spirit-worlds;
And prayer was then my heart’s necessity.
Thereafter in a cloister was I trained;
Monks were my teachers, and in mine own heart
The deepest longing was to be a monk—
An echo of my parents’ ardent wish.
For consecration did I stand prepared
When chance did drive me from the cloistered cell;
And to this chance I owe deep gratitude.
For, many days before chance saved my soul
It had been robbed of inward peace and quiet;
For I had read and learned of many things,
That have no place within the cloister-gate.
Knowledge of nature’s working came to me
From books that were forbidden to mine eyes.
And thus I learned new scientific thought.
Hard was the struggle as I sought the path
Wandering through many a way to find mine own;
Nor did I ever gain by cunning thought
Whate’er of truth revealed itself to me.
In fierce-fought battles have I torn the roots
From out my spirit’s soil of all that brought
Peace and contentment to me when a child.
I understand indeed the heart that fain
Would soar up to the heights—but for myself,
When once I recognized that all I learned
From spirit-teaching was an empty dream,
I was compelled to find the surer soil
That science and discovery create.
Luna:
We may surmise, each after his own kind,
Where sense and goal of life doth lie for each.
I altogether lack the power to prove
According to the science of today,
What spirit-teaching I have here received:
But clear within my heart I feel and know
My soul would die without this spirit-lore,
As would my body, if deprived of blood.
And thou, dear doctor, ’gainst our cause dost fight
With many words, and what thou now hast told
Of thy life’s conflict lends them weight indeed
Even with those who do not understand
Thy learned argument. Yet would I ask
(Enter Theodora.)
Exactly why it is that hearts of men
Receive the word of Spirit readily,
As though self-understood: yet when man seeks
Food for his spirit in such learned words
As thou didst use his heart grows chill and cold.
Theodora:
Although I am at home ’mid just such men
As circle round me here, yet strangely sounds
This speech I have just heard.
Capesius:
This speech I have just heard. What strangeness there?
Theodora:
I may not say. Do thou, Maria, tell.
Maria:
Our friend has oftentimes explained to us
What strange experiences come to her.
One day she felt herself completely changed,
And none could understand her altered state.
Estrangement met her wheresoe’er she turned
Until she came into our circle here.
Not that we fully understand ourselves
What she possesses and what no one shares.
Yet we are trained by this our mode of thought
The unaccustomed to appreciate,
And feel with every mood of humankind.
One moment in her life, our friend perceived,
All that seemed hers aforetime, disappear;
The past was all extinguished in her soul.
And since these wondrous changes came to her,
This mood of soul hath oft renewed itself;
It doth not long endure; and other times
She lives her life as ordinary folk.
Yet whensoe’er she falls into this state,
The gift of memory doth fade away.
She loseth from her eyes the power to see
And senseth her surroundings, seeing not.
With a peculiar light her eyes then glow,
And pictured forms appear to her. At first
They seemed like dreams; anon they grew so clear,
That we could recognize without a doubt
Some prophecy of distant future days.
Full many a time have we seen this occur.
Capesius:
It is just this that little pleaseth me
Amongst these men; who mingle
