"Feeling new force to conquer primal sin, Yet all in vain I spread my wings to thee, My light, until the air around shall be Made clear for me by thy warm breath within. That mortal works should reach the infinite Is thy work, Lord! For in a moment thou Canst give them worth. Left to myself I know My thought would fall, when at its utmost height. I long for that clear radiance from above That puts to flight all cloud; and that bright flame Which secret burning warms the frozen soul; So that set free from every mortal aim, And all intent alone on heavenly love, She flies with stronger pinion t'wards her goal." [Sidenote: ON THE CONFESSIONAL.] In the following lines, which form the conclusion of a sonnet, in which she has been saying that God does not permit that any pure heart should be concealed from His all-seeing eye "by the fraud or force of others," we have a very remarkable bit of such heresy on the vital point of the confessional, as has been sufficient to consign more than one victim to the stake: "Securi del suo dolce e giusto impero, Non come il primo padre e la sua donna, Dobbiam del nostro error biasimare altrui; Ma con la speme accesa e dolor vero Aprir dentro, _passando oltra la gonna I falli nostri a solo a sol con lui_". The underlined words, "passando oltra la gonna," literally, "passing beyond the gown," though the sense appears to be unmistakable, are yet sufficiently obscure and unobvious, and the phrase sufficiently far-fetched, to lead to the suspicion of a wish on the part of the writer in some degree to veil her meaning. "That in the captain's but a choleric word, which in the soldier is foul blasphemy." And the high-born Colonna lady, the intimate friend of cardinals and princes, might write much with impunity which would have been perilous to less lofty heads. But the sentiment in this very remarkable passage implies an attack on one of Rome's tenderest and sorest points. In English the lines run thus: "Confiding in His just and gentle sway We should not dare, like Adam and his wife, On other's backs our proper blame to lay; But with new-kindled hope and unfeigned grief, _Passing by priestly robes, lay bare within To him alone the secret of our sin_." Again, in the conclusion of another sonnet, in which she has been speaking of the benefits of Christ's death, and of the necessity of a "soprannatural divina fede" for the receiving of them, she writes in language very similar to that of many a modern advocate of "free inspiration," and which must have been distasteful to the erudite clergy of the dominant hierarchy, as follow: "Que' ch'avrà sol in lui le luci fisse, Non que' ch'intese meglio, o che più lesse Volumi in terra, in ciel sarà beato. In carta questa legge non si scrisse; Ma con la stampa sua nel cor purgato Col foco dell'amor Gesù l'impresse." In English: