Page:Francesca Carrara 3.pdf/272



There is a nobler glory, which survives Until our being fades.".

body and the soul are not friends, but enemies. The one curbs and confines, the other wears and shatters. Perpetual is the terrible struggle, till death parts the mortal and the immortal; and life, the riddle, is lost in the deeper secrets of eternity. And yet, though constant has been the warfare, how fearful is the parting!—what unutterable visions—what awful revealings—what dark knowledge, haunt the final hour! Long vigils—fastings that wore away the strength of day—prayers that banished sleep from night—hoarded vengeance, that, like a fire, consumed its abode—affections crushed to the very earth—a memory whose love was with the grave,—a faith that had coloured itself with mortal passion,—all these had pressed too heavily on the springs of