Chapter XLVI

“It must be lonesome here for one like you,
A stranger-land, indeed, here,” would she sigh.
“Why could we not, church people, day by day,
Have converse here, and thus live more at one?”

When hearts hold secrets, even love that comes,
And comes in crowds, will bring the prying soul
Full drive to spring them open. How I shrank
To meet with those with whom my soul could find
No source of sympathy beneath the sound
Produced when tongue and teeth and lips combine
To mouth one shibboleth! A fate like this
Foretoken’d only, made me well nigh faint
As feels a soldier, falling at his post,
With heart shell’d out and emptied of the soul.
I could but find excuses, partly real
And partly feign’d, the fringe of ready whims.