XI. FROM MARY CHURCHILL TO THE DEAN.
96 lines✦
harles does me honour, but 'twere vainTo reconsider now again,And so to doubt the clear-shown truthI sought for, and received, when youth,Being fair, and woo'd by one whose loveWas lovely, fail'd my mind to move.God bids them by their own will go,Who ask again the things they know!I grieve for my infirmity,And ignorance of how to beFaithful, at once to the heavenly life,And the fond duties of a wife.Narrow am I and want the artTo love two things with all my heart.Occupied singly in His search,Who, in the Mysteries of the Church,Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven,I tread a road, straight, hard, and even;But fear to wander all confused,By two-fold fealty abused.Either should I the one forget,Or scantly pay the other's debt.You bid me, Father, count the cost.I have; and all that must be lostI feel as only woman can.To make the heart's wealth of some man,And through the untender world to move,Wrapt safe in his superior love,How sweet! How sweet the household roundOf duties, and their narrow bound,So plain, that to transgress were hard,Yet full of manifest reward!The charities not marr'd, like mine,With chance of thwarting laws divine;The world's regards and just delightIn one that's clearly, kindly right,How sweet! Dear Father, I endure,Not without sharp regret, be sure,To give up such glad certainty,For what, perhaps, may never be.For nothing of my state I know,But that t'ward heaven I seem to go,As one who fondly landward hiesAlong a deck that seaward flies.With every year, meantime, some graceOf earthly happiness gives placeTo humbling ills, the very charmsOf youth being counted, henceforth, harms:To blush already seems absurd;Nor know I whether I should herdWith girls or wives, or sadlier balkMaids' merriment or matrons' talk.But strait's the gate of life! O'er late,Besides, 'twere now to change my fate:For flowers and fruit of love to form,It must he Spring as well as warm.The world's delight my soul dejects.Revenging all my disrespectsOf old, with incapacityTo chime with even its harmless glee,Which sounds, from fields beyond my range,Like fairies' music, thin and strange.With something like remorse, I grantThe world has beauty which I want;And if, instead of judging it,I at its Council chance to sit,Or at its gay and order'd Feast,My place seems lower than the leastThe conscience of the life to beSmiles me with inefficiency,And makes me all unfit to blessWith comfortable earthlinessThe rest-desiring brain of man.Finally, them, I fix my planTo dwell with Him that dwells apartIn the highest heaven and lowliest heart;Nor will I, to my utter loss,Look to pluck roses from the Cross.As for the good of human love,'Twere countercheck almost enoughTo think that one must die beforeThe other; and perhaps 'tis moreIn love's last interest to doNought the least contrary thereto,Than to be blest, and be unjust,Or suffer injustice; as they must,Without a miracle, whose pactCompels to mutual life and act,Whether love shines, or darkness sleepsCold on the spirit's changeful deeps.Enough if, to my earthly share,Fall gleams that keep me from despair.Happy the things we here discern;More happy those for which we yearn;But measurelessly happy aboveAll else are those we guess not of!
✦