THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS.
95
III.
AGNES AMONG THE SISTERS.
I sit among the sisters—moments make
Their way to hours, as slowly day by day
Creeps lagging on, as if before them lay
Some evil Thing they feared to overtake;
Our fingers move together swift, but slow
And few the words that fall, like drops that ooze
From springs that in the desert long ago
The drifting sands sucked in; full oft I choose
To hearken if some echo subterrain
Tells where life's hidden streams in darkness yet
Flow on; but all is silent, and again
I look and see each face before me set—
A dial-plate with mosses long o'ergrown,
And finger that still duly round the stone
Moves on to point to nothing; then I thank
My own, if it from theirs hath caught this blank
Impenetrable aspect, and so lies
A scroll outspread, yet locking from their eyes
(Though writ within, without) the precious lore
They would but shrink from; yet my heart runs o'er
With pity and with love, for these were made
For noble creatures, that within the shade
Kept by man's fraud, and cheated of their right
In the Great Father's heritage of light
Their way to hours, as slowly day by day
Creeps lagging on, as if before them lay
Some evil Thing they feared to overtake;
Our fingers move together swift, but slow
And few the words that fall, like drops that ooze
From springs that in the desert long ago
The drifting sands sucked in; full oft I choose
To hearken if some echo subterrain
Tells where life's hidden streams in darkness yet
Flow on; but all is silent, and again
I look and see each face before me set—
A dial-plate with mosses long o'ergrown,
And finger that still duly round the stone
Moves on to point to nothing; then I thank
My own, if it from theirs hath caught this blank
Impenetrable aspect, and so lies
A scroll outspread, yet locking from their eyes
(Though writ within, without) the precious lore
They would but shrink from; yet my heart runs o'er
With pity and with love, for these were made
For noble creatures, that within the shade
Kept by man's fraud, and cheated of their right
In the Great Father's heritage of light
