All the hosts of
jubilation, like armies that ride in pursuit, moved with one step. Us,
that, with laurelled heads, were passing from the cathedral, they
overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders
greater than our own. As brothers we moved together; to the dawn that
advanced, to the stars that fled; rendering thanks to God in the
highest--that, having hid His face through one generation behind thick
clouds of War, once again was ascending, from the Campo Santo of
Waterloo was ascending, in the visions of Peace; rendering thanks for
thee, young girl! whom having overshadowed with His ineffable passion
of death, suddenly did God relent, suffered thy angel to turn aside His
arm, and even in thee, sister unknown! shown to me for a moment only to
be hidden for ever, found an occasion to glorify His goodness. A
thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I seen thee
entering the gates of the golden dawn, with the secret word riding
before thee, with the armies of the grave behind thee,--seen thee
sinking, rising, raving, despairing; a thousand times in the worlds of
sleep have I seen thee followed by God's angel through storms, through
desert seas, through the darkness of quicksands, through dreams and the
dreadful revelations that are in dreams; only that at the last, with
one sling of His victorious arm, He might snatch thee back from ruin,
and might emblazon in thy deliverance the endless resurrections of His
love!
JOAN OF ARC [Footnote: "_Arc_":--Modern France, that should know a
great deal better than myself, insists that the name is not D'Arc--
_i.
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