Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SISTER ANNUNCIATA: 2. ABBESS URSALA'S LECTURE, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SISTER ANNUNCIATA: 2. ABBESS URSALA'S LECTURE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: My daughter, do you guess why I chose you
Last Line: And know at last even such a peace in death.
Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta
Subject(s): Nuns


My daughter, do you guess why I chose you
As my to-day's companion for the hour
I warm me in the winter sunshine here,
Sitting where many sleep whom I have known
My new-come novices like your young self?
I am an old woman now, sadly infirm,
My senses failing, but I sometimes catch
A whisper never meant to reach my ear.
I heard yours yesterday. You "think it strange
That I should choose to haunt the burial ground
Alive: 'twere time enough when I am dead."
A careless speech, dear child: if you had thought,
You would have phrased your wonder differently.
But I will answer it. So many years
I have been old that it is out of mind
How long I have been face to face with death:
And by God's mercy I have long lost fear.
None of us should fear death: a nun's true life
Begins in Heaven; you should remember this.
But I have custom to my aid; at nights
When I lie down I think "It may be sleep
Or may be death," and close my eyes in calm;
And when the sun falls warmest in the day
I have myself brought here, and often think
How soon I shall be here asleep in Christ,
And do not find it an unhappy thought.
And there are more companions here for me
Than in the convent. For I am so old
That there is no one in the convent now
Who saw me come, excepting sister Clare,
And she bedridden. Yes, no doubt, my child,
I have outlived my life and seem to youth
A sort of ghost already--just a ghost
From old old days, and so I haunt the place
Where many like me rise to be with me:
I feel them near me here. Poor child, you shrink.
Nay, if the blessed spirits really came
In presence near us, it were cause for joy:
I'd have you long for such revealings given
From the higher world. But I meant not so much;
Only the thoughts of them and memories
That seem to reach me from these quiet graves.
There are graves there from which, had I more strength,
I could read you many histories which, perhaps,
Might move you more to what I fain would teach
Than I can do.
See, there is one. Look left,
The corner grave beneath the sycamore,
That with the cross a little fallen slant.
There sleeps the saintliest creature! had she lived
The Church would surely have enrolled her name
Upon its calendar. She was to be
Abbess here after me, so was it planned,
And often I felt shamed to think how far
My fervent-souled successor would surpass
My poor endeavours for the convent's good,
And how more far surpass them in the life
Set for a pattern to the younger nuns.
But she was more than holy-lived; on her
Came wondrous power from heaven, we knew not what,
If inspiration or mere eloquence
Moved by a fervour strange to common souls.
Myself and many others have at times,
Feeling strange influence working in our hearts
While she, the rapture on her, spoke and spoke
And took authority on her, believed
She was a chosen messenger of God,
And almost looked to see some miracle
Declare her to us. She had visions too,
But these came later: she was near her end
When they began; but that we did not know.
She died one summer--well, well, I forget
How many years ago--before your birth.
Yes, on a summer evening I know,
For the sunset light came full into her room,
And 'twas the one next mine. She died one summer;
And some months earlier, at this time of year
But on a day most different from this,
All rain and chill and dreariness, they came
And woke me in the morning, telling me
Sister Annunciata had been found
Stretched in a swoon, and now so long remained
Rigid and speechless that death must be near.
She had had a vision then, the first she had;
She told me of it with her first faint words
As she recovered. Some one came, she said,
Who had been dear to her, and, whispering close
Beside her bed where she lay taking sleep
After a half-night's vigil, tempted her
To pray to heaven that heaven might be for her
Eternal life with one she once had loved--
Whether the same who spoke I gathered not;
She said "Ah! make me not remember now
Whom the saints' selves have bidden me forget,"
When I asked her of that matter. Well, she said,
While she was struggling in a sort of maze
Between a wish to shriek the prayer aloud
And a half-sense of something more than her
That checked it, and the voice was making moan
"Oh Eva do not lose us our last hope,"
She heard a cry that clanged out like the burst
Of treble organ pipes when the high strains
Take up the Gloria in our Easter mass,
"Annunciata wake, wake." Starting up,
Still sobbing, as she said, she knew a dream
Had troubled her: but there stood, where the light
That trembled dimly from the cloud-barred moon
In a gap of sky just fell upon the folds
Of their white raiment, two pale shimmering forms
Whose faces at the first she did not see.
And, when assured they were not also dreams
Or fancies of her fevered eyes and brain
In the sudden waking, she believed them Angels.
But when one spoke she knew--though by what sign
She could not tell me that first time--they were
St Catherine of Alexandria
And our St Catherine of Sienna, each
Holding the other's hand. Which spoke the words
She knew not--Afterwards she grew to mark
Her visions more distinctly; that first time
She was amazed and troubled. These the words:
"We have rescued thee, but henceforth take thou heed
Lest thou be left to struggle by thyself
And fall. Thy heart unfaithful to thy Lord
Remembers, and God says to thee 'Forget.'"
And then they made as if they would have gone,
Yet turned to her again and said "Approach
And feel our presence, that thou mayest be sure
We have been with thee." But, as she advanced,
A terror came upon her, and she fell,
And knew no more.
Thenceforward oftentimes
She had most wondrous visions: holy saints
Appeared to her, oftenest of all those two
Whom she saw first, and heavenly harmonies
Waked her of nights, and voices spake to her.
And every day we saw her saintlier,
And felt her growing more apart from us,
As one marked out for deeper purposes
Than we could fathom. Yet she still remained
Humble among us; always she preferred
The lowest offices, and eagerly
Abased herself, "I have been proud," she said,
"And even proud of pride; my penitence
Is to be meaner than the meanest here."
Ah well! you may believe that none of us
Would so account her. Though I kept her down
To the rule of strict obedience like the rest,
Believe me that, but for the honour due
Unto my office, I perceived myself
So poor beside her, so unworthy even
To kiss her garment's hem, I could have knelt
And cried "Oh saint, take rule upon us all
And let me be thy servant;" but I knew
What duty my high office laid on me.
But think of her, proud as she well might be--
She came of the Albizzi--young as you,
Renowned already for the liveliest wit
And wisest, after woman's sort, then found
Among the brightest ladyhood of Rome,
Talked of for beauty too. She, with so much
Already tasted of earth's sweetest cup,
And so much more yet brimming to her lips
At the moment 'twas withdrawn, gave up her life
So wholly unto Heaven that, still on earth,
She seemed to see the brightness of God's face,
And was as if bedazzled by the light
Blind to all lower things; and so to her,
It was as if in earth was only heaven.
How plain I see her dying! You may know
She died in happiness. Through several months
She saw the visions, they came oftener
And oftener, until, towards the last,
She saw them nightly. Sometimes too they came
In the broad daylight, when she would be lost,
As she was often, in her prayers alone
In the silent chapel. When the summer grew
Towards its fall they left her utterly,
And she, already paler than you see
St Barbara in the picture in the choir
And looking nearer death, she drooped at this,
Stricken with anguish; for she read in it
A sign of wrath divine against some fault
Her holy soul discerned in the perfectness
Of a most singularly holy life.
So the blow fell on her, and she soon knew--
The first of us she knew, and silently--
That she was dying. Then--she knew not why,
For the voices never came again--she felt
That she was once more in the grace of God,
And a great peace fell on her. This she told
When she sent for me on the day when first
She did not rise at dawn but quietly
Lay on her bed and said "Death is at hand."
Three days we watched her weakening. All the while
We seldom heard her speak; she lay asleep,
Or wept or smiled half-sleeping. On the fourth
She roused and thanked me--thanked us all for care
And watchings in her illness--me besides
For some old kindness, something said or done,
I could not rightly gather what she meant,
At the time of her first coming. This I know,
Her thankfulness, so long kept in her heart,
Uttered at such a moment, dwells in me
A lesson for my guiding, and I hope
That I have seldomer failed in gentleness
And a mother's sympathy for the young souls
New to our holy bondage who, may be,
Are sad and restless for a little while.
I said to her "My daughter, I was blessed,
Beyond my knowing, when a word of mine
Was sown to such ripe fruit in you." Her eyes
Looked earnest at me "Mothers smile like you";
And that was all. She spoke not much again,
Nor aught to be remembered, but, till day
Was passing into sunset she was with us,
Lying so still we scarcely could discern
Whether she waked or slept. The sunlight fell
Right on her bed at evening, and I thought
The yellow beams too strong upon her eyes;
I moved to shade them, then she took my hand,
Just touched it faintly, for her strength was gone,
"Such happy rest" she said, "God's rest" and smiled,
Then fell asleep. And presently one said
"She is dead," and then another "She is dead,"
And we perceived she was no more with us,
Although the smile was strengthening on her face.
Some thought it was a wonder nothing strange
Was noticed at her death-bed; none of us
Would have thought it any wonder had there been
Tokens from Heaven plainly granted her
Before us all, and she had been shewn forth,
As one whose name was henceforth to be famed
With more than human honour. But God's will
Was not to crown our humble convent here
With such a glory.
When she was laid out,
I took my niece's baby secretly
To touch the body, thinking that, perchance,
There might be virtue in it, by God's grace
And with our many prayers for the poor child,
To give its poor blind eyes their sight. Poor child,
It was not so to be.
Now will you learn
A hope from that most holy life? Well, she
Who was as I have told you, had at first
A restless heart and angry at restraint,
And looked, as you may do, with wistful eyes,
Back to the world behind. I know not why--
She came of her free-will, even like myself
Who loved the quiet of the convent best
Quite from the first--and like you too, you say,
Who do not love it yet, I think. She might,
Had she so chosen, have become the wife
Of one whose wealth and greatness were the theme
Of all the gossipries of Rome: but she
Came here and brought her proud and wayward heart,
To fret and chafe at her imprisonment,
For many days. I have told you of the end:
Do you not think it worth your envying?
And who can say 'tis not within your reach?
But be persuaded, at the least, of this,
That you may learn her joy in heavenly things,
And know at last even such a peace in death.








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