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IN these deep solitudes and awful cells, | |
| Where heavenly-pensive contemplation dwells, | |
| And ever-musing melancholy reigns, | |
| What means this tumult in a Vestal’s veins? | |
| Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat? | 5 |
| Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat? | |
| Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came, | |
| And Eloïsa yet must kiss the name. | |
| Dear fatal name! rest ever unrevealed, | |
| Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed: | 10 |
| Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise | |
| Where, mixed with God’s, his loved idea lies: | |
| O, write it not my hand,—the name appears | |
| Already written,—wash it out, my tears! | |
| In vain lost Eloïsa weeps and prays, | 15 |
| Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys. | |
| Relentless walls, whose darksome round contains | |
| Repentant sighs and voluntary pains; | |
| Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn; | |
| Ye grots and caverns, shagged with horrid thorn; | 20 |
| Shrines, where their vigils pale-eyed virgins keep; | |
| And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep,— | |
| Though cold like you, unmoved and silent grown, | |
| I have not yet forgot myself to stone. | |
| All is not Heaven’s while Abelard has part, | 25 |
| Still rebel nature holds out half my heart; | |
| Nor prayers nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain, | |
| Nor tears for ages taught to flow in vain. * * * * * | |
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