Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/456

VARIOUS POEMS The Virgin Mother, without plume or wing

Ascending, poised in rapt beatitude,

With hands crosswise, and intercession mild

For all who crave her mercy undefiled.

There Beatrice—poor, guilty, desperate maid—

Took from her belt the convent's blessed keys,

And with them on the altar humbly laid

Her missal, uttering such words as these

(Her eyes cast down, and all her soul afraid):

"O dearest mistress, hear me on my knees

Confess to thee, in helplessness and shame,

I am no longer fit to speak thy name.

Thy house and altar I have guarded well!

No more may Beatrice thy servant be,

For earthly love her steps must needs compel.

Forget me in this sore infirmity

When my successor here her beads shall tell."

This said, the girl withdrew her as she might,

And with her lover fled that selfsame night;

Fled out, and into the relentless world

Where Love abides, but Love that breedeth Sorrow,

Where Purity still weeps with pinions furled,

And Passion lies in wait her all to borrow.

From such a height to such abasement whirled

She fled that night, and many a day and morrow

Abode indeed with him for whose embrace

She bartered heaven and her hope of grace.

O fickle will and pitiless desire,

Twin wolves, that raven in a lustful heart

And spare not innocence, nor yield, nor tire,

But youth from joy and life from goodness part; 426