“‘Life’s dearest meaning I shall probe; Lo! I shall taste of love, at last! Away!’ She doffed her outer robe, And sent it sailing down the blast. “Her body seemed to warm the wind; With bleeding feet o’er ice she ran; ‘I leave the righteous God behind; I go to worship sinful man.’” She reached “the sounding city’s gate.” She drank the wild cup of love to the dregs. She cried— “‘I am sister to the mountains, now, And sister to the sun and moon.’” She made her queen-like progress. She loved and lived— “But soon her fire to ashes burned; Her beauty changed to haggardness; Her golden hair to silver turned; The hour came of her last caress. “At midnight from her lonely bed She rose, and said, ‘I have had my will.’ The old ragged robe she donned, and fled Back to the convent on the hill.” She blessed, as she ran thither, the comfortable convent laws by which nuns who had sinned as she had done were buried alive. But I must copy the remaining stanzas, for no condensation can do justice to their tender, piteous, triumphant charm:— “Like tired bells chiming in their sleep, The wind faint peals of laughter bore; She stopped her ears and climbed the steep, And thundered at the convent door. “It opened straight: she entered in, And at the Wardress’ feet fell prone: ‘I come to purge away my sin; Bury me, close me up in stone.’ “The Wardress raised her tenderly; She touched her wet and fast-shut eyes: ‘Look, sister; sister, look at me; Look; can you see through my disguise?’ “She looked, and saw her own sad face, And trembled, wondering, ‘Who art thou?’ ‘God sent me down to fill your place: I am the Virgin Mary now.’ “And with the word, God’s mother shone: The wanderer whispered, ‘Mary, Hail!’ The vision helped her to put on Bracelet and fillet, ring and veil. “‘You are sister to the mountains now, And sister to the day and night; Sister to God.’ And on the brow She kissed her thrice, and left her sight. “While dreaming in her cloudy bed, Far in the crimson orient land, On many a mountain’s happy head Dawn lightly laid her rosy hand.” “A Ballad of a Nun” seems to me Mr. Davidson’s crowning achievement; yet “A Ballad of Heaven” and “A Ballad of Hell” are scarcely less striking. In “A Ballad of Heaven” there is a musician who works for years at one great composition. The world ignores him. His wife and child, clothed in rags, are starving in their windy garret; but he does not know it, for he dwells in the strange, far heaven of his music. “Wistful he grew, but never feared; For always on the midnight skies His rich orchestral score appeared, In stars and zones and galaxies.”