Brave lights are in their eyes, and flowers that are
immortal they carry in their hands. No distillation can exhaust the
fragrance of those blooms.
What dost thou here, Victor? What dost thou here, Jacqueline?
This is the place of prisons. Here they light again, as they have often
lighted, torch and fagot;--life must pay the cost! Angry crowds and
hooting multitudes love this dreary square. Oh, Jacqueline and Victor,
what is this I behold?
They come together from their prison, hand in hand. "The testimony
of Jesus!" Stand back, Mazurier! Retire, Briconnet! Here is not your
place,--this is not your hour! Yet here incendiaries fire the temples
of the Holy Ghost!
The judges do not now congratulate. Jacqueline waits not now at midnight
for the coming of Le Roy. Bride and bridegroom, there they stand; they
face the world to give their testimony.
And a woman's voice, almost I deem the voice of Elsie Meril, echoes the
mother's cry that followed John Leclerc when he fought the beasts at
Meaux,--
"Blessed be Jesus Christ, and His witnesses."
So of the Truth were they borne up that day in a blazing chariot to meet
their Lord in the air, to be forever with their Lord.
* * * * *
ON A MAGNOLIA-FLOWER.
Memorial of my former days,
Magnolia, as I scent thy breath,
And on thy pallid beauty gaze,
I feel not far from death!
So much hath happened! and so much
The tomb hath claimed of what was mine!
Thy fragrance moves me with a touch
As from a hand divine:
So many dead! so many wed!
Since first, by this Magnolia's tree,
I pressed a gentle hand and said,
A word no more for me!
Lady, who sendest from the South
This frail, pale token of the past,
I press the petals to my mouth,
And sigh--as 'twere my last.
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