Martha’s Garden

How is’t with thy religion, pray?Thou art a dear, good-hearted man,And yet, I think, dost not incline that way.

Leave that, my child! Thou know’st my love is tender;For love, my blood and life would I surrender,And as for Faith and Church, I grant to each his own.That’s not enough: we must believe thereon.

Would that I had some influence!Then, too, thou honorest not the Holy Sacraments.

Desiring no possession’Tis long since thou hast been to mass or to confession.Believest thou in God?

My darling, who shall dare“I believe in God!” to say?Ask priest or sage the answer to declare,And it will seem a mocking play,A sarcasm on the asker.

Then thou believest not!

Hear me not falsely, sweetest countenance!Who dare express Him?And who profess Him,Saying: I believe in Him!Who, feeling, seeing,Deny His being,Saying: I believe Him not!The All-enfolding,The All-upholding,Folds and upholds he notThee, me, Himself?Arches not there the sky above us?Lies not beneath us, firm, the earth?And rise not, on us shining,Friendly, the everlasting stars?Look I not, eye to eye, on thee,And feel’st not, throngingTo head and heart, the force,Still weaving its eternal secret,Invisible, visible, round thy life?Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart,And when thou in the feeling wholly blessed art,Call it, then, what thou wilt,—Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God!I have no name to give it!Feeling is all in all:The Name is sound and smoke,Obscuring Heaven’s clear glow.

All that is fine and good, to hear it so:Much the same way the preacher spoke,Only with slightly different phrases.

The same thing, in all places,All hearts that beat beneath the heavenly day—Each in its language—say;Then why not I, in mine, as well?

To hear it thus, it may seem passable;And yet, some hitch in’t there must beFor thou hast no Christianity.

I’ve long been grieved to seeThat thou art in such company.

The man who with thee goes, thy mate,Within my deepest, inmost soul I hate.In all my life there’s nothingHas given my heart so keen a pang of loathing,As his repulsive face has done.Nay, fear him not, my sweetest one!

I feel his presence like something ill.I’ve else, for all, a kindly will,But, much as my heart to see thee yearneth,The secret horror of him returneth;And I think the man a knave, as I live!If I do him wrong, may God forgive!

There must be such queer birds, however.

Live with the like of him, may I never!When once inside the door comes he,He looks around so sneeringly,And half in wrath:One sees that in nothing no interest he hath:’Tis written on his very foreheadThat love, to him, is a thing abhorréd.I am so happy on thine arm,So free, so yielding, and so warm,And in his presence stifled seems my heart.Foreboding angel that thou art!

It overcomes me in such degree,That wheresoe’er he meets us, even,I feel as though I’d lost my love for thee.When he is by, I could not pray to Heaven.That burns within me like a flame,And surely, Henry, ’tis with thee the same.

There, now, is thine antipathy!

Ah, shall there never beA quiet hour, to see us fondly plighted,With breast to breast, and soul to soul united?

Ah, if I only slept alone!I’d draw the bolts to-night, for thy desire;But mother’s sleep so light has grown,And if we were discovered by her,’Twould be my death upon the spot!

Thou angel, fear it not!Here is a phial: in her drinkBut three drops of it measure,And deepest sleep will on her senses sink.

What would I not, to give thee pleasure?It will not harm her, when one tries it?If ’twould, my love, would I advise it?

Ah, dearest man, if but thy face I see,I know not what compels me to thy will:So much have I already done for thee,That scarcely more is left me to fulfil.

The monkey! Is she gone?

Hast played the spy again?

I’ve heard, most fully, how she drew thee.The Doctor has been catechised, ’tis plain;Great good, I hope, the thing will do thee.The girls have much desire to ascertainIf one is prim and good, as ancient rules compel:If there he’s led, they think, he’ll follow them as well.

Thou, monster, wilt nor see nor ownHow this pure soul, of faith so lowly,So loving and ineffable,—The faith aloneThat her salvation is,—with scruples holyPines, lest she hold as lost the man she loves so well!

Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire,A girl by the nose is leading thee.Abortion, thou, of filth and fire!

And then, how masterly she reads physiognomy!When I am present she’s impressed, she knows not how;She in my mask a hidden sense would read:She feels that surely I’m a genius now,—Perhaps the very Devil, indeed!Well, well,—to-night—?

What’s that to thee?

Yet my delight ’twill also be!