FROM Argenteuil’s time-honored fane | |
| Driven forth a fugitive, forlorn, | |
| When I beheld the world again, | |
| And shared its pity and its scorn, | |
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| With my sad sisterhood I roved | 5 |
| Through weary paths unknown and rude; | |
| Nor knew where he, so sadly loved, | |
| Had fled to awful solitude. | |
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| With all my sorrows trembling still, | |
| Fate, vainly lenient, bade us meet, | 10 |
| Resistless victims of its will! | |
| And led my steps to Paraclete. | |
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| Thine was the home that gave us rest, | |
| To us thy holy cells resigned; | |
| And there I strove to teach my breast | 15 |
| The calm its weakness could not find. | |
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| Since then, in deep regret and gloom, | |
| Have twice ten years—all winter—fled, | |
| And now—thou crav’st of me a tomb! | |
| And now—I wake to see thee dead! | 20 |
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| O Abelard! why weep I now? | |
| Hast thou not passed a life of care? | |
| And could religion’s power bestow | |
| One charm to still my long despair! | |
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| Thou may’st at last repose in peace,— | 25 |
| Contemned, pursued, opprest no more— | |
| For thee the world’s loud surges cease, | |
| Thy bark has reached a tranquil shore. | |
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| And fame thy worth shall yet reward, | |
| Great through all time thy name shall be; | 30 |
| While Eloïse thy dust shall guard, | |
| And die, as she has lived, for thee! | |
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