Is there amid this boundless universe

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One whom thy soul would visit? Is there place
To memory dear, or vision'd out by hope,
Where thou would'st now be present? form the wish,
And I am with thee, there."

His closing speech

Yet sounded on her ear, and lo! they stood
Swift as the sudden thought that guided them,
Within the little cottage that she loved.

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"He sleeps! the good man sleeps!" enrapt she cried, As bending o'er her uncle's lowly bed

Her eye retraced his features.

"See the beads

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Which never morn nor night he fails to tell,
Remembering me, his child, in every prayer.
Oh! peaceful be thy sleep, thou dear old man!
Good Angels guard thy rest! and when thine hour
Is come, as gently may'st thou wake to life,
As when through yonder lattice the next sun
Shall bid thee to thy morning orisons!"

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Thy voice is heard," the angel guide rejoin'd, "He sees thee in his dreams, he hears thee breathe Blessings, and happy is the good man's rest. Thy fame has reach'd him, for who hath not heard Thy wondrous exploits? and his aged heart Hath felt the deepest joy that ever yet

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Made his glad blood flow fast. Sleep on, old Claude!
Peaceful, pure spirit, be thy sojourn here,
And short and soon thy passage to that world
Where friends shall part no more!

Does thy soul own

No other wish? or sleeps poor Madelon

Forgotten in her grave?... Sees't thou yon star,” The spirit pursued, regardless that her eye Reproach'd him; "Seeest thou that evening star Whose lovely light so often we beheld

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From yonder woodbine porch? How have we gazed
Into the dark deep sky, till the baffled soul,
Lost in the infinite, return'd, and felt
The burthen of her bodily load, and yearn'd
For freedom! Maid, in yonder evening star
Lives thy departed friend. I read that glance,
And we are there !"

He said, and they had past

The immeasurable space.

Then on her ear

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The lonely song of adoration rose,
Sweet as the cloister'd virgin's vesper hymn,
Whose spirit, happily dead to earthly hopes,
Already lives in heaven. Abrupt the song
Ceased, tremulous and quick a cry

Of joyful wonder roused the astonish'd Maid,
And instant Madelon was in her arms;

No airy form, no unsubstantial shape,

She felt her friend, she prest her to her heart,
Their tears of rapture mingled.

And eagerly she gazed on Madelon,

9.5

She drew back,

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Then fell upon her neck and wept again.

No more she saw the long-drawn lines of grief,
The emaciate form, the hue of sickliness,

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The languid eye: youth's loveliest freshness now Mantled her cheek, whose every lineament

Bespake the soul at rest, a holy calm,
A deep and full tranquillity of bliss.

"Thou then art come, my first and dearest friend !" The well-known voice of Madelon began, 110 "Thou then art come! And was thy pilgrimage So short on earth? and was it painful too, Painful and short as mine? but blessed they Who from the crimes and miseries of the world Early escape!"

"Nay," Theodore replied, "She hath not yet fulfill'd her mortal work. Permitted visitant from earth she comes To see the seat of rest; and oftentimes

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In sorrow shall her soul remember this

And patient of its transitory woe,
Partake again the anticipated joy."

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"Soon be that work perform'd!" the Maid ex

claim'd,

"O Madelon! O Theodore! my soul,

Spurning the cold communion of the world,
Will dwell with you. But I shall patiently,
Yea, even with joy, endure the allotted ills
Of which the memory in this better state
Shall heighten bliss. That hour of agony,
When, Madelon, I felt thy dying grasp,
And from thy forehead wiped the dews of death,
The very anguish of that hour becomes
A joy for
memory now."

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"O earliest friend!

I too remember," Madelon replied,

"That hour, thy looks of watchful agony,

The supprest grief that struggled in thine eye 135
Endearing love's last kindness. Thou did'st know
With what a deep and earnest hope intense
I felt the hour draw on: but who can speak
The unutterable transport, when mine eyes,
As from a long and dreary dream, unclosed
Amid this peaceful vale, . . unclosed upon
My Arnaud! He had built me up a bower,
A bower of rest. - See, Maiden, where he comes,
His manly lineaments, his beaming eye

The same, but now a holier innocence
Sits on his cheek, and loftier thoughts illume
The enlighten'd glance."

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They met; what joy was theirs

He best can feel, who for a dear friend dead
Hath wet the midnight pillow with his tears.

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Fair was the scene around; an ample vale
Whose mountain circle at the distant verge
Lay soften'd on the sight; the near ascent
Rose bolder up, in part abrupt and bare,
Part with the ancient majesty of woods
Adorn'd, or lifting high its rocks sublime.
A river's liquid radiance roll'd beneath;
Beside the bower of Madelon it wound
A broken stream, whose shallows, though the waves
Roll'd on their way with rapid melody,

A child might tread. Behind, an orange grove
Its gay green foliage starr'd with golden fruit.
But with what odours did their blossoms load

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The passing gale of eve! Less thrilling sweets
Rose from the marble's perforated floor,

prayers,

164

the Moorish queen

Where kneeling at her
Inhaled the cool delight, and whilst she ask'd
The prophet for his promised paradise,
Shaped from the present bliss its utmost joys.
A goodly scene! fair as that faery land
Where Arthur lives, by ministering spirits borne
From Camelot's bloody banks; or as the groves
Of earliest Eden, where, so legends say,
Enoch abides; and he who, rapt away
By fiery steeds and charioted in fire,
Past in his mortal form the eternal ways;
And John, beloved of Christ, enjoying there
The beatific vision, sometimes seen,
The distant dawning of eternal day,
Till all things be fulfilled.

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"Survey this scene!" So Theodore address'd the Maid of Arc, "There is no evil here, no wretchedness; It is the heaven of those who nurst on earth Their nature's gentlest feelings. Yet not here Centering their joys, but with a patient hope, Waiting the allotted hour when capable Of loftier callings, to a better state They pass; and hither from that better state Frequent they come, preserving so those ties Which through the infinite progressiveness Complete our perfect bliss.

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Even such, so blest,

Save that the memory of no sorrows past

Heighten'd the present joy, our world was once,