I heard her voice--O God! I heard her words! Not bolts of burning from the vengeful sky Had scathed or stunned me more. I shook like one Powerless within the toils of some great sin, Or some o'ermastering passion; or like one Whose veins turn ice at onset of the plague. "O God," she said, "my Father and my Friend! Spare him to me, and save me from myself! O! if thou help me not--if thou forsake-- This hand which thou hast made, will take the life Thou mad'st the hand to feed. I cling to him, My son,--my boy. If danger come to him, No one is left to save me from this crime. Thou knowest, O! my God, how I have striven To quench the awful impulse; how, in vain, My prayers have gone before thee, for release From the foul demon who would drive my soul To crime that leaves no space for penitence. O! Father! Father! Hear me when I call! Hast thou not made me? Am I not thy child? Why, why this mad, mysterious desire To follow him I loved, by the dark door Through which he forced his passage to the realm That death throws wide to all? O why must I, A poor, weak woman--" I could hear no more, But dropped my dripping cloak, and, with a voice, Toned to its tenderest cadence, I pronounced The sweet word, "mother!" Her excess of joy Burst in a cry, and in a moment's space I sat within her room, and she, my child, Was sobbing in my arms. I spoke no word, But sat distracted with my tenderness For her who threw herself upon my heart In perfect trust, and bitter thoughts of Him Whose succor, though importunately sought In piteous pleadings by a gentle saint, Was grudgingly withheld. Her closing words: "O why must I, a poor, weak woman--" rang Through every chamber of my tortured soul, And called to conclave and rebellion all The black-browed passions thitherto restrained. Ay, why should she, who only sought for God, Be given to a devil? Why should she Who begged for bread be answered with a stone? Ay, why should she whose soul recoiled from sin As from a fiend, find in her heart a fiend To urge the sin she hated?--questions all The fiends within me answered as they would. O God! O Father! How I hated thee! Nay, how within my angry soul I dared To curse thy sacred name!