“My wanderer!” I answer’d, when I could; “Ah Edith, you but wander’d as the lamb; My spotless, worldling-mediator, you!— It wander’d?—yes; it cross’d a threshold chill; A proud cathedral enter’d; there found one Too pleased with what he had, to gaze outside. To him those arches low seem’d high as heaven; And all the sweet and sunny air without, When strain’d through stain’d and smoke-wreathed window-panes, Gleam’d lurid as were hell. This man spied you: He saw you shun him—leave him. He pursued— Out, past the doorway—and he found God’s world So much more broad than walls named after Him!” LXXIII. “And Norman,” said she, “think you, evermore, Recalling you, the worldling could forget How walls exclusive could exclude not love? Or, love rejecting, gain from all the world, Though brimm’d with but applause, one draft so sweet?— But then earth held such promise yet, so lured; How could I know that merely sighs there were Could thrill me more than all its thunders could? Ah, did I love you then, so loves he heaven Who has not courage yet to leave the world. I might have left it never; but, you know, That sister mine—At last, life meant but this,— To envy that cold tomb, all night, all day, That held her only.—Norman, pardon me: Such woe, such loneliness,—ah, strange was it That oft then I recall’d your form, your words? And when I render’d forth upon the stage Scenes you had visioned, phrases you had fram’d, That then I came to do as you would do, And think as you would think?—or that my tongue Should linger o’er your language, as o’er sweets Re-tasted still again?—or that, anon, Those accents ardent with your own dear aims, Should fire mine own to ardor?—or that then My soul should flash forth light that flamed within, And tracing far the rays that sped from it, Should find here”— “One to help you, friend?” I asked— “Then let us both thank heaven that made us weak. So may a mortal pair bide, each to each, Both priest and partner; like the church, their home; For what are churches here but chosen courts Of One pure Spirit, moving all to love? And, think you, writ or vestment, art or arch, Can image Him, or His domain unbound? Nay, trust my word, we worship Him the best, When two or three together, loving truth And one another, thus repeat, once more, An incarnation, imitating Christ” LXXIV. “I catch it, Norman,” cried she, “the ideal! Henceforth our aim be this,—the art of life. I saw it not before: the stage of spirit So much more broad is than the stage of sense! Comes on the soul now, actor, all divine, At play no longer; nay, but shadowing forth A love complete that personates a God! And what love is complete that walks alone?”