The Confessional

SPAIN. I.     It is a lie, their Priests, their Pope,     Their Saints, their . . . all they fear or hope     Are lies, and lies, there! through my door     And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,     There, lies, they lie, shall still be hurled     Till spite of them I reach the world! II.     You think Priests just and holy men!     Before they put me in this den     I was a human creature too,     With flesh and blood like one of you,     A girl that laughed in beautys pride     Like lilies in your world outside. III.     I had a lover, shame avaunt!     This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,     Was kissed all over till it burned,     By lips the truest, love eer turned     His hearts own tint: one night they kissed     My soul out in a burning mist. IV.     So, next day when the accustomed train     Of things grew round my sense again,     That is a sin, I said: and slow     With downcast eyes to church I go,     And pass to the confession-chair,     And tell the old mild father there. V.     But when I falter Beltrans name,     Ha? quoth the father; much I blame     The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve?     Despair not, strenuously retrieve!     Nay, I will turn this love of thine     To lawful love, almost divine; VI.     For he is young, and led astray,     This Beltran, and he schemes, men say,     To change the laws of church and state;     So, thine shall be an angels fate,     Who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll     Its cloud away and save his soul. VII.     For, when he lies upon thy breast,     Thou mayst demand and be possessed     Of all his plans, and next day steal     To me, and all those plans reveal,     That I and every priest, to purge     His soul, may fast and use the scourge. VIII.     That fathers beard was long and white,     With love and truth his brow seemed bright;     I went back, all on fire with joy,     And, that same evening, bade the boy     Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,     Something to prove his love of me. IX.     He told me what he would not tell     For hope of heaven or fear of hell;     And I lay listening in such pride!     And, soon as he had left my side,     Tripped to the church by morning-light     To save his soul in his despite. X.     I told the father all his schemes,     Who were his comrades, what their dreams;     And now make haste, I said, to pray     The one spot from his soul away;     To-night he comes, but not the same     Will look! At night he never came. XI.     Nor next night: on the after-morn,     I went forth with a strength new-born.     The church was empty; something drew     My steps into the street; I knew     It led me to the market-place,     Where, lo, on high, the fathers face! XII.     That horrible black scaffold drest,     That stapled block . . . God sink the rest!     That head strapped back, that blinding vest,     Those knotted hands and naked breast,     Till near one busy hangman pressed,     And, on the neck these arms caressed . . . XIII.     No part in aught they hope or fear!     No heaven with them, no hell! and here,     No earth, not so much space as pens     My body in their worst of dens     But shall bear God and man my cry,     Lies, lies, again, and still, they lie!