Italy : 36. The Nun

'Tis over; and her lovely cheek is now
On her hard pillow -- there, alas, to be
Nightly, through many and many a dreary hour,
Wan, often wet with tears, and (ere at length
Her place is empty, and another comes)
In anguish, in the ghastliness of death;
Hers never more to leave those mournful walls,
Even on her bier.
  'Tis over; and the rite,
With all its pomp and harmony, is now
Floating before her.  She arose at home,
To be the show, the idol of the day;
Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head --
No rocket, bursting in the midnight-sky,
So dazzling.  When to-morrow she awakes,
She will awake as though she still was there.
Still in her father's house; and lo, a cell
Narrow and dark, nought through the gloom discerned,
Nought save the crucifix, the rosary,
And the grey habit lying by to shroud
Her beauty and grace.
  When on her knees she fell,
Entering the solemn place of consecration,
And from the latticed gallery came a chaunt
Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical,
Verse after verse sung out, how holily!
The strain returning, and still, still returning,
Methought it acted like a spell upon her,
And she was casting off her earthly dross;
Yet was it sad as sweetl, and, ere it closed,
Came like a dirge.  When her fair head was shorn,
And the long tresses in her hands were laid,
That she might fling them from her, saying, 'Thus,
Thus I renounce the world and worldly things!'
When, as she stood, her bridal ornaments
Were, one by one, removed, even to the last,
That she might say, flinging them from her, 'Thus,
Thus I renounce the world!' when all was changed,
And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt,
Veiled in her veil, crowned with her silver crown,
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ,
Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees
Fail in that hour!  Well might the holy man,
He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth
('Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,
Will it go from her, fleeting as it was)
That faint and fatherly smile, that smile of love
And pity!
  Like a dream the whole is fled;
And they, that came in idleness to gaze
Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice,
Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell
Forgot, Teresa.  Yet, among them all,
None were so formed to love and to be loved,
None to delight, adorn; and on thee now
A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped
For ever!  In thy gentle bosom sleep
Feelings, affections, destined now to die,
To wither like the blossom in the bud,
Those of a wife, a mother; leaving there
A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave,
A languor and a lethargy of soul,
Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death
Comes to release thee.  Ah, what now to thee,
What now to thee the treasure of thy Youth?
As nothing!
  But thou canst not yet reflect
Calmly; so many things, strange and perverse,
That meet, recoil, and go but to return,
The monstrous birth of one eventful day,
Troubling thy spirit -- from the first at dawn,
The rich arraying for the nuptial feast,
To the black pall, the requiem.  All in turn
Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed
Hover, uncalled.  Thy young and innocent heart,
How is it beating?  Has it no regrets?
Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there?
But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest.
Peace to thy slumbers!