? 
 I own to something selfish in the wish 
 
 54 
 
That you should learn to love us: for to win 
 Your final full allegiance could but bring 
 Great joy to me as well as gain to Vashti's. 
 
 But ev'n all this apart I greatly wish 
 For your own sake that you should breathe awhile 
 The subtile air of that small paradise. — 
 So sure am I that such environment 
 Will soon discover what vast areas lie 
 Still fallow in your nature, — ay, unguessed 
 By your blind self -distrust." 
 
 The tender smile, 
 So full of loving confidence, yet failed 
 To exorcise that watchful demon, doubt. 
 That ever kept his silent pace beside me. 
 
 •' But surely," I protested, " you have seen 
 Ere this, how hopelessly my attributes 
 Fall short of your high standard. 
 Those eyes of yours, I know but seldom read 
 Amiss in what they estimate but now. 
 Believe me, your kind heart has glamoured them." 
 
 She shook her head and smiled convincingly. 
 But I went on : " If sorrow sought me out, 
 'Twas not my worthiness attracted it. 
 And if 'per contra. Providence saw fit 
 To send it as a means of discipline. 
 Most sadly it miscarried of its purpose. 
 
 55 
 
In no way am I better. Such small store 
 Of faith and goodness as perhaps I might 
 Have once laid claim to, now is worse than nil. 
 
 Not only faith in any power that guides 
 Events with justice and intelligence 
 Is wholly shattered, — that I might endure 
 In Stoic fashion, — but capacity 
 To love my fellow-creatures : — hope, desire 
 Or will to aid them : — ev'n the selfish wish 
 To free my wretched self from wretchedness, 
 Seems paralyzed within me. You perceive 
 I am no Vashti, — one who ' passing thro ' 
 The Valley of Bacca maketh it a well.' 
 
 Your sisterhood allures me with its sweet, 
 Enticing promise of secluded rest; 
 But while its motives much commend themselves 
 For beauty and for ethics, still I feel 
 No wish to lend them personal devotion. 
 
 With this keen consciousness of how remote 
 Is my real character from your conception — 
 How could I silently appropriate 
 Your flattering estimation; or accept 
 The hospitality your generous heart 
 So graciously extends to an ideal? 
 
 If, after this confession, you can still 
 Accord to me unchanged your trust and friend- 
 ship, 
 
 56 
 
Then gratefully indeed do I consent 
 To be your guest at Vashti's." 
 
 No least shade 
 Of doubt or disappointment crossed her brow 
 Or darkened in her eyes. And her reply 
 Disclosed how utterly my words had failed 
 To change or move her: — 
 
 " Sometimes it is given 
 To one whom love makes worthy of the trust, 
 To read the record of a kindred spirit, — 
 Its past and future, clearly as we read 
 The sky at evening. Do not we discern 
 From sunset colors, whispering winds, and vague 
 Swift signs, elusive to the slow-winged senses, 
 The kind of day that has been, and what kind 
 Must of a surety follow? Not all days 
 Thus openly record themselves, nor yet 
 May every soul be read unerringly 
 By most prophetic vision. Only when 
 The ties of love and loyalty have bound 
 For cycles long two kindred souls together, 
 Can either give the ancient countersign 
 With freedom not to fail of recognition. 
 We are not strangers, even tho' this world 
 Can date our meeting from but yesterday. 
 / know my friend^ and much more truly than 
 She knows herself ; and once more in the name 
 
 57 
 
Of that dear knowledge, I entreat of you 
 To let her be my guest, and nothing state 
 Henceforth to me that may discredit her." 
 
 What could I say? Beneath the playfulness 
 Of her last chiding words, I would but feel 
 The deep sincerity to which my heart 
 Instinctively responded; tho' in vain 
 My reason groped for relevance in much 
 The mystic tenor of her speech imported. 
 • •••••••• 
 
 A sheet of living sapphire, greenly girt 
 By velvet hills, and densely broidered in 
 With rare and variegated silken richness: 
 Rough-quarried granite, and wrought marble, 
 
 grouped 
 And arched and domed and columned till they sang 
 In symphony together, gleaming soft 
 Thro' gray and green and umber, — tracery wrought 
 By cunning forest-fingers taught of June 
 A naiad flashing by in haste to hide 
 Her shimmering whiteness in the shielding waters; 
 And over all the sky — the soft June sky, — 
 Flecked with the filmy forms of mist-born spirits. 
 
 " A dream," I thought, " a dream within a dream." 
 For all this witchery of loveliness 
 
 58 
 
Lay softly mirrored in the sleeping lake. 
 White, classic-draped, slow-moving goddesses, 
 Gay groups of children, slender, sylph-like girls, 
 And cherub-featured infants, cooing soft 
 To dove-eyed mother-faces, gave the scene 
 Unfolded to my unprepared vision, 
 A touch of Arcady, and thrilled a low, 
 Long dormant chord of youthful visioning 
 Half happiness, half dimly memoried pain. 
 O fair sequestered nook ! Dear Home ! 
 
 Sweet Home ! 
 The blessed peace that broodeth over thee 
 Lulled all my soul to rest ; and banishing 
 Its cumulous cloud of sorrows, set it free 
 To rise to that pure world whose living light 
 Thy silent teachings pointed. Sheltering Home! 
 When I forget the hallowed mother-touch 
 That soothed my infant griefs: when from my heart 
 Time's hand obliterates that mother's smile: 
 Then shall grow dim the blessed memory 
 Of days that saw thy soft, protecting wings 
 Infold my spirit while thy love transformed it! 
 
 A fortnight I had said when Soeur Marie 
 First begged the stipulated week's extension ; 
 But summer's prime was past and winged seers 
 Insistent shrilled of doom to drowsy August 
 
 59 
 
Before my heart could bring itself to heed 
 Claims urgently demanding my departure. 
 
 And ah, those fair, enchanted, fleeting weeks 
 Purloined from puissant care ! How shall I tell 
 What vast eternal gain their passing wrought 
 To me of life's imperishable riches? 
 
 The interested, free, unhurrying 
 Activity around ; the restful air 
 Of large unfettered leisure to pursue 
 The all-delighted aim of happy living, 
 While failing not to work upon my heart 
 Its subtle soothing spell no less provoked 
 My critic mind to wonder. " How," I thought, 
 " Can high refinement and broad culture rest 
 Thus satisfied in what alone concerns 
 This small, detached and introverted world.? 
 Is intellect so all-conformable 
 That once assimilating greatness, still 
 Its healthy vigor finds the minimum 
 Of puerile interests not the less sufficing? " 
 
 O conceit of knowledge uniformed 
 Of that pure wisdom that doth ever wear 
 The garb of foolishness to worldly vision ! 
 
 In after days when clearer insight dawned 
 And understanding deepened, thoughts like these 
 
 60 
 
 i 
 
Put all my soul to blush ; for he who forms 
 With equal care the tiniest lichen-cup 
 Or farthest world of fast-revolving light, 
 No least thing nameth small, and nothing great. 
 
 An honored guest, yet unrestrained and free 
 As any habitue, I came and went, 
 Among the busy, happy household bees, 
 As fancy wafted me or interest led ; 
 And from the calm-faced, clear-eyed Gretchen,- 
 
 capped 
 And snowy aproned — to the slender girl 
 Whose every motion spoke her gentle breeding, 
 I marked no mood but glad contentedness 
 And eager drinking like a growing flower 
 Of life's pure light and sweetness. 
 
 No one there 
 Among those gracious women seemed to hold 
 Superior place nor yet assumed the air 
 Or accent of instructor ; nor could I 
 Detect authority or servileness 
 In any tone or gesture. All appeared 
 As on an equal footing, — ^bound by laws 
 Of courtesy and kindness each to serve 
 The other, each unobtrusively alert 
 To give her best, and tactfully accord 
 Room to the least another's heart would proffer. 
 
 61 
 
" Freedom," had answered Soeur Marie, when I 
 Confessed the key to this fine harmony 
 An undiscovered secret ; " no one here 
 Claims of another e'en the slightest thing 
 As due by right. From our Home lexicon 
 Two jaded terms are watchfully excluded; — 
 ' Duty ' and ' obligation,' and in their stead 
 We write the one word 'love.' " 
 
 "And do you find 
 Love all that's needed for the discipline 
 And government of childhood? " I inquired 
 With smiling skepticism. 
 
 "All " she said, 
 In that low, even tone that never failed 
 To carry full conviction ; and my close 
 And curious after-observation proved 
 How justly founded was her affirmation. 
 
 Few were the hours of those soft summer days 
 That even Vashti's classic halls could lure us. 
 For dark indeed must be Olympus' frown 
 To drive such nature-worshippers as we 
 To flee the temple of their trusted goddess. 
 
 Each morning found us gathering 'neath the 
 trees 
 In eager groups for long delightful talks 
 With Soeur Marie ; for never day but brought 
 
 62 
 
Some question baffling in its subtleties 
 To our less penetrant and lucid minds, 
 Yet ever simple to her pure heart-wisdom. 
 
 For even here, among these many rare 
 And nobly-dowered spirits, Soeur Marie 
 Still shone apart with luculent, serene, 
 Unborrowed lustre, like a lonely star. 
 And all adored the sweet humility 
 And gentle grace that lent such genialness 
 To her dear presence, for all recognized 
 The rarity of soul that less of love 
 Had left too fine and cold for friendship's uses. 
 
 No principle nor problem seemed to be 
 Too deep for her fine sympathy to fathom; 
 And watching her in this environment, 
 I more and more perceived how hitherto 
 I had but glimpsed her nature's varied richness. 
 
 With no less pleasure than the rest I drank 
 Her fresh extempore wisdom, marvelling 
 At its so fine adaption to the needs 
 Of various minds and moods. But best was I 
 Content when happened it that all the rest 
 Found interests elsewhere ; then my Sceur Marie 
 And I would seek a small, steep-winding path,- 
 Unfrequented by others thro' the sweet 
 
 63 
 
And courteous tact that marked the preference, 
 Tho' unexpressed, and held our favorite way 
 As sacred to that freer conference 
 Our quiet strolls permitted. — In and out 
 Thro' brush and forest-tangle, up and up 
 By rock and stream it wound, our little path, 
 To cease abruptly where a single pine 
 Had kept for decades long its lonely vigils. 
 
 Here, while a sweet, incessant, murmuring song 
 Timed to the beat of waves far down below us, 
 Charmed us to silent sympathy or moved 
 To unreserved speech, I sometimes framed — 
 And she as simply answered — questions which 
 Self-consciousness might otherwhere have hindered. 
 
 The life at Vashti's more and more appealed 
 To that mercurial imagination 
 Which was my large but doubtful heritage ; 
 And judgment, always sternly vigilant 
 To guard against a final full surrender, 
 Oft prompted me to cynic-utterance 
 Or adverse criticism; — all of which 
 My friend received with patient courtesy 
 And sweet forbearance. Plainly she was sure 
 The Home itself would answer finally 
 The last of my objections. Always tho'. 
 With gracious readiness would she explain 
 
 64i 
 
Whatever point I chanced to commentate; — 
 Regardless if I praised or deprecated. 
 
 Thus when I asked if Vashti's was the type 
 Predestined, in her mind, to supersede 
 The home as founded on old-fashioned lines. 
 She answered: — 
 
 " No. We cannot hope to make 
 This home quite everything a true home should be. 
 The most our rosiest optimism holds 
 As possible for one short life's achievement 
 Is peaceful, sunny, happy garden spot 
 Where every latent home-creative germ 
 May be supremely cultured and increased 
 For future propagation. What if some 
 Be lost or prove unfruitful? — Nature saves 
 Not all she travaileth for; — and some good seeds 
 Are destined surely to disseminate 
 And grow and bloom to beauty and to sweetness. 
 
 And then shall come our great and sure reward ; 
 For what tho' fate hath willed that we shall leave 
 Our field of labor ere its full fruition? 
 No heaven can hold for us such perfectness 
 But that the tiniest true love-light that shines 
 On earth for our increasing, shall enhance 
 That heaven's transcendent glory. Such our faith- 
 That living force that forms from future hopes 
 
 65 
 
The present blessing, — ever saving us 
 From over-anxiousness and fretting fear 
 For works resultant." 
 
 Here she touched a key 
 To which no conscious chord in me responded. 
 With aim to make digression and insure 
 Continuance of her subject, I essayed 
 This venture, somewhat curious of the issue: — 
 
 ^ " While such a life as this must satisfy 
 Much in the many-sided woman-heart 
 That home too commonly ignores or stifles, 
 Does it provide for what is after all 
 The paramount essential of her nature? 
 For conjure as we may with natural laws, 
 Their stem immutability will force 
 Their final recognition ; and the love, 
 Supreme and single in its potency 
 To bind and weld in one, two human hearts, — 
 For purposes that we devoutly trust 
 Are wise in measure of their mystery, — 
 Is not that love the very ultimate 
 Of human nature's fundamental laws? 
 And if it be, can any mode of life 
 By which that law is utterly subverted, 
 Conduce to that complete development 
 Which seems the aim at Vashti's? I, perchance, 
 
 66 
 
Some point have lost or misinterpreted; 
 But my impression is that Vashti finds 
 No place in her curriculum for marriage." 
 
 "And partly you are right," she answered me, 
 " For formal marriage as the world defines it 
 We hold in slight esteem. Idealists 
 Cannot indulge in dreams that travesty 
 Their world of truth and beauty. Dreamers find 
 A path to Wisdom, straight and plain, but all 
 Unknown to him whose only guide is reason : 
 And e'en for him who dreams, the little path 
 Loseth itself straightway if he give ear 
 To any voice but Truth's ; and truth disowns 
 The tottering structure that the world calls ' m 
 riage.' 
 
 Yet mark me well, for marriage true and real,- 
 That heaven-ordained h^-llowed right that ope's 
 The very gate of Heaven to whom it blesseth, — 
 Ah! that we pray may come, and speedily, 
 To every soul that Love hath sanctified 
 To reverently receive its sacred message. 
 
 You have observed us keenly and must know 
 Such women as compose our sisterhood 
 Could not accept a fraction while the whole 
 
 67 
 
Of human happiness were gainable. 
 Nor are they such as missing Hfe's most dear 
 And natural joys, feed disappointed hearts 
 On sapless sophistry that makes of love 
 A false, delusive dream of bitter ending. 
 With all the ardor loving children bring 
 To task assigned by teacher they adore. 
 We search that vast, exhaustless scroll — the word- 
 Direct, divine and simple, straight from God — 
 Enrolled for us between the leaves of Nature. 
 No line is left obscure; nor does it fail 
 To answer, somewhere, life's most intricate 
 And subtle problems, to the full content 
 Of most exacting mind. And this is how 
 We render its plain text concerning marriage; 
 
 We would depend. It is the woman's right 
 To be ensphered, protected, pioneered 
 By one more fit than she, more free and strong 
 To map her world; foresee its limits; clear 
 The large obstructions from her path, that she 
 ^lay walk in safety and may dwell secure. 
 For only in such freedom as the man. 
 By virtue of his manhood may insure 
 To woman, can her nature so unfold 
 Its boundless sweetness and its pristine grace 
 That once again this desert wilderness 
 
 68 
 
Of care-encankered life shall change and bloom 
 Like Paradise of old for her and him. 
 
 Man sees but dimly that great role that he 
 By nature is assigned to fill ; and she, 
 The woman, more acute to feel, but still 
 Less broad of vision e'en than he, and less 
 Inclined to careful tracing from effect to cause, 
 Resents conditions that have circumscribed 
 And warped her being: strives to break the bounds 
 That man has set her — Hmiting himself; 
 And striving seeks to make that larger world 
 She longs for — thus usurping that dear right 
 Of man to serve her. 
 
 'Tis not woman's fault 
 She thus mistakes; nor yet is man to blame 
 Tliat he discovers not at once wherein 
 He so has failed to fill her soul's great need. 
 
 'Tis woman always who must point the way 
 To larger life. More quick to feel than man, 
 And more inclined to question what she feels, 
 'Tis she who first grows restless when the world 
 They both have made has served its full intent 
 And holds no further room for exercise 
 Of such increase of wisdom, power and strength 
 As both have therein gained. It is from her 
 The first command of aspiration sounds. 
 
 69 
 
" Move on " she says ; but ipan is slow to heed 
 
 Because for longer is his soul content 
 
 With what is well ; likewise because more clear 
 
 To him, stand out the obstacles that bar 
 
 The way to further progress. He delays, 
 
 And if too long he hesitates and doubts, 
 
 The woman cannot choose, for that great force 
 
 That moves upon her, but forestall his right 
 
 And act, howe'er mistakenly it be. 
 
 'Tis failure that most often points the way 
 To full success ; and woman when she strives 
 To build that great, free, sun-lit, song-filled world 
 Her soul has glimpsed from some far distant 
 
 sphere. 
 Points out unconsciously by those mistakes 
 She cannot see, the weakness in herself 
 And in her structure. Also in so far 
 As she succeeds, she proves the meed of skill 
 And wisdom she has gathered. Thus the man, 
 Intently watching her, is learning fast 
 A threefold lesson : first, a deep respect 
 For powers she proves herself possessed of; 
 Next, the possibility of shaping forth 
 The living shadow of her happy dream, 
 While through her daring he is quick to see 
 How puny were the obstacles he feared; 
 
 70 
 
And finally, her weakness teaches him 
 
 His glorious strength, and happier lesson still, 
 
 Her need of him ! 
 
 Methinks it cannot be 
 So far away, the dawn of that glad day 
 When man must wake to that great privilege 
 That waits for him, — The building of that world 
 That woman longs to beautify and grace. 
 When so he wakes, 'twill be to wrest away 
 The all too arduous toil from tender hands; 
 And she most gratefully will yield to him 
 His own true task and take her rightful place 
 Close at his side. 
 
 " So then," I said, " 'twould seem 
 From all your words imply, that you agree 
 But partially with certain zealous minds 
 Among our would-be champions who assert 
 That no distinction in potential gifts. 
 Capacities or tastes or fittingness 
 Inherent lies in sex ? " 
 
 Her gentle smile 
 Grew bright with mirth — " the strongest vantage 
 
 ground 
 We as a sex possess, it seems to me 
 Were yielded with that claim. If nature gives 
 To her strong sons peculiar attributes 
 Essentially their own, to wield and use 
 
 71 
 
With natural ease which woman at her best 
 Can but admire and poorly emulate, 
 What shall be said of her distinctive dower 
 Of special gifts? All sentiment apart, 
 And vain conceit, can honest reverence 
 Refuse to grant that woman holds in trust 
 As heavenly hostage for humanity, 
 Imperial virtues and rare subtle gifts 
 That else were sadly lacking to our race? 
 
 Where should we look if not to her for truth, 
 And constancy, and patient sacrifice. 
 And depth of pure devotion that can lose 
 Self in some dearer self's far dearer cause, 
 And glory in the loss and count it gain ? 
 And what were life but one long night of gloom 
 Had Heaven withheld from her one sacred trust,- 
 Her power of swift divinement, gift of faith 
 That sees beyond the spirit-chilling fact: 
 That holds to life despite the yawning grave, 
 And fosters in her heart celestial dreams 
 Of Love and Love's redemption, — such as man 
 Can never comprehend or call his own 
 Save thro' his worship of her. 
 
 What man is there 
 Full-orbed and free, a triune entity, 
 With heart to feel and intellect to weigh, 
 And inner eye of spirit to discern, — 
 
What man so heaven-designed but cherisheth 
 Within his heart of hearts this saving gleam 
 From the lost star of truth? 'Tis woman leads, 
 But man in his proud strength must go before 
 To smooth the way ; for so in nature, plain 
 The law is writ by hand that cannot err. 
 
 Perish what will of Life's illusions ; sink as may 
 In Time's abyss the fragile fairy ships 
 We trust our hopes to ; still the winged fleets 
 Of the Ideal shall ne'er be wholly wrecked 
 Till man forget his fair immortal goal, 
 And recognize no more in womanhood 
 The star that shines to light his spirit thither. 
 
 The silence deepened round us while the clear 
 
 Prophetic voice vibrated thro' and thro' 
 
 My inmost being till I felt the light 
 
 Of that close-verging world her eloquence 
 
 Had barely missed unveiling to my vision. 
 
 At last I broke the spell : — " Discern you then 
 Some sign that heralds this elysium's 
 Divinely welcome dawning.? Is there hope, 
 However faint, that you and I may see 
 Sweet peace and harmony evolve from all 
 This dissonance and din that woman's war 
 On man's most dear traditions wakes around us ? " 
 
 73 
 
The sweet expressive smile gave soft rebuke 
 To my impatient fervor : — " They who sow 
 The seed with faith in spring-time, surely they 
 Shall reap the harvest ; what concerns it when 
 Or how or in what world the field shall ripen? " 
 
 Again that overtone of forgiveness 
 That made me vaguely conscious of remote, 
 Strange countries where her spirit walked, familiar, 
 But out of touch with mine. With curious sense 
 Of jealous loneliness I hastened now 
 To exorcise the spell, and draw her thoughts 
 Back to our common world. 
 
 She does not know 
 That here my memory sets a gleaming stone 
 To mark a cherished epoch in our friendship: 
 For here it was that first I recognized 
 In some small measure, what her friendship meant 
 To my starved, empty hfe. And also here 
 My soul began to dimly comprehend 
 That it must climh if it would hope to keep 
 Within the radius of her spirit's shining. 
 
 For souls like hers must seek at intervals 
 Their native mountain-tops, or soon the dense 
 Miasma of our lower atmosphere. 
 Would force them finally from Earth that now — 
 Poor in such prototypes — so ill could spare them. 
 
 74 
 
But not till after-time, when larger light 
 And new-born sympathies had tutored me 
 In many kinds of wisdom, was this truth 
 Borne in upon me. Now, averse to what 
 I failed to comprehend in her remoteness, 
 I questioned, with intent to bring her back 
 To themes of mutual interest. She at once 
 Resumed the slackened thread of colloquy: 
 
 " No form of oath nor any least restraint 
 Do we impose on our beloved disciples. 
 We simply strive to show the wisest course — 
 As it appears to us — at any turn 
 In any single life-path; nor attempt, 
 By arbitrary strictures, to compel 
 In one direction all the countless roads 
 Of different destinations that converge 
 At any single point. Small as it is, 
 Our group comprises egos so diverse 
 In character and trend, so positive 
 In individuation, so defined 
 And all-complex that intuition needs 
 Must be alert to keep the master-key 
 To all the ever-varying combinations. 
 
 We give our heart's most sacred energies 
 To help a soul to find the true key-note. 
 Caught from the new-bom stars, to which is writ 
 Its grand, eternal life-theme. Once this great, 
 
 75 
 
Heaven-guided work accomplished for a soul, 
 
 Thenceforth we leave it free. For love can aid 
 
 Only by constant shining, and nowise 
 
 By imposition of the freest lines 
 
 Of boundary broad intelligence can trace 
 
 For any other life's periphery. 
 
 We cannot know another's entire need; 
 And when we foolishly assume that knowledge 
 Our best-intended efforts work but harm. 
 This truth must be conceived as the initial step 
 In understanding that shall show the way 
 To aid unhinderingly our fellow-creatures. 
 And we at Vashti's guard most watchfully 
 Our speech and thought, lest we in anywise 
 Precipitate or curb another's will, 
 Judgment or choice; — though of necessity 
 Our very atmosphere, in some degree, 
 Is potent to restrain or stimulate. 
 And here is where the need for watchfulness, 
 Fasting and ceaseless prayer is ever urgent. 
 To hold that subtle aura that surrounds 
 Our spirits always pure and undefiled 
 By selfish, sordid thoughts ; to keep it rare 
 And vitalized with true celestial fire. 
 Breathed from the upper worlds ; to hallow it 
 By constant prayer for His inspiring love 
 And blessing, that we evermore may bear 
 
 76 
 
Glad health and hope to weaker souls and spirits. 
 
 And light to gladden dreary, sunless lives, — 
 
 Is not such aim, devotedly pursued. 
 
 Enough to give the days, — ay, and the nights — 
 
 Of faithful souls to unremitting labor? 
 
 But thanks to Him who worketh while we sleep. 
 
 'Tis not our constant diligence that counts 
 
 For spiritual achievement, as the heart's 
 
 Sincere, complete and perfect consecration. 
 
 To sift the heart's desire, and teach the will 
 Obedience only to divine command, — 
 This is our part, the rest we leave to Him." 
 
 At last my practical, plain-reasoning mind 
 Began to glimpse a something tangible 
 In her clear-shining, transcendental faith 
 That hitherto — with shame do I confess it — 
 Had seemed to me a zealot's fantasy, — 
 An unsubstantial, visionary dream. 
 
 I hoped she would continue, for desire 
 For deeper understanding of her creed 
 Was strong within me ; but apparently 
 She meant not to resume, and I in doubt 
 Of how to frame so unaccustomed thoughts. 
 Reverted to the more familiar subject. 
 
 " In this large liberty I plainly see 
 Much that befits the free intelligence 
 
 77 
 
Of reason-ripe, experience-tutored women. 
 
 But what of young, ingenuous, unformed minds, 
 
 With all their crude, tumultuous emotions 
 
 To understand and guide and regulate, 
 
 While judgment still awaits Time's training hand 
 
 Or sleeps in embryo? You suffer them, 
 
 Unanxiously, these young, fresh-hearted girls, 
 
 To find their own right guidance and to choose 
 
 Their path in life while ignorant of all 
 
 Life's mystery and meaning? " 
 
 " Ignorance 
 As safely as experience can be taught 
 To walk with calm, unwavering confidence 
 By intuition's light. The little path 
 That leads to wisdom's fountain all may find, — 
 If sound of brain and pure of heart and motive, — 
 And our young girls are early taught the secret. 
 
 Nor are they limited as you suppose. 
 To our small world for range of observation. 
 They come and go as freely as the birds 
 That flit 'tween two dear homes and two sweet sum- 
 mers. 
 For some have fair ancestral roofs, and hearts 
 Knit by the ties of kin, as well as love. 
 To fondly shelter them ; such come to us 
 Of natural choice, most cordially approved 
 Of guardian judgment, their time of sojourning 
 
 78 
 
Depending wholly on their own desires 
 Or changes natural to life's arrangements. 
 
 We let no bonds, not even silken ones, 
 Fetter the birds that help to make our summer. 
 
 But some — not migratory — find with us 
 Their only home; and such are duly given 
 The needful taste of other how and where, 
 By hospitality — not patronage — 
 Spontaneously and cordially extended 
 By some world-denizens whose hearts are with us. 
 
 Thus you perceive that Vashti's does not aim 
 To foster ignorance of aught that goes 
 To round the perfect circle of a life ; 
 For well it knows the beauty and the worth 
 Of its exhaustless stores of priceless treasure. 
 Can only be enhanced by sharpened powers, 
 To weigh, compare, discriminate and value. 
 And when these young souls choose — thus knowingly- 
 A life devoted to our sisterhood. 
 We even then accept no form of pledge; 
 But bid them bend a reverent-listening ear 
 To hark the first small whisper that may stir 
 Within the heart with faint premonishment 
 Of heirship to some happier waiting kingdom. 
 
 But ah, how prayerfully we strive to teach 
 The heart to know that voice, and not mistake 
 
 79 
 
The thousand tongues that so can counterfeit 
 
 All but its last inimitable accent! 
 
 Love! Love! the mystic syllable that stirred 
 
 The soul's first consciousness long ere the suns 
 
 Evolved from chaos; Love, the immortal breath 
 
 That quickened cold, insensate clay to feel 
 
 And worship and reflect its Maker's image ! 
 
 Love ! Love ! the first and final utterance 
 
 Of system unto system, voiceless borne 
 
 Across the vast, abysmal, starless spaces! 
 
 And Love, the boundless, quenchless, deathless fire 
 
 That leaps unto its own, — world unto world, 
 
 Life unto life: — thro' hopeless prison walls 
 
 Of dumb, impassive clay, soul unto soul ! 
 
 Ah ! who hath learned to stand with mantled face 
 And reverent spirit while Love passeth by 
 And toucheth him, and whispereth to his heart 
 The long-lost word of magic : lo, his name 
 Is writ among the eternal stars, to ring 
 Forever in the songs of seraphim ! 
 
 How small a word ! and yet methinks it holds 
 The Alpha and Omega of that theme 
 The soul is set to con thro' endless cycles. 
 
 When all is done, and we at last have found 
 Nirvana — Bliss — ^Attainment — perfect Rest, 
 The circle of our blessedness will be 
 
 80 
 
still filled and bounded by that little word 
 That babes can lisp and spell into its signs 
 For us, forever new mysterious meaning. 
 
 Then wherefore should we seek so toilsomely 
 Aught else wherewith to compass this our world, 
 Or wherefore strive to learn, or to impress 
 On virgin hearts a word of lesser import? 
 
 Love covereth all to whoso measureth 
 Its minimum of might; or consciously 
 Respondeth in his spirit to the least 
 Of all its myriad minor harmonies. 
 And Vashti's never-ceasing suppliance craves 
 Its inspiration and full quickening 
 To every heart her fostering arms enshelter. 
 Once so inspired and quickened know, 
 The spirit's safely poised for upward flight 
 Toward higher realm and purer where the soul 
 No other language speaks nor comprehends 
 But Love's great music. 
 
 Yearningly 
 The Mother-heart at Vashti's watches o'er 
 The youthful neophyte ; for mother-love 
 Is slow to learn that deepest travailing 
 Cannot avail vicariously to save 
 Another from her meed of chastening. 
 And Love's unerring star doth sometimes lead 
 
 81 
 
Thro' pathless deserts where the soul must die 
 
 A thousand deaths; for Love's true mission fails 
 
 Except it guides the ego finally, — 
 
 Thro' hard and desperate issues tho' it be — 
 
 Out from the land of bondage. This may be 
 
 Not till the tight calyx of our earthlier selves 
 
 Bursts with the birth-throes of the struggling spirit; 
 
 Or else corrodes away in the salt sea 
 
 Of tears and suffering. Earth-bonds hold fast 
 
 And many a strong, colossal soul requires 
 
 Both means of liberation ere it tastes 
 
 The fine elixir of a hard-won freedom. 
 
 " Thy will be done ! " full reverently we strive 
 To teach our mother-hearts complete response 
 To that supremest prayer, when comcth Love — 
 Divinest courier from the courts of Heaven — 
 And spiriteth away our fairest flowers 
 To the great garden of experience. 
 Not ours the right by smallest obstacle 
 To hinder this transplanting. For God brooks 
 No interference with His plans, nor grants 
 To any soul the power to liberate 
 Another, from fate's toils. 
 
 " We both were young when marriage came to us. 
 Love's hand had lightly swept such surface strings 
 
 82 
 
As wake in youthful hearts a melody 
 
 All sweet and wild. But silent and untouched 
 
 Lay all those deeper chords whose dominants 
 
 Base such grave themes and living symphonies 
 
 As once evoked go on and ever on 
 
 In full vibration, pure and deep and strong, 
 
 To lose themselves at last in tones so fine 
 
 No ear but Love's can catch the strains divine. 
 
 Now looking back how plainly I perceive 
 How childish and how selfish were those prayers. 
 My eager, untaught heart athirst for joy, 
 Hungry for knowledge, ever crying out 
 For larger sense of being, richer life 
 And clearer wisdom, still refused to drink 
 The cup it so had prayed for: — pushed aside 
 The hand that held the very food it craved, — 
 And cried and clamored on. Perverse and blind, 
 The hot untutored, wilful heart of youth! 
 It hears no music in the minor chords 
 Evoked 'neath sorrow's hand. It sees no light 
 Save in the gay, glad smile of happiness, 
 Nor will believe that it may find its joy 
 Save by the ways of joy. In vain for me 
 The food that giveth life was daily spread 
 In lavish plenty. Still I prayed for bread 
 
And starved and anguished on, I wanted back 
 The glamour of that care-free morning-time. 
 
 Sometimes the Father suffers us to walk 
 A little way in some mistaken path 
 We think is duty ; nor will turn aside 
 Our footsteps till unto the utmost tried 
 Our strength deserts us and our will forsakes. 
 But never purposeless are these mistakes. 
 For this and this alone it seems to me 
 The loving wisdom suffers them to be : 
 That feeling all our weakness we may grasp 
 More firm the hand that holds us in its clasp : 
 That painful consciousness of erring sight 
 May force us nearer to the perfect light, 
 Whose rays, perchance, piercing our hearts may 
 
 show 
 The lurking self that did mislead us so, — 
 A self that undiscovered might become 
 A power to lure us farther yet from home. 
 How apt are we in our impatient moods 
 To think the ways circuitous and slow 
 By which we're led to wisdom needless be; 
 That we a clearer light, path more direct 
 Could better bear. But strangely we forget 
 The winding roads and many, bramble-grown, 
 
 84 
 
That leading from our hearts our feet have worn 
 With wilful straying. 
 
 Till by homesickness 
 And longing, pain and thirst that nothing else 
 Can cure, is bom the will to line a path 
 Direct for home till we: grown strong and staunch 
 In singleness of heart, can hew it smooth 
 And strictly walk therein, nor let our feet 
 Be lured aside by winding shady ways. 
 'Twere all unwise our footsteps to compel 
 Through paths too straitly struck. The thorns would 
 
 tear 
 And pierce us till in anguish and despair 
 The lofty aspiration would be quenched: — 
 The unformed soul from fostering spirit wrenched." 
 
 She paused, and like some softly-molded sphynx 
 Sat silent with that rapt, far-seeing look 
 That came so oft into her deep true eyes; 
 While o'er her face there stole the white high 
 
 light 
 That made her look as Beatricia might. 
 
 What heights and depths her spirit compassed 
 when 
 My Soeur Marie looked so, I cannot say — 
 Por always o'er me came a hush of awe; 
 
 85 
 
And for the moment I too seemed to be 
 Merged into formless truth's infinity. 
 
 Gently and reverently as one would lift 
 The lid to gaze upon a coffined face, 
 I turned those sacred leaves. O white, white leaves ! 
 
 consecrated book ! And can ye still 
 
 Be less than breatliing, sensate things, to hold 
 So long shut here to silentness the cries 
 Wrung from that pearl-pure heart? — And I, dear 
 heart, 
 
 1 dreamed that I had suffered; — blamed swift fate 
 That cut me off, at one sharp, sudden stroke 
 From all I loved. — How sweetly merciful! — 
 
 I know it now. Ah ! ScEur Marie, thine agony, 
 Drawn thro' the length of lingering days that saw 
 Thy wifely love slow-tortured to its death. 
 Has taught my coward soul what mean the words 
 " To suffer and be strong ! " 
 
 On each brief page, 
 In nervous hand, the rough staccato lines 
 Were palely pencil-traced, as if they stood 
 For muffled sobs, the heart they welled from meant 
 Should reach no keenest ear. And as I read 
 My own heart wellnigh broke, and blinding tears 
 Ran do^v^l like rain as if to wash away 
 The print of torturing nails and cruel spear 
 That so had crucified a woman's heart. 
 
 86 
 
O, pitying God ! To stand thus helpless by 
 And see a soul in Thine own image formed, 
 Fling down Thy highest gifts beneath his feet 
 And trample them as swine will trample lilies ! 
 
 And can I nothing, then, impart to him 
 Of strength or wisdom, or abiding wish 
 To choose the better portion? 
 
 Then wherefore is love bom between two souls 
 To weld them close till one can know no hurt 
 And not the other, if the tenuous bonds 
 No force can sever, prove but ropes of sand 
 When desperately we try their treacherous strength 
 To draw our own aback from death or danger? 
 
 And what availeth prayer? Have I not asked 
 In faith and humbleness, of thee, O Heaven, 
 A boon that Love itself would sanctify 
 To good ineffable? Have I craved aught 
 In selfishness or worldliness of spirit? 
 O Holy Father, keep thro' Thine own name, 
 Those whomi Thou gavest me ! And from the world 
 Of evil keep Thou them ! So even He, 
 The sinless One, did pray for His beloved. 
 And wert thou dumb to Him, O Heaven, as now 
 Thou art to me? 
 
 Ah ! Christ, thou patient Christ ! 
 Thou all compassionate, — and was it thus 
 
 87 
 
Thy heart — that deep, true heart, the tenderest 
 That ever ached for suffering, sinful world, — 
 Was hurt when Judas kist thee? 
 Nay, Master, not like this, for Thou 
 Could'st ne'er have loved depraved Iscariot so ! 
 
 And yet they say of me that I am cold — 
 Not tender, soft or warm, as women are 
 Who are less strong! — Well, if to feel 
 And suffer thus is to be hard and cold. 
 And lacking woman's tenderness and warmth, 
 Then make me. Heaven, as soft as molten wax, 
 As warm as unslant ray of noonday sun. 
 That when a hand again shall stab my heart, 
 The cleanly-cloven parts together straight 
 Shall melt, and leave no scar! 
 
 And it has come — ^the worst has come at last! 
 Tho' I have prayed and prayed that Thou would'st 
 
 spare 
 Me this! I said — and meant it too — that I would 
 
 bear 
 Whatever else might come; and all the past, 
 Thou knowest full patiently I bore, — but oh! 
 Not this ! not this ! O, tender, watchful care 
 That's promised to Thy least of creatures, where 
 Shall they whom Thou forsakest thenceforth go 
 With their petitions? O Love! O Fatherhood, 
 
 88 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
In which I trusted ! I call to Thee ! I grope 
 The dark that closes round me. Still must I hope 
 That Thou art somewhere near — art still all-good, 
 All-wise, all-kind. 
 
 Henceforth alone, — alone. 
 Asking no aid, no light ; I take my way 
 Unguided thro' the night, — no longer 'prayy 
 Since prayer can fail, and God forget His own! 
 
 A vast, bare, hopeless reach. Ah ! shuddering soul. 
 Must we two cross that pitiless expanse, 
 Where foot hath never trod, nor eye explored. 
 Nor voice disturbed its silence? Must we learn 
 What felt the " Man of Sorrows," desert-bound. 
 Those forty fasting days ? The " Man of Sorrows ! '* 
 What man of other sort did ever walk 
 A lifetime thro' on this forsaken earth? 
 " He bore our griefs ! " How helps it, since ourselves 
 Their whole unmitigated, toilsome weight 
 Must bear, with none to lighten ? " He takes away 
 The sins of the world. ' Sins of the world.' " 
 
 How long 
 Alas ! how long prayed we that He would take 
 Sin from a single heart? Availed it aught? 
 " If thou hast faith." Ah had we not.'^ — such faith 
 As little lisping child's, that nightly craves 
 Thy loving care at reverent mother's knee. 
 
 89 
 
Poor superstition! Myth-bom fantasy 
 That lures the trusting soul and tempts away 
 From Reason's well-springs? Vain, delusive dream 
 That snares our hearts, and makes us cringing slaves 
 While joy abideth, only to betray 
 And leave us desolate of prop or guide 
 When sorrow comes, or stress of suffering. 
 
 Farewell, false faith. Better the arid waste, 
 With burning heat and thirst, since they be real. 
 Than all thy fair, chimeric promises 
 That ashes turn at touch of mortal needs. 
 
 So it doth seem, thou soul of mine, that we 
 Can keep a certain life within us ev'n here, 
 Where is no throb of life nor sign that aught 
 Takes cognizance that we are still in being. 
 
 I had not thought that one could even be 
 And God be not ! Well, so much have we gained 
 Of knowledge, thou and I, and nevermore 
 Again need fear that aught can nihilate 
 Pure consciousness, or rob us of each other. 
 
 What think'st thou, do the dead — the chilled in 
 
 blood 
 And nerve and brain — the dead that do not walk — 
 Do they lie thus? Does thought go on, and sight. 
 And memory, keen and clear and absolute, 
 Tho' irrelate, and all divorced from feeling? 
 
 90 
 
Where then must go the throbs of passion? Where 
 The fierce, unslaked ambitions? Whither flees 
 The proud, imperious will when round a heart 
 Death's icy finger circles? 
 
 'Tis a state 
 Well worth attaining, this, methinks, where all 
 The clear, gray sea of thought and reason lies 
 Unrippled by the winds of will or wishing. 
 
 How many hundred aeons since, my soul, 
 Think'st thou we dreamed that God and Love were all 
 Of Life? Poor feverish dream! 'Tis past, thank 
 
 God!— 
 What's that? Thank Godf Thank God? Why, 
 
 God is not! 
 God? God? O heart, be still! Wake not again 
 To feel and torture me. Dost thou not know 
 A heart should break but once and after that 
 Forever-more be quiet? God? God.'' — that voice! — 
 What! thou, my soul! That voice in thee! In 
 
 Thee !— 
 
 Forgive ! Forgive ! I knew Thee not. I thought — 
 What was't I thought? 
 
 And Thou hast never left me ? 
 Not e'en that time when no light was, nor hope 
 Nor any touch of comfort? What? 'Twas Thou? — 
 Thyself.? — ^the dark, the pain, the blank despair? 
 
 91 
 
O blind, that thought to know thy soul, nor knew 
 The Christ that bideth in thee ! 
 
 O blessed grief ! 
 
 bliss of sorrowing that brought me thus 
 In very truth to know Thee! Never more — 
 Ah! never — never more depart Thou from me. 
 Keep Thou me near, nor let this heart again 
 Refuse to feel, or make some poor response 
 When Thy dear Master-hand shall deign to touch 
 Its dormant strings and thrill them into music. 
 
 For long I sat enwrapt in revery, 
 The little book close-clasped in hands that throbbed 
 And thrilled with sympathy, whose depths till now 
 My heart nor guessed nor dreamed. The o'er-full past 
 
 1 lived again, — my own and Soeur Marie's; — 
 For strangely blent in close coincidence 
 
 Of trend and circumstance, our lives had seemed 
 Like twin-born streams to take their prescient course 
 Sure of the destined point of final meeting. 
 
 Dear, white-souled Soeur Marie! I knew her now, 
 The brave, sweet, pure-aspiring " other self," 
 Whose image deep subconscious memory 
 Had kept safe-guarded from my skeptic-veiled, 
 Doubt-shrouded inner vision. Yet how had that 
 So silent memory haunted! Disheartened oft, 
 
 92 
 
With homesick longing had I turned away 
 
 Prom one whose smile or accent stirred in me 
 
 A moment's thrill of hope, to chide myself 
 
 For foolish vague expectance. Still I harked 
 
 Again and yet again for that dear voice, 
 
 And waited for that smile that should betray 
 
 The friend I yearned for — friend who should reflect 
 
 Myself, but truer; — friend whose heart should hold. 
 
 If not more love than mine, yet purer faith 
 
 And larger charity ; whose life should be 
 
 My highest dreams of virtue realized; 
 
 Whose spirit should infold my own and lend 
 
 The needful strength and buoyancy, and large, 
 
 Calm courage to inspire my energies 
 
 To scale the heights of holiest aspiration. 
 
 Yet, tho' I waited thus, half-consciously. 
 Thro' all my earlier years: when Time at last 
 Brought fuller answer to the unvoiced prayer 
 Than my half-hearted faith had dared prevision, 
 So grief-engrained was I, so doubt-involved 
 And self-absorbed, the gift I coveted 
 Had long been mine ere woke the recognition. 
 But ah! I knew her now at last — my friendy 
 Whose patient love, despite my slow response. 
 Had won me from myself, had set me free 
 From cold inertia's clutch and led me far 
 Along the path to Wisdom. Yes, far on 
 
And up that path must I unknowingly 
 
 Have dimbed ; for lo ! the valley where her love 
 
 Had found me, stretched in dimness far below 
 
 The sun-kissed summits of my blessed present. — 
 
 Blessed? even so, for revelation, sure 
 
 And silent as the swiftly coming dawn 
 
 Broke o'er my musing spirit. Like a voice 
 
 From out the little book — soundless but clear — 
 
 This message thrilled me : " O blind, that think'st ta 
 
 know 
 Thy friend, thy better self, yet knowest not 
 ' Where two or three be gathered in my name, 
 Together, there am I.' " A mighty wave 
 Of light and understanding, thrilled with the ache 
 Of Love ineffable, swept over me. 
 I bowed my head upon the little book 
 And all the frozen deeps within me melted; 
 That well-known voice, my Sceur Marie, myself — 
 Where had I dreamt this blessed dream before — 
 On what Love-radiant star.? A second's space 
 I glimpsed that dear, adored familiar heaven, 
 In banishment forgotten, yet enshrined 
 Deep in the spirit's deathless memory. — 
 I saw myself a dear, beloved child 
 Whose place within that many-mansioned Home 
 Was mine from Time's beginning — must be mine 
 Tliro' all eternity. No other soul — 
 
 94 
 
However accounted worthier than I — 
 By any chance could fill. There must be 
 A vacant place forever, well I knew, 
 Till of my own volition I should choose 
 To claim my priceless, waiting heritage. 
 
 Ah, the love ! the love that so could cherish 
 An erring, wayward, wilful-straying child 
 Thro' cycles of indifference and forgetting! 
 Where now the doubting heart, the wary, cold, 
 Keen, skeptic reason? Where the bitterness 
 That spurned the thought of wise Beneficence 
 Behind the ruthless fate that worsted me 
 And robbed me of my blindly worshipped idols. 
 
 A gentle step, a touch upon my hand. 
 No need for speech ; a meeting of the eyes 
 And that was told that all the eloquence 
 Of myriad tongues must still have left unuttered. 
 
 Together there, beneath the dear old pine, 
 We stood and watched the sun sink slowly down 
 Beyond the purple hills, and with it sank 
 The old grief -wrecked, doubt-freighted, useless life 
 Into oblivion's sea. And with the red. 
 Gold harvest moon and tremulous evening star 
 Uprose my soul, re-born and purified. 
 
 'Tis years agone, and still the fadeless light 
 That dawned for me that far off blessed day 
 
 95 
 
Shines on undimmed. With deep abiding peace 
 
 I dwell among my chosen sisters, far 
 
 From the world's troubled dream ; and when the path 
 
 Traced for my feet leads back among the sad, 
 
 Sick hearts that know not of the blessed balm 
 
 That healed my own, still trustfully I follow; — 
 
 For well I know that work the Father's love 
 
 Hath sent His angel Sorrow to prepare 
 
 For those who seek to know and do His will : 
 
 Nor is it asked of me in loneliness 
 
 To sow the seed and patiently await 
 
 Apart from human sympathy the harvest. 
 
 For wheresoe'er His dear hand guideth me 
 
 Not far away walks gentle Soeur Marie. 
 
 Where'er Thou wilt: I follow. — 'Tis enough 
 That Thou hast walked this way. I will not seek 
 To trace the path beyond the single step 
 Before my feet. Tho' hard and steep, or drear 
 And waste and desolate, I cannot fear. 
 
 Thy love surroundeth me. Lead Thou me on. 
 
 The End. 
 
 96 
 
DE~. "/ 190*-