I can regain the joy of peace with God." "The Lord hath mercy on the penitent. 'Although thy sins be scarlet,' He hath said, 'Will I not make them white as wool?' Confess, And I will shrive you." Thus the good priest moved Towards the remorseful knight and pressed his hand. But shrinking down, he drew his fingers back From the kind palm, and kissed the friar's feet. "Thy pure hand is anointed, and can heal. The cool, calm pressure brings back sanity, And what serene, past joys! yet touch me not, My contact is pollution,--hear, O hear, While I disburden my charged soul." He lay, Casting about for words and strength to speak. "O father, is there help for such a one," In tones of deep abasement he began, "Who hath rebelled against the laws of God, With pride no less presumptuous than his Who lost thereby his rank in heaven?" "My son, There is atonement for all sins,--or slight Or difficult, proportioned to the crime. Though this may be the staining of thy hands With blood of kinsmen or of fellow-men." "My hands are white,--my crime hath found no name, This side of hell; yet though my heart-strings snap To live it over, let me make the attempt. I was a knight and bard, with such a gift Of revelation that no hour of life Lacked beauty and adornment, in myself The seat and centre of all happiness. What inspiration could my lofty Muse Draw from those common and familiar themes, Painted upon the windows and the walls Of every church,--the mother and her child, The miracle and mystery of the birth, The death, the resurrection? Fool and blind! That saw not symbols of eternal truth In that grand tragedy and victory, Significant and infinite as life. What tortures did my skeptic soul endure, At war against herself and all mankind! The restless nights of feverish sleeplessness, With balancing of reasons nicely weighed; The dawn that brought no hope nor energy, The blasphemous arraignment of the Lord, Taxing His glorious divinity With all the grief and folly of the world. Then came relapses into abject fear, And hollow prayer and praise from craven heart. Before a sculptured Venus I would kneel, Crown her with flowers, worship her, and cry, 'O large and noble type of our ideal, At least my heart and prayer return to thee, Amidst a faithless world of proselytes. Madonna Mary, with her virgin lips, And eyes that look perpetual reproach, Insults and is a blasphemy on youth. Is she to claim the worship of a man Hot with the first rich flush of ripened life?' Realities, like phantoms, glided by, Unnoted 'midst the torment and delights Of my conflicting spirit, and I doffed the modest Christian weeds of charity