Chapter VII: Part IV

The snow had fallen hour on hour;
The wind was keen, and loud and shrill
It whistled through the naked trees
And round the frozen hill.

The country everywhere was white;
The forest oaks that moaned and pined
Wore caps of snow, which, bowing low,
They doffed before the wind.

Twilight descended, and the air
Was gray, and like a sense of dread,
Night on the virgin breast of earth
Her sable shadows spread.

Slowly, with wavering steps a man
Moved on a solitary moor,
With staff, and shell, and sandaled shoon,
A pilgrim pale and poor.

Slowly, with trembling steps he moved,
Pausing, as if uncertain where
To take his way, when, faint and far,
A bell disturbed the air.

And as with concentrated strength
He sought the sound, a little light
Shone flickeringly and glow-worm like
Through the ravine of night.

A little light that with each step
Became distinct, until his eyes
Beheld a convent’s welcome walls
Between him and the skies.

He reached the portal—rang the bell,
And as above him rose the moon,
Sank, like the storm: the portress found
The pilgrim in a swoon.

They bore the wasted wanderer in:
Pallid but beautiful he lay,
A dream which seemed to come from heaven
Though clad in suffering clay.

And when, long hours of anguish gone,
His eyes once more shone calmly blue,
Looks that seemed grievous memories
Dimmed their ethereal hue.

His soul, which many days had walked
The ploughshares of consuming love.
Wrung by the ordeal, raised its eyes
Toward Him Who reigned above.

He sought the chapel; at the shrine
Knelt, while his eyes were wet with tears—
God’s love in holy harmonies
Filling his penitent ears.

Even as he knelt the solemn mass,
“ORA PRO NOBIS, DOMINE,”
Rose, like a dove on sun-lit wings,
Seeking the heavenly way.

Concordant voices sweet and clear
Rang through the consecrated nave,
Discoursing melodies which rolled
And broke, wave over wave.

As in an ecstasy he knelt,
Cheeks, lips and eyes alive with light,
Radiant, as if a saint, or Christ
Himself had blessed his sight.

For in the voices one sweet voice
Swam, like a spirit’s, in his ears:
He could not speak, or move, or breathe;
While slowly trickling tears

Ran down his cheeks, as, louder still,
The swan-voiced organ breathed its knell,
And on its cloudy height of song
Paused, trembled, moaned and fell.

But as its echoes died away,
His spirit trod that golden shore
Where hope becomes reality
And sorrow is no more.

He sought the abbess; on his knees
Unfolded, page by page, his grief;
While she, albeit cold and stern,
Wept, yielding to belief.

And Florence came, while Clarence stood
In breathless silence far apart,
A thousand hopes and joys and fears
Conflicting at his heart.

Throwing aside his pilgrim cowl
Clarence fell trembling at her feet:
“Florence,” he murmured, “loved and lost,
At last, at last we meet.”

She stood in silence, with her eyes
Fixed on the youth—a heavenly calm
From out whose subsidence of sound
Came “Clarence,” like a psalm.

And then he knelt and told his tale:
How he had loved in other lands,
And she he sought had faithlessly
Obeyed a sire’s commands,

And left him desolate; how, when,
After long weeks of aching pain
A pale, heartbroken, weary man,
With fevered brow and brain,

He sought his native land, and stood
Again within his castle halls,
But found that soothing Peace had flown
Forever from its walls;

And how, when wandering in the woods,
Accusing God of all his wo,
Madder with memories of the Past
Than any fiend below,

She, Florence, like an angel, rose
To calm his heart, and dry his tears,
And fill his brain with melodies
Stolen from statelier spheres.

And how he sought to test her love,
And feared, recurring to the past,
That this, his eidolon of joy,
Might prove too bright to last.

And so, in humble garb, in state
No loftier than the maiden’s own,
He sought her love, not for his lands
But for himself alone.

And how he came and found her gone,
And since, month after month, in pain,
Had followed her from town to town,
With burning heart and brain;

And how, when hope was gone, and life
Seemed like a land which lay behind—
The future like a desolate void—
How, when he most repined—

When death had been a welcome thing,
Her voice, the concord of the spheres,
Had called his memory from her tomb
On which it lay in tears.

She stood and listened with her eyes
And ears and heart—cheek, lip and brow
Serene with happiness which shone,
Like sunlight over snow.

And with a breathless eloquence
Which, more than words or vows, exprest
Her boundless confidence, she hid
Her blushes in his breast.