Analysis of The Soul's Quest

IN the land that is neither night nor day,
Where the mists sleep over the forests grey,
A sad, sad spirit wandered away.
The woods are still—no brooks, no wind,
No fair green meadows can she find;
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But a low red light in the sky behind.
Far over the plain, to the spirit's sight,
The city's towers are black as night,
Against the edge of the low red light.

This side the city in darkness lies,
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But westward, at the glowering skies,
It glares with a thousand fiery eyes.
The road is long, the hedgerows bare,
There's the chill of death in the silent air,
And a glimmer of darkness everywhere.
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'O sad, sad spirit, what thy quest,
With those flowing locks and that shadowy vest? '
The spirit answers, 'I seek for rest.'
'Where seekest rest, when the air is cold
On the long, dim road, and the clock hath tolled
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The muffled hours form the belfry old?
'Where seekest rest through the twilight grey
Of the mists that sleep on the woods alway? '—
'I seek to-morrow or yesterday! '

Her face is pale, her feet are bare,
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Her sad dark eyes, wide open, stare
At the glimmering darkness everywhere.
To those cheeks no rose hath summer brought,
But on their pallor time hath wrought
The troubled lines of an after-thought.
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Her arms are crossed upon her breast,
Her round limbs shape the shadowy vest,
And thus, all silent, seeks she rest.
Her tread is light on the cold, hard road;
For the tread may be light, yet heavy the load
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Of grief at the heart and thoughts that goad.
She plucks a leaf from the roadway side,
And under its shade two violets hide—
As if from her cold touch, they hide.

She twines the violets in her hair;
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They have no scent—she does not care,
For the glimmer of darkness is everywhere.
And on through the dim of the twilight grey,
While the pale sky gloweth far away,
She seeks to-morrow or yesterday.
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'O Abbess, Abbess, the air is chill!
I heard the chaunting over the hill,
Like an angel's voice when the soul is still.
'O, Abbess, open wide thy gate!
Out on the cold, dim road I wait,
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A spirit lone and desolate.
'Take thou these hands and these weary feet,
Cold as a corpse in its winding-sheet,
For the song of the nuns was so strange and sweet.

'Here with the sisters let me dwell,
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Under these walls, in the loneliest cell,
Waiting the sound of the matin bell.
'Cut off these locks of flowing hair,
Cover with weeds this bosom bare,
For the glimmer of darkness is everywhere.
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'Ask not my name, nor whence my way,
For the mist sleeps over the wood alway,
And I seek to-morrow or yesterday.'
She's passed beneath the chapel door;
The nuns are kneeling on the floor,
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But a low wind moaneth evermore.
Sweeter and sweeter the sisters sing,
Till high in the roof the echoes ring,
For they know that God is listening.

'Ave Maria, hear our cry,
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As the shadows roll across the sky,
For those that live and those that die!
'Ave Maria, Virgin blest,
Help the sin-stained and distrest,
Give the weary-hearted rest!
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'Ave Maria, who didst bear
Jesus in this world of care,
Grant us all thy bliss to share! '
Sweeter and sweeter the sisters sing,
From arch to arch the echoes ring,
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For they know that God is listening.
Out of the north the oceans roll,
Washing the lands from pole to pole:
No rest—no rest for the old world's soul.

The after-glow of suns that set
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O'er fields with morning dew once wet,
Where all life's flowering roadways met,
Long shadows of our joys has sent,
Sloping adown the way we went
Towards darkness where our feet are bent.
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Is it the moan of the evening wind?
Or the voice of the ocean in the mind,
While the pale red light looms up behind?
Is it moan of wind, or convent bell,
Or cry of the ocean? I cannot tell;
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But a voice in her heart has locked the spell.
She does not hear the organ's swell;
In vain she strives her beads to tell,
For a voice in her heart has locked the spell.

She broods among the tangled fears,
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The undergrowth of perished years,
That darken round the lake of tears.
Silent and dank, they fringe the brim
Of waters motionless and dim,
Unmoved by wings of Seraphim.
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No lights on the altar the spirit sees,
The cloistered aisles are but leafless trees,
And the music, the sigh of the evening breeze.
No matin