Page:Notable Irishwomen.djvu/204

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178
NOTABLE IRISHWOMEN.

Life may be fair in that new existence
 Where saints are crowned and the saved rejoice,
But over the depth of the infinite distance
 I'll lean and listen and hear your voice.
For never on earth, though the tempest rages,
 And never in heaven, if God be just —
Never, through all the unnumbered ages,
 Can souls be parted that love and trust!

Speranza's poems, though often forceful, are never musical; she never wrote a real song, though sometimes she comes near it.

She could not write an ordinary letter like any ordinary person. Here is one, given by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in his interesting book, "My Life in Two Hemispheres." The letter is addressed to him, and is dated from 34 Leeson Street:—

"My Dear Sir,—I return with many thanks the volume of Cromwell which has been travelling about with me for the last four months, and shall feel obliged for the two others when you are quite at leisure, though not even Carlyle can make this soulless iconoclast interesting. It is the only work of Carlyle I have met with, in which my heart does not go along with his words.

"I cannot forbear telling you, now the pen is in my hand, how deeply impressed I was with your lecture to your club, it was the sublimest teaching, and the style so simple from its very sublimity.