AM I too happy? Have I lost The hymns of heaven, the shining host, For the low song my Bertrand sings Beneath the shade the myrtle flings Across the door in sunset glow? And for my cherub Angelo? — My glorious boy with sweeter smile Than wears, within Saint Francis' aisle, That infant John the friars say Will yet take wing and soar away! Nay — Mary, grace! with hair of gold And brow like the young Christ's you hold, O'er the high altar, hovering fair, Upborne by some celestial air! How calm he sleeps upon my breast! Would the great Father send such guest Into my bosom, if to win And welcome were a deadly sin? Or give the boy my Bertrand's eyes If evil lurked in Bertrand's guise? Hark! 'tis his step across the sward; Forgive me if I wander, Lord! But oh, I surely love Thee more For the dear face beside the door, And for the fond arms' tender fold, Than if I knelt, a maiden cold, And only knew of love and Thee What the lone cloister taught to me. And yet the priest says I have sealed My own damnation; madly healed My orphan sorrow with a name Will send me straight to burning flame! Because I dared to give my vows To Bertrand; would not be the spouse Of Holy Church, and wear the veil Within the convent's dreary pale — Our Lady's — hid in dusk of trees High up the chilly Pyrenees, Where the white, ghostly nuns look out, And wild winds toss the boughs about, And moan and mutter through the air, Of fast and scourge and midnight prayer. Oh, what a living death were mine, Locked in that gloom of fir and pine! And here, like roses to the sun, My bright days open, one by one; And deep within their bloom, my heart Sings like some nightingale apart In orange grove, while winds of May Up the still valley waft his lay! And have I failed of heaven for this? Bartered my soul for Bertrand's kiss? Foregone sweet Mary's kindly care Because my boy, like hers, is fair? And does God mock our yearnings so? Nay! 'tis a fiendish lie, I know! God smiles on earth, though throned above; And what is heaven but purer love? We three, together, glad will go, — Bertrand and I and Angelo! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GOODLY SONG by PAUL VERLAINE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE: 3. IN PORT by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON FOR A CHILD: 1. WALKING SONG by CHARLES WILLIAMS SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 6. LOVE'S DESPAIR by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) RISE, GLORIOUS CONQUEROR! RISE by MATTHEW BRIDGES PRAYER FOR STRENGTH by MARGARET E. BRUNER GERTRUDE OF WYOMING; OR, THE PENNSYLVANIAN COTTAGE: 2 by THOMAS CAMPBELL MASQUE AT THE MARRIAGE OF THE EARL OF SOMERSET: THIRD SQUIRE by THOMAS CAMPION |