I felt another life when walking home. Such conflicts come but seldom; storms of spring, Uprooting much, and wracking much the soil, They find it frost-bound, and they leave it green. Alas, if grain or chaff grow then, depends Upon the germs their rains have wrought upon. XXXVI. When Haydn grew less ill, could talk once more, And proved our prayers for him were not in vain, The kind physician urged that he and I Be kept no more apart. My father then, At first, would not consent. I went to him. “My father,” said I, “do not fear for me. If God will give our poor friend health once more Then have I vow’d that never will I take A veil, save one that weds me to the Church.” “My daughter,—what?” he ask’d, “you never take— Ay, what is this you say?—you wed the Church?— In God’s name, child, explain yourself.” “A vow,” I said, “A vow that I have made the Virgin.” “What strange, what thoughtless deed is this?” he ask’d. “You take a vow, one not to be recall’d, That you will thwart our hopes, our plans for you?— And shut away, away from all of us, This face, this form, so cherish’d all these years?— True?—Is it true?—I would not frighten you: Poor girl, God knows that you will have enough To shudder for.—Yet, it bewilders me: How could you, you who had been wont to be So trustful and considerate and calm, How could you do a thing so rash, so wrong, Nor once consult me?—Tell me this, my child: What false inducement could have tempted you?” “Woe me!” I sobb’d, “I marvell’d when you said I could do so, the time I told you here That I would rather be a nun than be That rich man’s wife.” “You dear, poor girl,” he sigh’d, “Those words were but a whiff, whiff light as breath One blows at flies that come to trouble him. And can it be that they?—I half believe (My words have conjured cursèd deeds before) The very atoms of the air, like pools, Hold spawn-strown vermin-eggs! If one but speak, But break the silence; if his breath but bear One faintest puff from passionate heat within, Lo, breaking open some accursèd shell, It hatches forth foul broods of venomous life That come, blown backward by the changing wind, To haunt him who provok’d their devilish birth! By day they sting our eyes, and make us weep; By night steal through unguarded gates of sense, And sting our souls in dreams!—My heart! and you?— How could you deem my thoughtless words to be The voice of so deform’d a wish as this?”