--I rave, you say? You start from me, Fra Paolo?
Go, then; your going leaves me not alone.
I marvel, rather, that I feared the question,
Since, now I name it, it draws near to me
With such dear reassurance in its eyes,
And takes your place beside me. . .

Nay, I tell you,
Fra Paolo, I have cried on all the saints--
If this be devil's prompting, let them drown it
In Alleluias! Yet not one replies.
And, for the Christ there--is He silent too?
_Your_ Christ? Poor father; you that have but one,
And that one silent--how I pity you!
He will not answer? Will not help you cast
The devil out? But hangs there on the wall,
Blind wood and bone--?

How if _I_ call on Him--
I, whom He talks with, as the town attests?
If ever prayer hath ravished me so high
That its wings failed and dropped me in Thy breast,
Christ, I adjure Thee! By that naked hour
Of innermost commixture, when my soul
Contained Thee as the paten holds the host,
Judge Thou alone between this priest and me;
Nay, rather, Lord, between my past and present,
Thy Margaret and that other's--whose she is
By right of salvage--and whose call should follow!
Thine? Silent still.--Or his, who stooped to her,