Chapter XXV

As with others, time and change and strife--
Morose time and moods of hate--
Have left their sombre scars upon our life;
But never yet our hearts have heard,
Even at close of days unfortunate,
The utterance of an unpardonable word.
Ardent, luminous sincerity
Was our wisdom and delight,
So that our fervid souls in verity
Tempered themselves as in a bath of light.

We told each other our most humble griefs,
Grief by grief, a rosary,
Told each other, weeping tears of love;
And then confidingly,
At each avowal, with our lips we pressed
A kiss on every fault confessed.

Thus simply, without weakness or despair,
We save us from ourselves and worldly harms,
And ward off suffering and gnawing care,
And see our spirits born again;
As reappear when washed by rain,
When sunlight sweetly dries and warms,
The purity of glass and gold of window pane.