Chapter XXX

The fault, sigh’d conscience, had been all my own:
How safely might one sail the sea of life
If all his reckonings were but true to heaven!
Ah, siren-like, a rivalling earthly love
May lure to realms whose mountain heights are clouds,
Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal,
Whose only outlines are the breakers’ caps,
Whose only stir, the fury of the storm.

And I, who now had learn’d the truth, what now?—
Should I turn back to aims I knew were safe?—
I swore to do it; yet I thought—and thrill’d—
Could I but hold her soul, but own herself,
Though all things else were lost, this gain were sweet!—
Were sweet, though all were lost? Why need this be?
All might be saved. Did I believe in God?—
That he could change a life through human means?
Might not her life be chang’d then?—What were I
But faithless wholly, did I try this not?