Yet strong not less, and sage, drew softly near,
His great calm eyes upon the patriarch fixed,
And silent stood. From Wessex came that boy:
By chance Northumbria's guest. Meantime a chief
Demanded thus: "Of all the works of might,
What task is worthiest ?' Cuthbert made reply:
'His who to land barbaric fearless fares,

And open flings God's palace gate to all,

And cries "Come in!" That concourse thrilled for

joy :

Alone that seven years' child retained the word :

The rest forgat it. 'Winifrede' that day

Men called him; later centuries, 'Boniface,'

Because he shunned the ill, and wrought the good:
In time the Teuton warriors knew that brow-

Their great Apostle he: they knew that voice:

And happy Fulda venerates this day

Her martyr's gravestone.

Next, to Cuthbert drew

Three maidens hand in hand, lovely as Truth,

Trustful, though shy: their thoughts, when hidden most,

Wore but a semilucid veil, as when

Through gold-touched crystal of the lime new-leaved

On April morns the symmetry looks forth

Of branch and bough distinct. Smiling, they put

At last their question : Tell us, man of God,

What life, of lives that women lead, is best ;

Then show us forth in parables that life!'

He answered: 'Three; for each of these is best :
First comes the Maiden's: she who lives it well
Serves God in marble chapel white as snow,
His priestess—His alone. Cold flowers each morn
She culls ere sunrise by the stainless stream,
And lays them on that chapel's altar-stone,
And sings her matins there. Her feet are swift
All day in labours 'mid the vales below,
Cheering sad hearts: each evening she returns
To that high fane, and there her vespers sings ;
Then sleeps, and dreams of heaven.'

With witching smile

The youngest of that beauteous triad cried :

'That life is sweetest! I would be that maid !'

Cuthbert resumed: 'The Christian Wife comes next :

She drinks a deeper draught of life: round her

In ampler sweep its sympathies extend :
An infant's cry has knocked against her heart,
Evoking thence that human love wherein
Self-love hath least. Through infant eyes a spirit
Hath looked upon her, crying, "I am thine!
Creature from God-dependent yet on thee!”

Thenceforth she knows how greatness blends with weak

ness;

Reverence, thenceforth, with pity linked, reveals
To her the pathos of the life of man,

A thing divine, and yet at every pore
Bleeding from crownèd brows.

Hath room for many sorrows.

A heart thus large

What of that?

Its sorrow is its dowry's noblest part.

She bears it not alone. Such griefs, so shared-
Sickness, and fear, and vigils lone and long,

Waken her heart to love sublimer far

Than ecstasies of youth could comprehend;
Lift her perchance to heights serene as those
The Ascetic treadeth.'

'I would be that wife!'

Thus cried the second of those maidens three :

Yet who that gazed upon her could have guessed
Creature so soft could bear a heart so brave?

She seemed that goodness which was beauteous too;
Virtue at once, and Virtue's bright reward;

Delight that lifts, not lowers us; made for heaven ;— Made too to change to heaven some brave man's hearth. She added thus: 'Of lives that women lead

Tell us the third !'

Gently the Saint replied:

'The third is Widowhood-a wintry sound;

And yet, for her who widow is indeed,

That winter something keeps of autumn's gold,

Something regains of Spring's first flower snow-white,
Snow-cold, and colder for its rim of green.

She feels no more the warmly-greeting hand;
The eyes she brightened rest on her no more;
Her full-orbed being now is cleft in twain :
Her past is dead: daily from memory's self
Dear things depart; yet still she is a wife,
A wife the more because of bridal bonds
Lives but their essence, waiting wings in heaven ;-
More wife; and yet, in that great loneliness,
More maiden too than when first maidenhood
Lacked what it missed not. Like that other maid
She too a lonely Priestess serves her God;
Yea, though her chapel be a funeral vault,
Its altar black like Death ;-the flowers thereon,
Tinct with the Blood Divine. Above that vault
She hears the anthems of the Spouse of Christ,
Widowed, like her, though Bride.'

'O fair, O sweet,
O beauteous lives all three; fair lot of women!'
Thus cried again the youngest of those Three,
Too young to know the touch of grief-or cause it—
A plant too lightly leaved to cast a shade.

The eldest with pale cheek, and lids tear-wet,

Made answer sad: 'I would not be a widow.'

Then Cuthbert spake once more with smile benign :

'I said that each of these three lives is best

There are who live those three conjoined in one :
The nun thus lives! What maid is maid like her
Who, free to choose, has vowed a maidenhood
Secure 'gainst chance or choice? What bride like her
Whose Bridegroom is the spouse of vestal souls?

What widow lives in such austere retreat,

Such hourly thought of him she ne'er can join

Save through the gate of death? If those three lives In separation lived are fair and sweet,

How show they, blent in one?'

Of those who heard

The most part gladdened; those who knew how high.
Virtue, renouncing all besides for God,

Hath leave to soar on earth. Yet many sighed,
Jealous for happy homesteads. Cuthbert marked
That shame-faced sadness, and continued thus:
'To praise the nun reproaches not, O friends,
But praises best that life of hearth and home
At Cana blessed by Him who shared it not.
The uncloistered life is holy too, and oft
Through changeful years in soft succession links
Those three fair types of woman; holds, diffused,
That excellence severe which life detached
Sustains in concentration.' Long he mused;

Then added thus: When last I roved these vales