Chapter XLIV

Thus lived I, triumph’d over; as are clouds
Whereon the sun sits throned; all bright are they,
And bright beneath them is the sunset sea.
In splendid serfdom to its love, my soul,
That shone with kindling glory, thence beheld
A kindling glory shine from all about.

No whim of mine was this; it fills my creed;
The graft of all true love regenerates.
Those in whom love is born are born anew,
And all their family of fancies then
Bear family traits; those loving, and those not,
Being wide apart as rainbows and the rain.
I might be superstitious, but to me
The temple of my life’s experience
Had been less sacred, had it held no shrine
Whereon to heap sweet tokens of my love.
And all that loom’d around seem’d holier now,
Illumed by holy lights of memory.

Nor long was it ere I had grown to share
In all the love of all with whom I met;
And oft, too, thus invoking sympathy,
My wishes wrought like witches, and conjured
The thing they wish’d for: sympathy would come.