Chapter XXIX

And then to me alone they spoke of Haydn:—
“He passionate had been:—how knew I when
His passion might be turn’d against myself?
And he had sinn’d, so sorely, sorely sinn’d:—
How could one thus defame the Church and priest?
And did my love for him suggest such words,
Or should my love hereafter sanction them,
Might not his wrong prove mine?—If I should yield,
Be won by his unbridled words, might not
My act confirm his trust in thought uncheck’d?
And thought uncheck’d,—it oft more danger fronts
Than does the uncheck’d steed, whose frenzied flight
Defies the rein, and, dashing down a road
Straight deathward, trails his luckless driver on,
Whirl’d powerless to prevent all as a babe.”

I spake of Haydn’s love.
They bade me think
“How often love that loses earthly friends,
Comes back from all things outward toward itself;
And finding self, finds heaven’s design within?
Did not I know that loss and gain are both
Sent here to aid the worth of inner traits
And change the phases of the spirit’s growth?—
Each passing season circling round a tree
Leaves, clasping it, a ring; the rings remain,
So seasons past remain about the soul:
And men can trace its former life far less
By tales the tongue may tell, than by the range
And reach of that which circumscribes the mood,
Including or excluding right or wrong.”

XXX.

And then they added: “Might it not be found
That loss of my love was the very means
Design’d by Providence for Haydn’s good?”

To this I could but answer that “his love
Seem’d Providential too, a holy thing.”

They only frown’d, and said: “The Prince of Ill
Came oft robed like an angel of the light;—
Why not like love?—The only holy thing,
Such proven to be, was Christ. And what of Him
When moved by love?—of His great sacrifice!—
And did I really prize this Haydn so,
Would love prompt naught in me!”
And thus they talk’d,
Till, welcoming doubt, my faith succumb’d to it;
And all the love once making me so proud,
Whose growth, I thought, would be so sweet and fair,
Stung like a very thistle in my soul;
Each breath of theirs would blow its prickles keen,
And sow its pestering seedlets far and wide
O’er every pleasing prospect of my life.