I feared.  That speech deep furrows cut
In my afflicted soul.  I whisper’d low,
‘Thou wilt not heed her words, my golden girl.’ 
But Delia said not ought; only her hand
Laid on my cheek and on the other leaned
Her own.  O there was comfort, father,
In love and nearness, e’en at the crack of doom.

Then spake I, and that other said no more,
For I appealed to God and to his Christ. 
Unto the strait-barred window led my dear;
No table, bed, nor plenishing; no place
They had for rest:  maugre two narrow chairs
By day, by night they sat thereon upright. 
One drew I to the opening; on it set
My Delia, kneeled; upon its arm laid mine,
And prayed to God and prayed of her. 
                                    Father,
If you should ask e’en now, ’And art thou glad
Of what befell?’ I could not say it, father,
I should be glad; therefore God make me glad,
Since we shall die to-morrow! 
                              Think not sin,
O holy, harmless reverend man, to fear. 
’T will be soon over.  Now I know thou fear’st
Also for me, lest I be lost; but aye
Strong comfortable hope doth wrap me round,
A token of acceptance.  I am cast
From Holy Church, and not received of thine;
But the great Advocate who knoweth all,
He whispers with me. 
                        O my Delia wept
When I did plead; ‘I have much feared to die,’
Answering. (The moonlight on her blue-black eyes
Fell; shining tears upon their lashes hung;
Fair showed the dimple that I loved; so young,
So very young.) ’But they did question me
Straitly, and make me many times to swear,
To swear of all alas, that I believed. 
Truly, unless my soul I would have bound
With false oaths—­difficult, innumerous, strong,
Way was not left me to get free.

But now,’
Said she, I am happy; I have seen the place
Where I am going.

I will tell it you,
Love, Hubert.  Do not weep; they said to me
That you would come, and it would not be long. 
Thus was it, being sad and full of fear,
I was crying in the night; and prayed to God
And said, “I have not learned high things;” and said
To the Saviour, “Do not be displeased with me,
I am not crying to get back and dwell
With my good mother and my father fond,
Nor even with my love, Hubert—­my love,
Hubert; but I am crying because I fear
Mine answers were not rightly given—­so hard
Those questions.  If I did not understand,
Wilt thou forgive me?” And the moon went down
While I did pray, and looking on the floor,
Behold a little diamond lying there,
So small it might have dropped from out a ring. 
I could but look!  The diamond waxed—­it grew—­
It was a diamond yet, and shot out rays,
And in the midst of it a rose-red point;
It waxed till I might see the rose-red point
Was a little Angel ’mid those oval rays,
With a face sweet as the first kiss, O love,
You gave me, and it meant that self-same thing.