"
She sweetly said:
"Your words are echoes of my own soul's thoughts;
Let God's own heart be our own holy home
And let us live as only angels live;
And let us love as our own angels love.
'Tis hard to part -- but it is better so --
God's will is ours, and -- Merlin! let us go."
And then she sobbed as if her heart would break --
Perhaps it did; an awful minute passed,
Long as an age and briefer than a flash
Of lightning in the skies. No word was said --
Only a look which never was forgot.
Between them fell the shadows of the night.
Their faces went away into the dark,
And never met again; and yet their souls
Were twined together in the heart of Christ.
And Ethel went from earthland long ago;
But Merlin stays still hanging on his cross.
He would not move a nail that nails him there,
He would not pluck a thorn that crowns him there.
He hung himself upon the blessed cross
With Ethel; she has gone to wear the crown
That wreathes the brows of virgins who have kept
Their bodies with their souls from earthly taint.
And years and years, and weary years, passed on
Into the past. One Autumn afternoon,
When flowers were in their agony of death,
And winds sang "De Profundis" over them,
And skies were sad with shadows, he did walk
Where, in a resting place as calm as sweet,
The dead were lying down; the Autumn sun
Was half way down the west; the hour was three --
The holiest hour of all the twenty-four,
For Jesus leaned His head on it, and died.
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