To souls that yearn for Heaven;
Avaunt Earth's pride!
Deep Hell shall hide
Hearts that for fame have striven.
Far be lust of earthly pleasure,
Purity, our priceless treasure,
Christ shall grant us of His store.
What word shall be, &c.

Swift be thy feet,
My own, my sweet,
Thine own true lover follow;
Fear not the veil,
The cloister's pall
Keeps far Earth's spectres hollow.
Sinks the fire with fitful flashes,
Soars the Phoenix from his ashes,
Love yields Life for evermore.
What word shall be, &c.

Love, that no power
Of dreariest hour,
Could change, no scorn, no rage,
Now heavenly free
From Earth shall be,
In this, our hermitage.
Winged of love that upward, onward,
Ageless, boundless, bears us sunward,
To the heavens our souls shall soar.
What word shall be, &c.

On reading these verses through in a chapel where she was alone, Pauline
began to weep so bitterly that all the paper was wetted with her tears.
Had it not been for her fear of showing a deeper affection than was
seemly, she would certainly have withdrawn forthwith to some hermitage,
and never have looked upon a living being again; but her native
discretion moved her to dissemble for a little while longer. And
although she was now resolved to leave the world entirely, she feigned
the very opposite, and so altered her countenance, that in company she
was altogether unlike her real self. For five or six months did she
carry this secret purpose in her heart, making a greater show of mirth
than had ever been her wont.

But one day she went with her mistress to the Observance to hear high
mass, and when the priest, the deacon and the sub-deacon came out of the
vestry to go to the high altar, she saw her hapless lover, who had not
yet fulfilled his year of novitiate, acting as acolyte, carrying the
two vessels covered with a silken cloth, and walking first with his
eyes upon the ground. When Pauline saw him in such raiment as did rather
increase than diminish his comeliness, she was so exceedingly moved and
disquieted, that to hide the real reason of the colour that came into
her face, she began to cough. Thereupon her unhappy lover, who knew this
sound better than that of the cloister bells, durst not turn his head;
still on passing in front of her he could not prevent his eyes from
going the road they had so often