Classic Poem

Am I too happy? Have I lost
The hymns of heaven, the shining host,
For the low song my Bertrand sings
Beneath the shade the myrtle flings
Across the door in sunset glow?
And for my cherub Angelo?—
My glorious boy with sweeter smile
Than wears, within St. Francis's aisle,
That infant John the friars say
Will yet take wing and soar away!
Nay,—Mary, grace! with hair of gold
And brow like the young Christ's you hold,
O'er the high altar, hovering fair,
Upborne by clear, celestial air!

How calm he sleeps upon my breast!
Would the great Father send such guest
Into my bosom, if to win
And welcome were a deadly sin?
Or give the boy my Bertrand's eyes
If evil lurked in Bertrand's guise?
Hark! 't is his step across the sward;
Forgive me if I wander, Lord!
But O, I surely love Thee more
For the dear face beside the door,
And for the fond arms' tender fold,
Than if I knelt, Amaiden cold,
And only knew of love and Thee
What the lone cloister taught to me.

And yet the Priest says I have sealed
My own damnation; madly healed
My orphan sorrow with a name
Will send me straight to burning flame!
Because I dared to give my vows
To Bertrand; would not be the spouse
Of Holy Church, and wear the veil
Within the convent's dreary pale,—
Our Lady's,—hid in dusk of trees
High up the chilly Pyrenees,
Where the white, ghostly nuns look out,
And wild winds toss the boughs about,
And moan and mutter through the air,
Of fast and scourge and midnight prayer.
O, what a living death were mine,
Locked in that gloom of fir and pine!

And here, like roses to the sun,
My bright days open, one by one;
And, deep within their bloom, my heart
Sings like some nightingale apart
In orange grove, while winds of May
Up the still valley waft his lay!
And have I failed of heaven for this?
Bartered my soul for Bertrand's kiss?
Foregone sweet Mary's kindly care
Because my boy, like hers, is fair?
And does God mock our yearnings so?
Nay! 't is a fiendish lie, I know!
God smiles on earth, though throned above;
And what is heaven but purer love?
We three, together, glad will go,—
Bertrand and I and Angelo!