. But _she_ is
leaving him "outright to God":

"All human plans and projects come to nought:
My life, and what I know of other lives
Prove that: no plan nor project! God shall care!"

She will lay him with God. And her last breath, for gratitude, shall
spend itself in showing, now that they will really listen and not say
"he was your lover" . . . her last breath shall disperse the stain
around the name of Caponsacchi.

". . . There,
Strength comes already with the utterance!"

* * * * *

Now she tells what we know; some of it we have learnt already from her
lips. She goes back over the years in "that fell house of hate"; then,
the seeing of him at the theatre, the persecution with the false
letters, the Annunciation-morning, the summons to him, the meeting, the
escape:

"No pause i' the leading and the light!

* * * * *

And this man, men call sinner? Jesus Christ!"

But once more, mother-like, she reverts to her boy:

". . . We poor
Weak souls, how we endeavour to be strong!
I was already using up my life--
This portion, now, should do him such a good,
This other go to keep off such an ill.
The great life: see, a breath, and it is gone!"

Still, all will be well: "Let us leave God alone." And now she will
"withdraw from earth and man to her own soul," will "compose herself for
God" . . . but even as she speaks, the flood of gratitude to her one
friend again sweeps back, and she exclaims,

"Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath
Shall bear away my soul in being true![159:1]
He is still here, not outside with the world,
Here, here, I have him in his rightful place!

* * * * *

I feel for what I verily find--again
The face, again the eyes, again, through all,
The heart and its immeasurable love
Of my one friend, my only, all my own,
Who put his breast between the spears and me.
Ever with Caponsacchi! . . .
O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death!
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I' the coming course, the new path I must tread--
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that!

* * * * *

Not one faint fleck o