“You terrify me, Haydn!” I exclaim’d. “And you have done far more to me!” he cried. “You were—Ah me, what were you not?—so pure, Transparent as the mid-day atmosphere. Should some red thunderbolt from sunlight burst And burn all torturing blindness through my eyes, The night came less foretoken’d! I, who dream’d That here I gazed on truth, here bent these knees Upon the very battlements of heaven,— I to be tript thus from my dear proud trust, Sent reeling down by such foul-aim’d deceit!— Strange is it if my jolted brain should slip The grooves of reason?—if I rave or curse?— You, who had known my heart, and after that, And after I had warn’d you of the thing, And simulating all the while such love,— You, vowing to abjure me! more than this, To-day with such cold-blooded, soulless tact, Soft-stealing, through the door-ways left ajar, Within the inmost chambers of my heart, To snare,—as though the victim of a cat That could be play’d with, trick’d with, kill’d, cast off,— This heart of mine which, as you might have known, Was throbbing but to serve you!—Yes, once more, You gain your end! Once more, your wish is mine. How can I love?—God help me!—Go you free.” LIII. How fiercely then did Haydn’s music storm! And soon he would have left our home in haste: My father spoke to stay him. Long they spoke; And sometimes wrathful were the words they used. But then, at last, my father told him all,— Why I had vow’d, that I his life might save, And he broke down before it. Never more May God permit me to behold again A broken man! Alas, how pleaded he! And pray’d me for my pardon o’er and o’er, Till wellnigh I believed he heard me not; And in the end sigh’d out: “It might be so, My plan be wisest; nay, he would not yield His manlier judgment, to fulfil my wish, To make me happy, or my sire or me:— Doretta surely was a housewife wise: It seem’d the older custom, thus to wed: He young had been, had whims.—God bless us all.” LIV. Oft, after that, I urged him ne’er to wed One whom he could not love. He only sigh’d: “This heart of mine that once loved you, Pauline, How could it love again with love as true? Yet what, if not? My soul was immature, Romantic, young. It must be manly now. A man has breadth. I take it manly love Is love that yields most blessings to the most. And mine shall bless yourself, your father, her.”— And so he calm’d my doubt and cheer’d me much. LV. And oft I spoke with him about the Church. “Can I forget its holding you?” he ask’d.