Poems (Proctor)/Teresa

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TERESA.
Am I too happy? Have I lostThe hymns of heaven, the shining host,For the low song my Bertrand singsBeneath the shade the myrtle flingsAcross the door in sunset glow?And for my cherub Angelo?—My glorious boy with sweeter smileThan wears, within St. Francis' aisle,That infant John the friars sayWill yet take wing and soar away!Nay,—Mary, grace! with hair of goldAnd brow like the young Christ's you hold,O'er the high altar, hovering fair,Upborne by some celestial air!
How calm he sleeps upon my breast!Would the great Father send such guestInto my bosom, if to winAnd welcome were a deadly sin?Or give the boy my Bertrand's eyesIf evil lurked in Bertrand's guise?Hark! 'tis his step across the sward;Forgive me if I wander, Lord!But oh, I surely love Thee moreFor the dear face beside the door, ​And for the fond arms' tender fold,Than if I knelt, a maiden cold,And only knew of love and TheeWhat the lone cloister taught to me.
And yet the priest says I have sealedMy own damnation; madly healedMy orphan sorrow with a nameWill send me straight to burning flame!Because I dared to give my vowsTo Bertrand; would not be the spouseOf Holy Church, and wear the veilWithin the convent's dreary pale,—Our Lady's,—hid in dusk of treesHigh up the chilly Pyrenees,Where the white, ghostly nuns look out,And wild winds toss the boughs about,And moan and mutter through the air,Of fast and scourge and midnight prayer.Oh, what a living death were mine,Locked in that gloom of fir and pine!
And here, like roses to the sun,My bright days open, one by one;And deep within their bloom, my heartSings like some nightingale apartIn orange grove, while winds of MayUp the still valley waft his lay!And have I failed of heaven for this?Bartered my soul for Bertrand's kiss? ​Foregone sweet Mary's kindly careBecause my boy, like hers, is fair?And does God mock our yearnings so?Nay! 'tis a fiendish lie, I know!God smiles on earth, though throned above;And what is heaven but purer love?We three, together, glad will go,—Bertrand and I and Angelo!
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