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CRUCE AND CORONA.
Shall live in blessed immortality,She makes her stronghold, and her soul grows calm.
But o'er her intellect now comes a change.The hopes, beliefs, that from her childhood daysOn faith's foundations lay, unquestioned e'erBy reason till this hour, now seem called forthBy reason, grown impatient to demandThe why of these. "Why hopest thou, O soul,To meet the dead from whom thou'rt parted here?"These questionings she meets with God's own word.But reason still, like something grown apartE'en from her very self, still further onDoth press its questioning to other truths.Yet all this while, within her soul no doubtDoth come of all these truths. And reason tooDenies them not, but only asks the why.
Thus days and weeks are passed. She studies, weeps,And prays. The light by human genius shedOn these same truths, that cometh in her reach,Is welcomed eagerly.And once she turnsFrom all this weary thinking to her art.But not as in her bright unsorrowed daysThe bright fair imagery around her throngs,And ev'ry faculty now seems spell-bound.
