The Soul.

A soul came up to God, and said:
"Give me not human birth
Again — oh! send me not to tread
The solitude of Earth;
Whatever else may be denied,
Let me not be so sorely tried.
"It is so weird and wan to think
Again of bone and breath,
And to be made an aching link
In th' chain of birth and death —
To feel the clammy senses bring
Me into touch with everything.
"Oh, let me be tried so no more!
Redeemed at such a price,
Thou know'st how near I was before
To have lost all. — O Wise
And Merciful! but let me be
A shadow in the light of Thee.
"In yon strange clouds, ghostlike apart
From all the glory here,
Let me, though with a human heart,
Abide for many a year,
Lost in the mist." — God heard and bowed,
And the soul passed into a cloud.
And in that cloud a thousand years
The spirit dwelt, and heard
The ceaseless fall of human tears
And cries on Earth that stirr'd,
But never strain of angel's song
Came to her, lonely there so long.
Until the thousand years had died,
When, weary-worn and weird,
Like one herself had terrified,
Before God she appear'd,
And weeping, bowed in spirit, said:
"Again on the Earth let me tread!
"I was nigh lost, but I have seen
Some who were lost indeed,
And yet were saved — as Magdalene
Who from such doom was freed,
And now as a bright angel burns,
Watering the flowers in Heaven's urns.
"But I was weak to doubt the worst,
Who had found love so strong,
And my brief mortal grief so nursed
I feared the human throng
Like fiends would tear my soul from Thee;
But what is now my soul to me?
"Rather let me a thousand times
Be born again and die,
As some who still in many climes
Their many lives put by,
Until they yearn, as I now crave,
Others, and not themselves, to save.
"To lose self thus, and find it so
In the fulfilment still
Of all Thou art — this is to know
All we are meant to, till
The utter knowledge comes. Oh, fain
Am I to go to Earth again.
"Here am I: send me! Down, down there
I haply shall recall
The angel with the burning hair
And the glory over all." —
And as she prayed, God gave her birth
With a young pair new-wed on Earth.
And it must even be ten years
Now since she did renew
Her intercourse with smiles and tears: —
Men deem that she but grew
Here for the first time, but we know
What she has been through long ago.