And, oh! this woman’s heart, Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice, And waiting a necessity for God. Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect call Should force the perfect answer. If the voice Ought to receive its echo from the soul, Wherefore this silence? If it _should_ rouse my being, Why this reluctance? Have I not thought o’ermuch Of other men, and of the ways of the world? But what they are, or have been, matters not. To thine own self be true, the wise man says. Are then my fears myself? O double self! And I untrue to both? Oh, there are hours, When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties, And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks, Familiar faces, and familiar books, Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer, And admiration of the noblest things, Seem all ignoble only; all is mean, And nought as I would have it. Then at others, My mind is in her rest; my heart at home In all around; my soul secure in place, And the vext needle perfect to her poles. Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem To thread the winding byways of the town, Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence, All at cross-purpose even with myself, Unknowing whence or whither. Thence at once, At a step, I crown the Campanile’s top, And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon, A hundred steeples and a million roofs, The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps, And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough; If I lose this, how terrible! No, no, I am contented, and will not complain. To the old paths, my soul! Oh, be it so! I bear the workday burden of dull life About these footsore flags of a weary world, Heaven knows how long it has not been; at once, Lo! I am in the spirit on the Lord’s day With John in Patmos. Is it not enough, One day in seven? and if this should go, If this pure solace should desert my mind, What were all else? I dare not risk this loss. To the old paths, my soul!