Lastly the great Ascension into heaven: And ever as he spake on Heida's cheek The red spot, deepening, spread; within her eyes An unastonished gladness waxed more large: Back to the marble woman came her youth: Once more within her heaving breast it lived, Once more upon her forehead shone, as when The after-glow returns to Alpine snows Left death-like by dead day. Question at times She made, yet seemed the answer to foreknow. That tale complete, low-toned at last she spake: 'Unhappy they to whom these things are hard!' Then silent sat, and by degrees became Once more that dreaded prophet, stern and cold. The silence deeper grew: the sun, not set, Had sunk beneath the forest's western ridge; And jagged shadows tinged that stony floor Whereon the monarch knelt. Slowly therefrom He raised his head; then slowly made demand: 'Is he apostate who discards old Faith?' Long time in musings Heida sat, then spake: 'Yea, if that Faith discarded be the Truth: Not so, if it be falsehood. God is Truth; God-taught, true hearts discern that Truth, and guard: Whom God forsakes forsake it. O thou North, That beat'st thy brand so loud against thy shield, Hearing nought else, what Truth one day was thine! Behold within corruption's charnel vaults It sleeps this day. What God shall lift its head? We came from regions of the rising sun: Scorning the temples built by mortal hand, We worshipp'd God--one God--the Immense, All-Just: That worship was the worship of great hearts: Duty was worship then: that God received it: I know not if benignly He received; If God be Love I know not. This I know, God loves not priest that under roofs of gold Lifts, in his right hand held, the Sacrifice; The left, behind him, fingering for the dole. King of East Anglia's realm, the primal Truths Are vanished from our Faith: the ensanguined rite, The insane carouse survive!' Thus Heida spake, Heida, the strong one by the strong ones feared; Heida, the sad one by the mourners loved; Heida, the brooder on the sacred Past, The nursling of a Prophet House, the child Of old traditions sage! She paused, and then Milder, resumed: 'What moved thee to believe?' And Sigebert made answer thus: 'The Sword: For as a sword that Truth the stranger preached Ran down into my heart.' Heida to him, 'Well saidst thou "as a Sword:" a Sword is Truth;-- As sharp a sword is Love: and many a time In youth, but not the earliest, happiest youth, When first I found that grief was in the world, Had learned how deep its root, an infant's wail Went through me like a sword. Man's cry it seemed, The blindfold, crowned creature's cry for Truth, His spirit's sole deliverer.' Once again