Chapter X

But this he little mark’d. Doretta’s form
Had cast a shade, perhaps, that dimm’d his view.
Then, too, within the year, still subtler charms
Had cast their spells about him: work had come.
He needed now no more to earn his bread
By joining us wig-makers while we plied—
My sister and myself—our father’s trade.
The church that had dismiss’d him, when from change
It could now keep that voice, whose tones, of yore,
Had touch’d my father so that heart and house
Had both sprung open that the sweet-voiced boy
Might find a home,—the church had called him back
To aid again, but in the orchestra,
The fresher singing of his younger mates.
With this had pupils fill’d his vacant hours
And, far away, an organ, play’d at Mass,
Besiren’d all the Sundays. Thus cheer’d on,
His brighten’d prospects had renew’d the charms
Of music rivalling all things else with him.
Full often, could we watch him, listless, gaze,
Ay, even toward Doretta’s voice and form;
Then turn, like one bewildered by a dream
Fast-closing every sense to all besides,
And seek our small bare attic, where anon,
For hours together, pausing not for aught,
The ringing strings within his harpsichord
Would seem to call toward form that formless force
Enrapturing so the spirit. When his moods
Would note Doretta not, nor waiting meals,
Nor sunset hues, nor moonlight at its full,
Nor e’en the striking of the midnight bell,
What could I think that he could care for me?

XI.

At last his illness came. How pale he lay!
We fear’d for him, lest life should slip its net:
The fleshly cords were worn to film so thin!
But how the soul would shine through them! Its light,
I would not say that it could gladden me,
Yet—strange is it?—while sitting near him then,
The fresh air fanning toward him, which his lungs
Were all too weak to draw there for themselves,
For that so gentle, babelike sufferer,
I lost all fear; and, true to womanhood,
I loved him more for low and helpless moans
Than ever I had loved him when in health.

XII.

How oft I thank’d the Power that gave me power
To think and do for him what he could not.
I knelt: I gave my body to his needs:
Brain, hands, and all things would I yield to him.
And was I not paid back?—His dear, sweet heart,
Each slightest beat of it, would seem to thrill
Through all my veins, twice dear when serving two.
And this was love! You know the Master’s words,
That they alone who lose it find their life.
’Tis true. No soul can feel full consciousness
Of full existence till it really love,
And yield its own to serve another’s life.
“To serve Christ’s life,” you say?—But part of that
By Christ’s humaneness is to serve mankind.
I speak a law of life, a truth of God:
To heaven I dare as little limit it
As to the earth; whatever be our sphere,
We know not life therein until we love.