Within my heart a something snapped and brake. What was it but the chord of rapturous joy For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall, Had I not leaned against the friendly pine; For all realities of life, unmoored From their firm anchorage, appeared to float Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain. The strange delusion wrought upon my soul That this had been enacted ages since. This very horror curdled at my heart, This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens, Were closing over me when I had stood, Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted HIM, My father; and he felt mine eyes as now, Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form, The one thing real, lay stretched between us both. The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all-- A few fierce words between them yester eve Concerning some poor plot of pasturage, Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm: This was the end. I could not meet him now, To curse him, to accuse him, or to save, And draw him from the red entanglement Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life. God pardon me! My heart that moment held No drop of pity toward this wretched soul; And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine, I fled amidst the savage silences Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone My boundless desolation, shame, and grief. There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon, The quiet of the still, suspended air, Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged, Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed A solemn prayer, conceived in agony, Blessed with response instant, miraculous; For in that hour my spirit was at one With Him who knows and satisfies her needs. The supplication and the blessing sprang From the same source, inspired divinely both. I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, And these like heavenly manna were rained down To feed my hungered soul. His guilt was mine. What angel had been sent to stay mine arm Until the fateful moment passed away That would have ushered an eternity Of withering remorse? I found the germs In mine own heart of every human sin, That waited but occasion's tempting breath To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. What God thus far had saved me from myself? Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each Must feel himself in all, must know where'er The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys, His proper soul in kinship there is bound. Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind, Encouraging as morning. As I lay, Crushed by the weight of universal love, Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself, I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell. I knew it--whence it came and what it sang.