November 10 — Abelard to Heloise
Dear Sister in Christ:
God send you peace from Heaven!
I would that to your restless heart
His blessed peace was given,
And that you found
In contemplation of His love
Balm for that wound
That ever frets you sore.
’Twere meet you wore
Much sack cloth,
And with scourge and fasting drove
This passion from your soul....
Christ’s Bride thou art;
Therefore give Him the whole.
I charge thou keep’st back not any part
Of His just due to spend upon a worm....
Nay, woman! would’st thou bring on me a curse
For that I stand between thy soul and God?...
Thy love for me is but a thing perverse.
Cast it forth from thee, or a heavy rod
May prove that God is still a jealous God.
But that you are a woman, and infirm
Of will and purpose, I should say
Some bitter words to purge you of this sin!
Natheless each day
I painful penance do
For that ’twas I who led you first astray—
(For which great sin may He my soul assoil!)
And wrestle mightily each night in prayer
That Christ may yet your stubborn heart subdue
To His sweet will, and—the sharp fret and coil
Of earth cast forth—He then may enter in
To find a garnished chamber, and an altar fair....
—Nay, now, bethink you!
Love like yours is grievous sin,
And the time wasteth swift toward death.
All love is but a breath
Which clouds the glass that we see darkly through—
When you to Heaven shall win
And there see face to face your risen Lord,
Wilt know ’twas but the hot fume of a word
Spake by a devil, dimmed your earthly glass....
In essence love is sin!—
Save only love of God.
It is a gin,
Set by the Evil One to snare the feet
Of those who haste toward Heaven,
By its false likeness to the spiritual love,
And by it man is driven
Down the steep slope to Hell.
’Tis thus when sanctioned by the Church; how then
Of love like thine, which is accursed of men,
And doubly cursed by God?...
Last night in dreams I trod
Up the long windings of the heavenly stair,
And heard the angels singing loud and sweet,
And neared the gate, when sudden both my feet
Were caught amid the tangles of thy hair,—
Spread like a cruel web across my path,—
In which I struggled, mad with woe and wrath,
And could not free me; so at last I fell,
Stumbling and plunging down to blackest Hell,
Wherein I cursed the hour I saw thy face,
And most I cursed the hour, the day, the place
When thou didst give me love....
Waking then, I strove
For holier thoughts, and could at last forgive
The wrong thou didst me.
But no more, I prithee, vex me with thy tale
Of love. It wearieth me, and henceforth I must live
In larger peace, or I may not prevail
Within the Schools
Against the babbling of the narrow fools
Who blindly are withstanding my new light
Upon the Divine Essence’s nature, and my clasp
Of the ringed Trinitarian mysteries. Matters your slight
Woman’s comprehension may not grasp....
Farewell. Neglect not prayer.