Fourth Part

Onora looketh listlessly adown the garden walk:"I am weary, O my mother, of thy tender talk.I am weary of the trees a-waving to and fro,Of the steadfast skies above, the running brooks below.All things are the same, but I,--only I am dreary,And, mother, of my dreariness behold me very weary.

"Mother, brother, pull the flowers I planted in the springAnd smiled to think I should smile more upon their gathering:The bees will find out other flowers--oh, pull them, dearest mine,And carry them and carry me before Saint Agnes' shrine."--Whereat they pulled the summer flowers she planted in the spring,And her and them all mournfully to Agnes' shrine did bring.

She looked up to the pictured saint and gently shook her head--"The picture is too calm for me--too calm for me," she said:"The little flowers we brought with us, before it we may lay,For those are used to look at heaven,--but I must turn away,Because no sinner under sun can dare or bear to gazeOn God's or angel's holiness, except in Jesu's face."

She spoke with passion after pause--"And were it wisely doneIf we who cannot gaze above, should walk the earth alone?If we whose virtue is so weak should have a will so strong,And stand blind on the rocks to choose the right path from the wrong?To choose perhaps a love-lit hearth, instead of love and heaven,--A single rose, for a rose-tree which beareth seven times seven?A rose that droppeth from the hand, that fadeth in the breast,--Until, in grieving for the worst, we learn what is the best!"

Then breaking into tears,--"Dear God," she cried, "and must we seeAll blissful things depart from us or ere we go to THEE?We cannot guess Thee in the wood or hear Thee in the wind?Our cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind?Ay sooth, we feel too strong, in weal, to need thee on that road,But woe being come, the soul is dumb that crieth not on 'God.'"

Her mother could not speak for tears; she ever mused thus,"The bees will find out other flowers,--but what is left for us?"But her young brother stayed his sobs and knelt beside her knee,--"Thou sweetest sister in the world, hast never a word for me?"She passed her hand across his face, she pressed it on his cheek,So tenderly, so tenderly--she needed not to speak.

The wreath which lay on shrine that day, at vespers bloomed no more.The woman fair who placed it there had died an hour before.Both perished mute for lack of root, earth's nourishment to reach.O reader, breathe (the ballad saith) some sweetness out of each!