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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d487092 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61070 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61070) diff --git a/old/61070-0.txt b/old/61070-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6069d88..0000000 --- a/old/61070-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3532 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems of Adoration, by -Michael Field and Katherine Bradley and Emma Cooper - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Poems of Adoration - -Author: Michael Field - Katherine Bradley - Emma Cooper - -Release Date: January 1, 2020 [EBook #61070] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ADORATION *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - POEMS OF ADORATION - - - - - POEMS OF ADORATION - BY - MICHAEL FIELD - - - SANDS & CO. LONDON & EDINBURGH - - - - - CONTENTS - - POEMS OF ADORATION - - - PAGE - -DESOLATION 1 - -ENTBEHREN SOLLST DU 3 - -FREGIT 5 - -SICUT PARVULI 6 - -AURUM, THUS, ET MYRRHA--ALLELUIA! 7 - -HOLY COMMUNION 8 - -OF SILENCE 9 - -REAL PRESENCE 11 - -FROM THE HIGHWAY 13 - -“THAT HE SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR EVERY MAN” 14 - -NIMIS HONORATI SUNT 16 - -BLESSED ARE THE BEGGARS 17 - -THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 19 - -THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 20 - -COLUMBA MEA 22 - -VIRGO POTENS 23 - -ANOTHER LEADETH THEE 25 - -THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS 28 - -HOLY CROSS 30 - -PURGATORY 31 - -FORTITUDO EGENIS 32 - -PAX VOBISCUM 33 - -PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM 34 - -IN THE BEGINNING 36 - -AN ANTIPHONY OF ADVENT 37 - -ANNUNCIATIONS 40 - -STONES OF THE BROOK 41 - -RELICS 43 - -ON CAUCASUS 47 - -IN THE SEA 49 - -“COMMUNICANTES ET MEMORIAM VENERANTES -... JOANNIS ET PAULI” 52 - -IN MONTE FANNO 55 - -MACRINUS AGAINST TREES 57 - -PASCHAL’S MASS 59 - -A SNOW-CAVE 61 - -PROPHET 63 - -LOOKING UPON JESUS AS HE WALKED 65 - -A DANCE OF DEATH 67 - -OBEDIENCE 71 - -GARDENS ENCLOSED 72 - -GARDEN-SEED 73 - -UNIVERSA COHORS 74 - -IN EXTREMIS 76 - -A LIGNO 78 - -ONE REED 80 - -CRYING OUT 81 - -AD MORTEM 83 - -THE FLOWER FADETH 85 - -FEAR NOT 87 - -RECOGNITION 88 - -VENIT JESUS 89 - -ASCENSION 90 - -CONFLUENCE 91 - -IMPLE SUPERNA GRATIA 92 - -WORDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM 93 - -A MAGIC MIRROR 94 - -DESCENT FROM THE CROSS 96 - -UNSURPASSED 99 - -WASTING 101 - -THE HOUR OF NEED 102 - -EXTREME UNCTION 103 - -AFTER ANOINTING 105 - -VIATICUM 106 - -A GIFT OF SWEETNESS 108 - -IN CHRISTO 109 - -SIGHTS FOR GOD 110 - -TRANSIT 113 - - - - -DESOLATION - - - Who comes?... - O Beautiful! - Low thunder thrums, - As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums. - The sun runs forth - To stare at Him, who journeys north - From Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayed - In vesture sanguine as at Bosra made. - O beautiful and whole, - In that red stole! - - Behold, - O clustered grapes, - His garment rolled, - And wrung about His waist in fold on fold! - See, there is blood - Now on His garment, vest and hood; - For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat, - And round His motion splashes the wine-fat, - Though there is none to play - The Vintage-lay. - - The Word - Of God, His name ... - But nothing heard - Save beat of His lone feet forever stirred - To tread the press-- - None with Him in His loneliness; - No treader with Him in the spume, no man. - His flesh shows dusk with wine: since He began - He hath not stayed, that forth may pour - The Vineyard’s store. - - He treads - The angry grapes ... - Their anger spreads, - And all its brangling passion sheds - In blood. O God, - Thy wrath, Thy wine-press He hath trod-- - The fume, the carnage, and the murderous heat! - Yet all is changed by patience of the feet: - The blood sinks down; the vine - Is issued wine. - - O task - Of sacrifice, - That we may bask - In clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch! - O Treader lone, - How pitiful Thy shadow thrown - Athwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made! - O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wade - Among the berries, dark and wet, - Thee we forget! - - - - -ENTBEHREN SOLLST DU - - - ’Neath the Garden of Gethsemane’s - Olive-wood, - Thou didst cast Thy will away from Thee - In Thy blood. - - Through the shade, when torches spat their light, - And arms shone, - Thou didst find Thy lovers and Thy friends - Were all gone. - - In the Judgment Hall, Thy hands and feet - Bound with cord, - Thou didst lose Thy freedom’s sweetness--all - Thy freedom, Lord. - - In the Soldiers’ Hall, Thy Sovereignty - Laughed to naught, - Thou wert scourged, Thy brow by bramble-wreath - Sharply caught. - - Stripped of vest and garments Thou didst lie, - Mid hill-moss, - Naked, helpless as a nurse’s child, - On Thy cross. - - Raised, Thou gavest to another son, - Standing by, - Her who bore Thee once, and, deep in pain, - Watched Thee die. - - All was cast away from Thee; and then, - With wild drouth, - “Why dost Thou forsake me, Father?” broke - From Thy mouth. - - Everything gone from Thee, even daylight; - None to trust; - Thou didst render up Thy holy Life - To the dust. - - Help me, from my passion, to recall - Thy sheer loss, - And adore the sovereign nakedness - Of Thy Cross! - - - - -FREGIT - - - On the night of dedication - Of Thyself as our oblation, - Christ, Belovèd, Thou didst take - In Thy very hands and break.... - - O my God, there is the hiss of doom - When new-glowing flowers are snapt in bloom; - When shivered, as a little thunder-cloud, - A vase splits on the floor its brilliance loud; - Or lightning strikes a willow-tree with gash - Cloven for death in a resounded crash; - And I have heard that one who could betray - His country and yet face the breadth of day, - Bowed himself, weeping, but to hear his sword - Broken before him, as his sin’s award. - These were broken; Thou didst break.... - - Thou the Flower that Heaven did make - Of our race the crown of light; - Thou the Vase of Chrysolite - Into which God’s balm doth flow; - Thou the Willow hung with woe - Of our exile harps; Thou Sword - Of the Everlasting Word-- - Thou, betrayed, Thyself didst break - Thy own Body for our sake: - Thy own Body Thou didst take - In Thy holy hands--and break. - - - - -SICUT PARVULI - - - With me, laid upon my tongue, - As upon Thy Mother’s knee - Thou wert laid at Thy Nativity; - And she felt Thee lie her wraps among. - - Tenderest pressure, dint of grace, - All she dreamed and loved in God, - As a shoot from an old Patriarch’s rod, - Laid upon her, felt by her embrace. - - O my God, to have Thee, feel Thee mine, - In Thy helpless Presence! Love, - Not to dream of Thee in power above, - But receive Thee, Little One divine! - - As the burthen of a seal - May give kingdoms with its touch, - Lo, Thy meek preponderance is such, - I am straight ennobled as I kneel. - - Teach me, tiny Godhead, to adore - On my flesh Thy tender weight, - As Thy Mother, bowing, owned how great - Was the Child that unto us she bore. - - - - -AURUM, THUS, ET MYRRHA--ALLELUIA! - - - O Gift, O Blessèd Sacrament--_my Gold_, - All that I live by royally, the power, - Like gold, that buys life for me, hour by hour, - And crowns me with a greatness manifold - Such that my spirit scarce hath spring to hold - Its treasure and its sovereignty of dower! - - O Blessèd Sacrament--_my Frankincense_, - God raised aloft in His Divinity, - Sweet-smelling as the dry and precious tree, - That spreads round sacrifice an odour dense, - Hiding with mystic offering our offence; - O holy Balm of God that pleads for me! - - O Gift, O Blessèd Sacrament--_my Myrrh_! - Thou art to die for me--a holy Thing, - That will preserve my soul from festering, - Nor may it feel mortality, the stir - And motion into dust, if Thou confer - On it Thy bitter strength of cherishing! - - - - -HOLY COMMUNION - - - In the Beginning--and in me, - Flesh of my flesh, O Deity, - Bone of my bone; - In me alone - Create, as if on Thy sixth day, - I, of frail breath and clay, - Were yet one seed with Thee, - Engendering Trinity! - - My Lord, the honour of great fear - To be Thy teeming _fiat_ here; - In blood and will - Urged to fulfil - Thy rounded motion of behest; - One with Thy power and blest - To act by aim and right - Of Thy prevenient might! - - - - -OF SILENCE - - - “Be it done unto me - According to Thy word....” - Into Mortality - Slips the Eternal Word, - When not a sound is heard. - - She spake those words, and then - Was silent in her heart; - Mother of Silence, when - Her will spake from her heart - Her lips had done their part. - - And only once we hear - Her words that intercede; - Her will so sweetly clear - Those lips should intercede, - And help men in their need. - - Out of her silence grew - The Word, and as a man - He neither cried nor knew - The strivings of a man, - When doom for Him began. - - And after He had gone - From Earth to Heaven away, - He came and lingered on; - He would not pass away, - But with His people stay. - - Son of the Silent Maid, - He chose her silence too. - In dumbness He hath stayed, - Dumbness unbroken too, - Past measure--as night-dew. - - O quiet, holy Host, - Our pondering Joy and Light, - In Thy still power engrossed, - As a mute star pleads light, - Thou pleadest, Infinite! - - - - -REAL PRESENCE - - - I approach Thy Altar.... Stay! - Let me break away! - Level stones of marble, brazen lights, - Linen spread, flowers on the shelves and heights-- - I bow down, I kneel ... - And far away, where the sun sets, would reel! - - For from forth Thy altar Thou - Strikest on me now, - Strikest on me, firm and warm to thrill, - With the charm of one whose touch could kill; - Giving me desire - Toward substance, yet for flight the lightning’s fire. - - So, if close a lover kneels, - Praying close, one feels - All the body’s flow of life reined tight, - As when waters struggle at their height; - From Thy altar-stone, - Thou in my body bodily art known. - - And I fear Thee worse than death, - As we fear Love’s breath: - Thou art as a tiger round a camp; - And I kindle, terrified, my lamp, - Since I cannot fly, - But to hold Thee distant, lest I die. - - Thou art God, and in the mesh, - Close to me, of flesh; - And we love and we have been in range - Of wild secrecies of interchange: - Could I bear Thee near - I should be humble to Thee--but I _fear_! - - - - -FROM THE HIGHWAY - - - King of Kings, Thou comest down the street - To my door ... - As from ankles of the heavenly feet - Of wild angels, tinkling pedals sweet, - And sweet bells; - As if water-carriers from bright wells - Jangled freshets to a dewless land, - Thou art called upon the air, - As Thou mountest to me, stair by stair: - In my presence Thou dost stand, - And Thou comest to me on my bed.... - Lord, I live and am not dead! - I should be dead-- - I, a sinner! And Thou comest swift.... - Woe, to wake such love to roam about, - Wandering the street to find me out, - Bringing wholesome balm for gift, - As, in contrariety, - Come to Magdalen, not she, - O Pure, to Thee! - - - - -“THAT HE SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR EVERY MAN” - - - In all things Thou art like us and content, - Bowing, receiv’st Thy sacrament. - What is it?--that Thou kneelest meek? - And what the gift that Thou dost seek - Beside us at Thy altars? Hour by hour, - What is it lays up in Thee holy power? - Christ, if Thou comest suppliant - It is to Death, the Celebrant! - Death gives the wafer of his dust; - The ashes of his harvest thrust - Upon Thy tongue Thou tastest, then - Dost swallow for the sake of men. - O Brightness of the Heavens, to save - Thy creatures Thou dost eat the grave! - - Our Sacrament--oh, generous!--of wheat, - The dust that out of corn we eat, - Whiteness of Life’s fair grain! O Christ, - No grinding of the cornfield had sufficed - To lay upon our tongues Thy holy Bread, - Unless Thou hadst Thyself so harshly fed - With grindings of the bone of death, the grit - That once was beauty and the form of it; - Once welcome, now so sharp to taste; - Once featured, now the dregs of waste; - Of hope once filled, now lacking aught - Of treasure to be sold or bought-- - Dust of our substance Thou each day - Dost taste of in its fated clay.... - O soul, take thought! It is thy God - That to His lips presses this choking sod! - - - - -NIMIS HONORATI SUNT - - - “Cast not your pearls down before swine!” - The words are Thine!-- - Listen, cast not - The treasure of a white sea-grot, - An uncontaminate, round loveliness, - A pearl of ocean-waters fathomless, - A secret of exceeding, cherished light, - A dream withdrawn from evening infinite, - A beauty God gave silence to--cast not - This wealth from treasury of Indian seas, - Or Persian fisheries, - Down in the miry dens that clot - The feet of swine, who trample, hide and blot. - - To us Thy words!... But, see, - In Thy idolatry - Of us, all thought - Of counsel fails and falls to nought! - Pearl of Great Price, within the monstrance set, - Why wilt Thou for Thyself Thy charge forget? - O Love, from deeps before the world began, - O Sheltered of God’s Bosom, why for man - Wilt Thou so madly in the slough be cast, - Concealed ’mid tramplings and disgrace of swine? - O Host, O White, Benign! - Why spend in rage of love at last - Thy wisdom all eternity amassed? - - - - -BLESSED ARE THE BEGGARS MATT. v. 3 - - -I - - Take me along with thee, O blessed, seeking one! - Take me along with thee! Thou art not poor; - Arimathea doth thy wealth immure; - Thou hast a garden in the country sun; - Thou hast a new, clean-chiselled grave awaits thee, - A grave, self-chosen, neither low nor narrow; - And thou couldst bring excess of myrrh and aloe - As gift where thou dost love, - If thou thy love wouldst prove: - Yet must thou beg. A beggar Pilate rates thee, - Coming to beg the body of thy Lord, - Cast from the Cross by men, of thee adored.[A] - -[A] “This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.”--Luke -xxiii. 52. - - -II - - Take me along with thee, and let me learn thy prayer! - Take me along with thee! I must prevail. - For all that I possess is void and stale - Unless I have God’s Body in my care. - Kneeling together, make for both petition! - Only upon our knees shall we receive Him, - Only by importunity achieve Him, - And crying with one need. - Prompt in thy grace, give heed! - I am a beggar of thy wild condition: - I huddle to thy side, my hope is thine, - Thy will my will--His Body must be mine. - - - - -THE BLESSED SACRAMENT - - - Lo, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh; - Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:-- - “Father, the Paraclete is sent, - Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by. - Behold, men’s hearts are shaken--I must die: - Sure as a star within the firmament - Must be my dying: lo, my wood is rent, - My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!” - Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold.... - His Son is back among us, with His own, - And craving at our hands an altar-stone. - Thereon, a victim, meek He takes his place; - And, while to offer Him His priests make bold, - He looketh upward to His Father’s Face. - - - - -THE BLESSED SACRAMENT - - -I - - Gather, gather, - Drawn by the Father, - Drawn to the dear procession of His Son! - They are bearing His Body.... Run - To the Well-Belovèd! Haste to Him, - Who down the street passeth secretly, - Adorned with Seraphim, - Still as the blooms of an apple-tree. - - -II - - Gather, gather, - Drawn by the Father! - Not now He dwelleth in the Virgin’s womb: - In the harvests He hath His room; - From the lovely vintage, from the wheat, - From the harvests that we this year have grown, - He giveth us His flesh to eat, - And in very substance makes us His own. - - -III - - Gather, gather, - Drawn by the Father! - The sun is down, it is the sundown hour. - He, who set the fair sun to flower, - And the stars to rise and fall-- - Kneel, and your garments before Him spread! - Kneel, He loveth us all; - He is come in the breaking of Bread. - - -IV - - Gather, gather - (Drawn by the Father), - To our God who is shown to us so mild, - Borne in our midst, a child! - He is King and with an orb so small: - And not a word will He say, - Nor on the Angels call, - Though we trample Him down on the way. - On the Holy Angels He will not call.... - Oh, guard Him with breasts impregnable! - - _Sept. 25-26, 1908_ - - - - - -COLUMBA MEA - -“_Una est Columba mea, perfecta mea._” - - - Dove of the Holy Dove, - His one, His mate-- - One art thou, single in thy mortal state - To be the chosen of Love, - His one, white Dove, - For whom He left His place in Trinity, - Letting His pinions fall - Low to the earth, that His great power might be - Around thee, nor appal, - But, soft in singleness of strength, might bring - The glory of the Father and the Son - To thee, the chosen One, - Amid the sounding clash of each vast wing. - - His Perfect, thou art made - Immaculate; - For thou with dovelike whiteness must elate - That Heavenly Spouse arrayed, - Beyond all shade, - In whiteness of the Godhead of God’s throne, - That loves in utter white - From Person unto Person, and alone - Had dwelt in His pure light, - Until one day the Holy Dove was sent - To Thee, O Mary, thee, O Dove on earth, - And God the Son had birth - Of thee, Perfection of thy God’s intent. - - - - -VIRGO POTENS - - - Young on the mountains and fresh - As the wind that thrills her hair, - As the dews that lap the flesh - Of her feet from cushions of thyme; - While her feet through the herbage climb, - Growing hardier, sweeter still - On rock-roses and cushions of thyme, - As she springs up the hill! - - A goat in its vaultings less lithe, - From rock, to a tuft, to a rock; - As the young of wild-deer blithe, - The young of wild-deer, yet alone: - Strong as an eaglet just flown, - She wanders the white-woven earth, - As the young of wild-deer, yet alone, - In her triumph of mirth. - - She will be Mother of God! - Secret He lies in her womb: - And this mountain she hath trod - Was later in strength than is she, - Who before its mass might be - Was chosen to bear her bliss: - Conceived before mountains was she, - Before any abyss. - - The might that dwells in her youth - Is song to her heart and soul, - Of joy that, as joy, is truth, - That magnifies, and leaps - With its jubilant glee and sweeps, - O fairest, her breast, her throat, - Her mouth, and magnanimous leaps, - As the mountain-lark’s note! - - Across the old hills she springs, - With God’s first dream as her crown: - She scales them swift, for she brings - Elizabeth news of grace. - The charity of her face - Is that of a lovely day, - When the birds are singing news of grace, - And the storms are away. - - - - -ANOTHER LEADETH THEE - - - In whose hands, O Son of God, - Was Thy earthly Mission held? - Not in Thine, that made earth’s sod, - And the ocean as it welled - From creation to the shore; - Not in Thine, whose fingers’ lore - Checked the tide with golden bars, - Ruled the clouds and dinted stars-- - Not in Thine, that made fresh leaves, - And the flourished wheat for sheaves; - Grapes that bubbled from a spring, - Where the nightingale might sing - From the blood of her wild throat; - Not in Thine that struck her note; - Maned the lion and wrought the lamb; - Breathed on clay, “Be as I am!” - And it stood before Thee fair, - Thinking, loving, furnished rare, - Like Thee, so beyond compare.... - - Not within Thy hands!--Behold, - By a woman’s hand unrolled - All the mystery sublime - Of Thy ableness through Time! - Thou, in precious Boyhood, knew - For Thy Father what to do; - And delayed Thyself to hear - Questions and to answer clear - To the Doctors’ chiming throng, - Thou, admired, wert set among. - Straight Thy Mission was begun, - As the Jewish Rabbis spun - Round Thy fetterless, sweet mind - Problems no one had divined. - But Thy Mother came that way, - Who had sought Thee day by day, - And her crystal voice reproved - Thy new way with Thy beloved. - In Thy wisdom-widened eyes - Throbbed a radiance of surprise: - But, Thy Mother having chidden, - Thou in Nazareth wert hidden; - And Thy Father’s Work begun - Stayed full eighteen years undone, - Till Thou camest on Thine hour, - When Thy Mother loosed Thy power - For Thy Father’s business, said, - In a murmur softly spread, - Rippling to a happy few, - “What He says unto you do!” - As the spring-time to a tree, - Sudden spring she was to Thee, - When her strange appeal began - Thy stayed Mission unto man; - Stayed but by her earlier blame, - When from three days’ woe she came; - Yet renewed when she gave sign - “Son, they have not any wine!” - - Holy trust and love! She gave - For Thy sake oblation brave - Of her will, her spotless name: - Thou for her didst boldly tame - God the Word to wait on her; - God’s own Wisdom might not stir - Till her lovely voice decreed. - Thou wouldst have our hearts give heed, - And revere her lovely voice; - Wait upon her secret choice, - Stay her pleasure, as didst Thou, - With a marvel on Thy brow, - And a silence on Thy breath. - We must cherish what she saith; - As she pleadeth we must hope - For our deeds’ accepted scope, - Humble as her Heavenly Son, - Till our liberty be won. - - - - -THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS - - - In a garden at Bethany, - O Mother, Mother, Mother! - Amid the passion-flowers and olive-leaves-- - His Mother-- - Yet, behold, how tranquilly - She is sad and grieves, - Though her Son is gone away, - And she knows Passover Day - Will not leave her Lamb, her Child unslain! - He hath spoken to deaf ears, - All save hers, of mortal pain - And of parting, yet she has no tears.... - He is gone away - With His chosen few to eat the Pasch, - Leaving in the eyes, she raised to ask, - Mute assurance He would come no more - Back to Bethany, nor Lazarus’ door. - O Mother, Mother, Mother!-- - But she keeps so many things apart - In their silence, pondering them by heart; - Always she has pondered in her heart; - And it knows her Son is Son of God.... - Silently she gazes where He trod - Down the valley to Jerusalem-- - His Mother! - Round her birds are at their parting song - To the light that will not strike them long; - And the flowers are very gold - With the light before whose loss they fold. - Keen the song, as on each wing, - And on each rose and each rose-stem - Full the burnishing. - She hath crossed her hands around her breast, - And it seems her heart is taking rest - With some Mystery her spirit heeds.... - Song of Songs the birds now chaunt, - And the lilies vaunt - How among them, white, He feeds, - Who but now hath left her--fair and white - As the lover of the Sunamite. - - . . . . - - In the city, in an upper room, - As fair Paschal Bread He breaks and gives - Unto men His Body while He lives-- - Then seeks out a Garden for His Doom. - - - - -HOLY CROSS - - - Mysterious sway of mortal blood, - That urges me upon Thy wood!-- - - O Holy Cross, but I must tell - My love; how all my forces dwell - Upon Thee and around Thee day and night! - I love the Feet upon thy beam, - As a wild lover loves his dream; - My eyes can only fix upon that sight. - - O Tree, my arms are strong and sore - To clasp Thee, as when we adore - The body of our dearest in our arms! - Each pang I suffer hath for aim - Thy wood--its comfort is the same-- - A taint, an odour from inveterate balms. - - My clasp is filled, my sight receives - The compass of its power; pain grieves - About each sense but as a languid hum: - And, out of weariness, at length, - My day rejoices in its strength, - My night that innocence of strife is come. - - - - -PURGATORY - - - Perfection of my God!-- - With hands on the same rod, - With robes that interfold, - One weft together rolled; - With two wings of one Dove - Stretched the royal heads above-- - God severs from His Son, - That what is not be won; - Immortal, mortal grow, - God entering manhood know - What was not and shall be - Of cogent Deity. - - Perfection of my soul!-- - How shall I reach my goal, - Unless I leave His Face, - Who is my dwelling-place, - Unless in exile do - His will a short while through, - To the time’s sharpest rim: - Unless, deprived of Him, - I may achieve Him, lie - His victim, sigh on sigh, - Bearing consummate pain, - Supremely to attain? - - - - -FORTITUDO EGENIS - - - Lover of Souls, Immaculate, - Mary, by thy Immaculate Conception, - Thy soul and body white for God’s reception, - Beyond the ridg’d snows on the sky; - Beyond the treasure of white beams that lie - Within the golden casket of the sun; - By the excelling franchise of thy state, - Plead for the Holy Souls, O Holiest One! - - Till they be cleansed grief hath no date! - Them, through thy spotless grace, embolden - To passion for their God, but once beholden, - Nor ever more beheld till pain - Hath made their souls’ recesses bright from stain. - Plead they may swiftly see Him, nor may shun - The Vision, each achieved immaculate! - Pure from the first, plead for them, Holiest One! - - - - -PAX VOBISCUM - -TO NOTRE DAME DE BOULOGNE - - - My heart is before thee, Queen, - As a mariner at sea-- - It vows its sighs that swell to thee, - Sighs as great as against waves may be. - - For thou art above the waves, - On their summits thou dost float; - Thy locks of gold along thy throat; - Thou more gold than gold upon thy boat. - - Pomp of thy body, thy Child-- - On thy arm, small-crowned and sweet; - Thou, large-crowned! Where billows meet, - Why these crowns, like shocks of golden wheat? - - The Prince of Peace He is.... - As a mariner at sea, - When waves are high and thronging free, - High my heart entreats thy Son and thee. - - - - -PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM - - - It is new in the air from the sea and the height, - New as a nest by a sea-bird fashioned.... - O Carmel, thy mound the rock-site!... - And roofless our chapel, the home we, impassioned, - Have built for her coming, O Gift from the Sea! - Elijah, our father, descend to thy mountain, - Where once was thy shrine, God created by flame; - Where from a land dry in well as in fountain - Thou did’st keep vigil--as we--till she came, - The Cloud from God’s Bosom, the Grace of His favour, - The sweetness of Rain! O balm, oh, the savour - Of air on the throat! O Desire from the Sea! - Surrounded by roses and lilies of valleys, - Sweeter than myrrh, or than balsam in chalice, - Queen of the East, O Magnificent, bring - The sweetness familiar as rain to man’s cry; - Murmur as rain round our hearts lest we die, - White Cloud of felicity, Voice to our ears! - Girt with vale-lilies and roses a spring-day appears, - But Thou, Queen of Carmel, art Spring. - - Surely the last, we are first in our glory: - Splendid out-broke in our desert the story - How flame that fell down on our shrine at the call - Of our father Elijah had fallen down on all. - So Christ is received of us, Carmel receives Him, - The stones and the dust and the sea-winds believe Him: - But after God’s Fire there is hope of God’s Rain. - To us art thou come, O Abundance of Rain! - - Thy little, roofless sanctuary, Queen, - Finds us in winds, in sunset or at night, - With stars to help our candles, wild and free - As Pagans by their Virgin of moonlight, - Diana of the Hunters’ rocks: so we - Upon the heights, and in the breeze are seen, - And called the Brothers of thy lovely name, - Blest Mary of Mount Carmel. Asia, cry - Her splendour! Cry to her, O Eastern Kings, - Encompass her! She is our very own, - In mercy manifest to us alone, - Our Cloud of Mercy that from seaward springs, - And crouched Elijah sought for, sigh on sigh. - - And for our thanks ... O Eastern Kings, your treasure - In this may serve us, that a pearl may lurk, - Or in your chests there may be jewel-work - That, as she is a Queen, might give her pleasure. - We are her monks, we have no precious things. - Close round her, Kings! - With frankincense and myrrh, - Open a fount for her! - With cloth of gold proclaim her and enthrone! - Afar off we will weep--she is our own. - - - - -IN THE BEGINNING - - - How still these two! - Christ with far eyes, John with the fond eyes closed, - And close unto - The breast wherefrom is peace-- - No slumber that shall cease, - But charmed safety of a faith as sure - As a mountain’s founding to endure: - And warm as sleep John’s love - For the rapt Face above. - - Far-rapt, Christ’s eyes, - In strength, remember His own resting-place, - Where, in this wise, - He, the Eternal Word, - Had kept deep lull unstirred, - Upon the bosom of the Father laid; - And, of that peace divined, - Knew the Eternal mind. - - Then the raised Face - Breaks soft and the eyes droop and bend above - The sweet head’s place, - Where from closed eyelids John - Setteth his love upon - God, his Lord, his Thought, his Lover dear: - And, in lapse of silence falling clear, - One heareth only this-- - On the sweet head, a kiss. - - - - -AN ANTIPHONY OF ADVENT - -AD LAUDES - - -I - - Come to a revel, happy men! - Far away on the hills a wine of joy - Makes golden dew in drops, that cloy - The fissures of the glen, - The crevices of rock; - Caught in its sweetness thyme and cistus lock; - The hills are white and gold - In every fold; - The hills are running milk and honey-rivers; - Yet not a thyrsus on a mountain quivers. - - -II - - Does not the distant city cry, - As if filled with an unexpected rout, - _Alleluia_, shout on shout? - Nor can the city high - Exult in song enough, - Tuning to smoothness all her highways rough. - And yet the Bromian god - Hath never trod - With choir the pavements, nor each grape-haired dancer - Given to the mountain-streams a city’s answer. - - -III - - Behold, O men, a vivid light! - Is it the lightning-fire that blazes wide, - Or torches lit on every side - That turn the sky so bright? - Through this great, sudden day, - No levin-gendered god’s triumphant way - The brands of pine confess: - A loveliness - Within that mighty light of larger story - Is come among us with exceeding glory. - - -IV - - Ye that would drink, come forth and drink! - Within the hills are rivers white and gold; - Clear mid the day a portent to behold. - Stoop at the water’s brink, - Seek where the light is great! - Why should the revellers for revel wait? - Now ye can drink as thirsty stags - Where no source flags. - Forth to the water-brooks, forth in the morning; - Forth to the light that out of light is dawning! - - -V - - Tiresias, with thy wreath, not thou! - Gray prophet of the fount of Thebes, behold - A prophet neither blind nor old, - Spare and of solemn brow, - Is risen to make all young: - He dwells among - The freshets of the stream. Come to the Waters; - O Sons of Adam, haste, and Eva’s daughters! - This revel, children, is a revelry - Ascetic, of a joy that cannot be - Unless we fast and pray and wear no wreaths, - Nor brandish cones the forest-fir bequeathes, - Nor make a din--but sweet antiphonies-- - Nor blow through organ-reeds to sing to these, - But of ourselves make song: it is a feast, - That by the breath of deserts is increased; - And by ablution in the river lifts - Its grain to crystal--earth so full of gifts - Most exquisite, breaths that are infinite - Of infinite judgment, hesitations light - Of infinite choiceness, life so fine, so fine, - Since of our flesh we welcome the Divine; - Since by our fast and reticence, our food - From honey-bees in haunts of solitude, - O mighty Prophet of the river-bank, - We see that light that makes the sun a blank, - As a white dove makes a whole region dim; - See in the greatness of the great Light’s rim - One we must fall down under would we win - The ecstasy of revel--all our sin - Borne from us by the Wine-Cup in a hand - That bleeds about the vessel’s golden stand, - Bleeds as the white throat of a lamb just slain. - Behold! No _Evoe_ at that poured red stain, - No _Evoe_--_Alleluia!_ He is dumb: - But let us laud Him, Eleutherius come! - - - - -ANNUNCIATIONS - - - “Blessèd art Thou among women, Mary!” - Through white wings, - The angel brings - Of a Saviour’s birth annunciation-- - Tidings of great joy to one afraid. - - “Blessèd art thou Simon, son of Jonah!” - In his power, - His smile as dower, - Of His Church’s birth, annunciation - Is by God Himself, no angel, made. - - Blessèd art Thou, Mary; blessèd, Peter! - But the grace - Of God’s own face - Is on Peter for annunciation, - When he speaks, by flesh and blood unswayed. - - - - -STONES OF THE BROOK - - - Forth from a cloud, - Loosed as a greyhound is loosed, - To sweep down the sky, - To sweep down the hill, - A torrent of water unnoosed-- - The rain rushes on aloud, - And becometh a stream on the earth, and still - Groweth and spreadeth as its stream sweeps by. - - And the stones of its course - Are bright with its joy as it leaps - Around them in might, - Beyond them in joy; - For it sings round the rocky heaps, - From the brightness of its force; - Nor can pebbles nor boulders of granite cloy - In their multitude the stream’s delight. - - With a torrent’s bliss, - The Martyr Stephen receives - The stones for his head, - The stones for his breast, - And smiles from his strength that believes: - “Sweet stones of the brook!”--for this - Is the singing, the song of his heart expressed, - As he kneels, looking up, his hands outspread. - - A river of blood, the tide - Of martyrdom, gathers round - His soul as a stream; - While the stones are drenched - With tides of his blood as they bound - From temple and mouth and side ... - Stones of offence, dark stones from the torrent wrenched, - Ye strike the trend of his joy as a dream! - - - - -RELICS - - - An alabaster box, - A tomb of precious stone-- - White, with white bars, as white - As billows on a sea: - With spaces where some flush - Of sky-like rose is conscious and afraid - Of whiteness and white bars. - A lovely sepulchre of loveliest stone, - This alabaster box-- - Coy as a maiden’s blood in flush, - White as a maiden’s breast in stretch, - Alive with fear and grace; - Transparent rose, - Translucent white; - A treasury of precious stone, - A strange, long tomb.... - ’Twas Maximin, who had this casket made, - The holy Maximin, who travelled once - With Mary Magdalen, and preached with her; - Till on a wind as quiet - As it had been a cloud, - She was removed by Christ to dwell alone. - - Alone she dwelt, her peace - A thought that never fell - From its full tide. - Ever beside her in her cave, - A vase of golden curls, - A clod of blooded earth. - And when she died at last, and Maximin - Must bury her; - Being man and holy, in his love - He laid her in an alabaster box, - As she had laid her soul’s deep penitence, - Her soul’s deep passion, a sweet balm, within - An alabaster box: - So Maximin gave Magdalen to God-- - Shut as a spice in precious stone, - In bland and flushing box - Of alabaster stone. - And knowing all her secrets, Maximin, - Being man and holy, laid within - The priceless cave of alabaster two - Most precious, cherished things-- - A vase of curly hair, - A vase of golden web; - A clod of withered soil, - A clod of blooded earth. - - The curls were crushed together in gold lump, - Crushed by the hand that wiped - The Holy Feet, kept in a crush of gold, - Just as they dabbed the sweetly smelling Feet-- - The curls enwoven by the balm they dried, - Knotted as rose of Sharon, when the winds - Sweep it along the desert.... Curls, of power - To float the charm of Eve in aureole - Round her they covered, till she crushed them tight - To dab the Holy Feet, and afterward - Be severed from their growth, - Stiff in their balm and gold; - A piece of honeycomb in rings and web; - Sweetness of shorn, gold, unguent-dabbled hair, - A handful in a vase. - - The clod, a bit of hill-turf dry; - The turf that sheep might pull up as they graze; - Or men might throw upon the fire - At sundown when the air is loosed and cold: - A clod an eagle might - Ascend to build with, or a goat - Kick down a valley’s side; - A clod dark-red - As if it mothered ruby of the mines. - The hand that gathered it one hollow night - Gathered it up red-wet from Golgotha. - Three crosses lay about the grass-- - Such arms and shafts of crosses on the grass!-- - When she, who gathered, crept - Among the prostrate arms; - Roused a great death-bird from the ground, - And, in its place, - Bent down and pressed her lips where it had couched, - And lifted up the ground to press her heart; - And went her way, hugging the Sacred Blood - As in a sponge of turf, - That dried about the treasure, now grown hard, - As if it mothered ruby of the mines-- - A clod of blooded soil. - - O Relics of the Holy Magdalen! - The balmy hair her plea, - God’s Blood her grace: - Within a vase her gift, - Within a turf-clod His-- - Her relics, by her corpse; - All she had cared to keep, - Through hermit years of life, - To bless her in her tomb - Till Judgment-Day. - - - - -ON CAUCASUS - - - Lo, Crimean marble-quarries tower - Colder even than snow-peaks in their power, - To the very heart stone-white: - And the Christian captives strain - On the hillsides in their pain, - As they toil for Trajan day and night. - - Who is this who comes with stirless brow, - And sweet eyes that never could allow - Rebels save upon their knees? - Through the hills a voice is fanned - That Pope Clement hath been banned - Straightly to the marble Chersonese. - - Toiling with his people ’mid the rocks, - On a streamless slope, the quarried blocks - He compels to whiteness clear. - There a bitter cry is made - Of the thirst that, unallayed, - Dreams of well, or freshet, or wide mere. - - He hath climbed to pray.... A lamb he sees, - Pawing gladly in the mountain-breeze, - Very golden unto snow: - Lamb of God, cross-aureoled, - Lovely on His vertex bold, - Set above a River’s gush and flow. - - By the brazen footstroke is expressed - Impetus as of God’s River blest. - Dew and snow in all their shine - Round that heavenly Lamb and Stream - Take the lustre of their dream, - In a flood and blush of flame combine. - - On the heavens, from Patmos’ shore, - John beheld this crystal sight before-- - Not to bring a people aid; - But, sweet Clement, thou hast seen, on earth - God’s own Lamb, His River’s birth; - How He shone and how its waters played! - - - - -IN THE SEA - -(THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. CLEMENT) - - “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy! Save him, save!”-- - “Father, receive my spirit from the wave.” - - Rolls the great Sea of the Chersonese - Tossed and facing him and these.... - Cold in waters, high in heap - As a quarry should it sweep - With a landslip down on men: - And it roars as in its den - Roars a monster apt for blood. - He must journey on this flood - To the harbour of his soul; - He must seek his furthest goal, - With an anchor round his neck, - From yon tossing vessel’s deck - Cast to drown, when out at sea - Full three miles that ship may be. - And his fellow-exiles cry, - “Let him not, Lord Jesus, die!” - - On the clouds the vessel is a spot. - “Lord Jesus, save him!... Is there not, - O brothers, in the sea retreat-- - Caught back, rolling from our feet, - Not in waves, as under tide, - But withdrawn on every side? - Very solemn is this floor! - We can see the waves no more. - Let us follow them athwart - Sea-deeps with no waters fraught; - Let us wipe our tears away, - Let us take this holy way! - Large the floor and larger still: - Must the whole horizon fill - With a land of weed and shell, - Where no billows native dwell - Any more--we know not why: - Any more, since we made cry?” - - As the sunset clears the sky, - Yet across its wondrous space - There is one transcendent place - Where the sun is laid to rest: - So these mourners, strangely blessed-- - Over sand and coral clean - And unbroken shells, serene, - With the peace where sea hath been, - Over panting sea-stars bright, - Silver-raying fishes, mad - For the livesome brine they had-- - Come upon a Temple-grot, - Set before them in a spot - Of the naked desert, left - By the ocean’s woof and weft - Of the tidal streams withdrawn. - - There upon the sand, forlorn - In its beauty, far remote, - Stands a Temple-shrine, they note - Of the Holy Spirit’s dream.... - And they cross a little stream, - Thrilling with the far-off sea; - And they follow what must be, - As they tread within the shrine, - Builded marble for a sign - Angels had been set to build - On a ground the ocean filled. - In a tabernacle lies, - Lone and grand to seeking eyes, - Not the sunk sun, but a tomb, - Whitest marble, and the room - Of the holy Clement dead. - There he lies, how comforted! - Through the mighty water brought - To a peace, a harbour wrought - Of the holy Angels’ care. - Close his anchor! He so still - And sufficed--the waves that kill - Driven away by angel-hands; - While his people’s exile bands - Kneel around him in the sea.... - Come to port, his anchor by! - Thus the sun each day must die: - Thus sweet Clement but one day - In the sea sank down, and lay - As at sunset, full of peace. - - They bear him to the land: and the flood-tides increase. - - - - -“COMMUNICANTES ET MEMORIAM VENERANTES ... JOANNIS ET PAULI” - - - Two olive-branches--silver; two candelabra,--gold: - Precious as only tried and precious things - Are of their essence bold, - The Roman John and Paul--young heads together-- - Pray on, nor is there any question whether - The image that the Emperor’s Præfect brings - For worship will be worshipped, for already - The service of their ritual is so steady - It is as day moving to noon, and moving to night’s fold. - - In one white, empty chamber two brethren, yet as one, - And as a sepulchre their home made bare. - Ye ask what they have done? - And the poor answer, “These would have no treasure - Save this, that they can die.” O solemn pleasure - To see their home a casket everywhere - Wrought for their hour of death! Gone the slow mornings - Through which they wearied out the Emperor’s warnings! - Now they would hold their jewel safe in their white walls, with prayer. - - The silence! One can listen how the gold morning sun - Sings through the air, the hush is grown so fine. - Steps!--Thus intrusive run - Rain-storms on solitudes--A white-flashed gleaming! - The brow of Jove, the cloud-white hair, the beaming - Cloud-swirl of beard! A voice that bids, “Incline, - And offer homage!” ... How the silence tingles! - The sun with air in call and echo mingles: - Those brethren of closed senses--peace! they have made no sign. - - They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor, - The lilies of their garden--head by head, - The older with the newer-- - Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses. - And now the garden of their home uncloses - To cover into secrecy the dead: - Deep hidden by the roses they had watered, - Lying together sanctified and slaughtered, - Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread. - - . . . . - - Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid, - Unclean, tormented, and that do not cease - Their rending cries for aid, - The son of him who slew the saints, by daytime - Wandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime, - Is cured of his distraction and at peace: - Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden, - Of which his well-belovèd is the warden, - Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made. - - - - -IN MONTE FANNO - - - Sylvester by an open tomb - Beheld Time’s vanity and doom-- - A lovely body, as a flower, - Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower. - - Sylvester meditated, thought - His days to solitude were brought. - Sight of a corpse within its grave!... - To be an eremite alone were brave. - - Sylvester is a monk: and men - Grow frequent round his holy den: - Thence to a mount he leads them out, - Called _Fannus_ ... through the wood they hear a shout. - - Sylvester builds his cloister.--Hush! - Across the doorstep comes a rush, - And all the monks faint with a lure - That those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure. - - Sylvester calls into the dark-- - There is a breath of those that hark-- - “Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!” - Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease. - - Sylvester in the woods, as still - Even as the grave that bowed his will, - When he became at first a monk, - Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk. - - Sylvester conquers by his name: - King Fannus and all Fauns lie tame - Beneath it, and the wild-wood Cross, - That he hath planted deep into the moss. - - Sylvester and his monks are clear - From any advent warm and drear - Through any door: but sometimes he - Looks with slant eyes through piles of leafery. - - - - -MACRINUS AGAINST TREES - - - “How bare! How all the lion-desert lies - Before your cell! - Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyes - Could, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock, - That turn to the soft mass from barren rock, - Familiarly dwell.” - - “O Traveller, for me the empty sands - Burning to white! - There nothing on the wilderness withstands - The soul or prayer. I would not look on trees; - My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze, - And buried as by night. - - “Yea, listen! If you build a cell, at last, - Turned to the wood, - Your fall is near, your safety over-past; - And if you plant a tree beside your door - Your fall is there beside it, and no more - The solitude is frank and good. - - “For trees must have soft dampness for their growth, - And interfold - Their boughs and leaves into a screen, not loath - To hide soft, tempting creatures at their play, - That, playing timbrels and bright shawms, delay, - And wear one’s spirit old. - - “Smoothly such numberless distractions come-- - Impertinence - Of multiplicity, salute and hum. - Away with solitude of leafy shade, - Mustering coy birds and beasts, and men waylaid, - Tingling each hooded sense! - - “Did not God call out of a covert-wood - Adam and Eve, - Where, cowering under earliest sin, they stood, - The hugged green-leaves in bunches round their den? - Himself God called them out--so lost are men - Whom forest-haunts receive!” - - - - -PASCHAL’S MASS - - - The sheep still in dew, but the sky - In sun, the far river in sun; - And the incense of flowers steeped bright-- - Their smell as sweet light; - And the shepherd-boy tethered on high - To his flock and his day’s work begun. - - The bees in the wind of the dawn; - The larks not yet climbing aloft - As high as the Aragon Hills ... - What bell-ringing thrills - Through the bell-wether’s pastoral lorn? - From the valley a bell clear and soft. - - The shepherd-boy kneeling in dew; - The bell of his wether rung sharp; - Below him the tinkle and sway, - From far, far away, - Of the sacring-bell, clear as a harp - In its chime of God lifted anew. - - For his God, in the vale, on the height - He weeps; while the morning-larks rise. - Lo, in chasuble, living and rich - Golden rays cross-stitch, - Foreshown by magnificent light-- - Lo, an angel grows firm on his eyes! - - As an altar of marvellous stone - Before him the mountain hath blazed, - Round the angel, who lifts in the air - A Sun that is there: - To the sheep and the shepherd-boy shown, - With the ringing of larks, God is raised. - - O Angel-priest, fragrant with thyme, - Girt with sixfold glorious wings! - O sky of the mountains above - Adventurous Love! - How through air and the larks’ watchful chime - Earth her incense, as thurifer, flings! - - O Sacrament, shown to a boy, - More blest than the Shepherds of old, - He is thine for his lifetime, cast - On his mountain vast, - In his joy, his great freshness of joy - From that high, singing daylight of gold! - - - - -A SNOW-CAVE - - - Suddenly the snow is falling fast: - Slow the lovely speed, - All the air being full with fulness cast - On the mounded world ... - And the firmamental snow will give no heed, - Nor the snow terrestrial have a care - For anything its heavy deluge hides, - For anything upcurled - In its mountain-hug, nor what abides - Imprisoned deep of the imprisoning air. - - Peter of Alcantara, how wide - And untrodden quite - Swells the sudden snow on every side, - Speckled with no sign, - One in uncontrollable and fearful white! - - . . . . - - Swiftly, as it came, its mood is changed ... - Now it drifts a white flame of caress, - As if it took design, - Learnt a new art of its loveliness, - And in a cave above the Saint is ranged. - - Hour on hour the world is flooded bright - With fair agency, - In continuance a sleep, of might - To lay death athwart - Any bosom, any limbs that cannot flee: - Yet safely housed the holy traveller waits, - Though in that white storm caught; - For the deep snow of earth its snow abates - Before a force of deeper chastity. - - Little flakes, that touch with feet like birds, - Touch him not at all, - But lie convex in a wave that curds, - Bowed upon its vault, - Stooping on him almost won to fall, - Yet in strength withheld, whole in its love, - As a virgin praying for a priest: - So in its lovely halt, - So aloof from sense, it rears above - The saint its covert, not a flake released. - - - - -PROPHET - - - Blessed with joy, as daybreak under cloud-- - Tender light of youth in the old face-- - Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroud - Of the years before this day of Grace, - Simeon blesses God and praises Him, - As a little child and mother slim - With first girlhood come their way - Toward his face, and night becometh day. - - Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land! - Wide the welcome and the peace of joy! - But he takes the infant on his hand, - Graciously receives the milking boy - From the mother’s bosom, from her heart, - While she stands in reverence apart. - Lo, the old man’s countenance, - In a wave of anguish breaks from trance! - - All the features lift with power, and sink, - As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolled - Through them, from a sudden thought they think. - Can a child of but a few weeks old - So confuse with terror an old man? - Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span, - Is for the ruin or the rise - Of the generations, Simeon cries. - - Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleek - As a pearl--and the dire earthquake’s power - In his little body set, to wreak - Dread requital on the souls that cower - Mad with desolation, naked, lost, - Or uplifted wild from a dead host: - For the rise and ruin set - Of so many--but not yet, not yet! - - Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turns - To the slender Mother, bright and bowed. - Woe again! A flawless lightning burns - Through his eyes and his weak voice rings loud, - How a sword shall pierce her heart alone - That out of many hearts their thoughts be shown. - Simeon, terror masks all joy - In this Mother and her milking Boy! - - - - -LOOKING UPON JESUS AS HE WALKED - - - What is it thou hast seen, - O desert prophet, hung with camel’s hair, and lean? - What makes thine eyes so wide? - Not the huge desert where the camel-owners ride; - But One, who comes along, - So humble in His steps, and yet to Him belong - Thy days in their surcease, - Because He must increase as thou must now decrease. - Behold thy God, whose strength - Is as the coiling-in of thy life’s length! - Thou of wide eyes, wide soul, - Thy heart-blood as He comes to thee heaves on its goal! - - Saint of the sinner, John, - Those whom thy lustral water hath been poured upon, - Those who have kept thy fast - With locusts and wild honey and long hours have passed - In penance, when they see - Christ coming toward them, young and fair with what shall be, - And giving God delight, - They know, by very doom of that remorseless sight, - That they, as they have been, - Will fade away, diminish and no more be seen: - They must, O desert saint, - Bow them to certain death and yet they must not faint, - And yet they must proclaim - The obliterating flourish of their Slayer’s name. - - - - -A DANCE OF DEATH - - - How lovely is a silver winter-day - Of sturdy ice. - That clogs the hidden river’s tiniest bay - With diamond-stone of price - To make an empress cast her dazzling stones - Upon its light as hail-- - So little its effulgency condones - Her diamonds’ denser trail - Of radiance on the air! - How strange this ice, so motionless and still, - Yet calling as with music to our feet, - So that they chafe and dare - Their swiftest motion to repeat - These harmonies of challenge, sounds that fill - The floor of ice, as the crystalline sphere - Around the heavens is filled with such a song - That, when they hear, - The stars, each in their heaven, are drawn along! - - Oh, see, a dancer! One whose feet - Move on unshod with steel! - She is not skating fleet - On toe and heel, - But only tip-toe dances in a whirl, - A lovely dancing-girl, - Upon the frozen surface of the stream. - Without a wonder, it would seem, - She could not keep her sway, - The balance of her limbs - Sure on the musical, iced river-way - That, sparkling, dims - Her trinkets as they swing, so high its sparks - Tingle the sun and scatter song like larks. - - She dances mid the sumptuous whiteness set - Of winter’s sunniest noon; - She dances as the sun-rays that forget - In winter sunset falleth soon - To sheer sunset: - She dances with a languor through the frost - As she had never lost, - In lands where there is snow, - The Orient’s immeasurable glow. - - Who is this dancer white-- - A creature slight, - Weaving the East upon a stream of ice, - That in a trice - Might trip the dance and fling the dancer down? - Does she not know deeps under ice can drown? - - This is Salome, in a western land, - An exile with Herodias, her mother, - With Herod and Herodias: - And she has sought the river’s icy mass, - Companioned by no other, - To dance upon the ice--each hand - Held, as a snow-bird’s wings, - In heavy poise. - Ecstatic, with no noise, - Athwart the ice her dream, her spell she flings; - And Winter in a rapture of delight - Flings up and down the spangles of her light. - - Oh, hearken, hearken!... Ice and frost, - From these cajoling motions freed, - Have straight given heed - To Will more firm. In their obedience - Their masses dense - Are riven as by a sword.... - Where is the Vision by the snow adored? - The Vision is no more - Seen from the noontide shore. - Oh, fearful crash of thunder from the stream, - As there were thunder-clouds upon its wave! - Could nothing save - The dancer in the noontide beam? - She is engulphed and all the dance is done. - Bright leaps the noontide sun-- - But stay, what leaps beneath it? A gold head, - That twinkles with its jewels bright - As water-drops.... - O murdered Baptist of the severed head, - Her head was caught and girded tight, - And severed by the ice-brook sword, and sped - In dance that never stops. - It skims and hops - Across the ice that rasped it. Smooth and gay, - And void of care, - It takes its sunny way: - But underneath the golden hair, - And underneath those jewel-sparks, - Keen noontide marks - A little face as grey as evening ice; - Lips, open in a scream no soul may hear - Eyes fixed as they beheld the silver plate - That they at Macherontis once beheld; - While the hair trails, although so fleet and nice - The motion of the head as subjugate - To its own law: yet in the face what fear, - To what excess compelled! - - Salome’s head is dancing on the bright - And silver ice. O holy John, how still - Was laid thy head upon the salver white, - When thou hadst done God’s Will! - - - - -OBEDIENCE - - - O instrument of God, baptizing men - In vehement, lone Jordan of the wilds, - Amid the rushes, when - Thou wert startled by the sight - Of One coming, simply bright - As a Lamb, across the sand, - Thou didst tremble to abide - In the shallows and to dash the tide - Of the current on a Head - That must bow beneath the sin of men! - Thou wouldst only, at command, - Keep thy awful station, grown more awful then. - - But thou wert obedient to His word, - Who was greater beyond words than thou, - As thy lips averred: - And, obedient, thou wert blest - With the presence manifest - Of the Holy Trinity-- - Thou the Body of the Son - Didst behold on which thy rite was done; - Thou didst hear the Father’s Voice, - As the firmament soft thunder heard; - And thy senses, blest to hear and see, - Might behold the Spirit poised, a sunlit Bird. - - - - -GARDENS ENCLOSED - - - Garden by the brook, - The brook Kedron-- - Olive-silvered nook, - Red flowers to kneel on: - There in blood and strife divine, - There a Eucharist outspread, - Christ gave the Father in a chalice Wine, - And in His yielded Will He offered Bread. - - Garden on the hill, - Mount Golgotha, - Have you a running rill - From your rocky spur? - “Yea, a water from His side, - Who was hanging on a Tree: - Son of Man, they called Him, and He died, - And is hidden in my rock with me.” - - - - -GARDEN-SEED - - - What art Thou sowing in the garden-ground, - Sowing, sowing with such pain? - Clouds are overhead, and all around - Spring hath fallen spring-rain - Of seed-growing power. - Lo, where Thou bowest down, it seems a shower - Hath laid the grass, as rain ran through, - Engendering rain, stronger than early dew. - - It is Thy Agony that pierces deep - Through the sod of that still place; - For Thou bowest down where Thou dost weep, - Bowest down Thy face; - And Thou sowest seed, - Drops of Thy most Holy Blood, that bleed - Through brow and limbs in sweat, and stay - Red on the Earth, while the tears sink away. - - Sower, what herb shall spring, what flower be born? - Will pomegranate-apples hang, - When we pass this way, some morn? - Struck with spring’s own pang, - _This_ our eyes will see-- - Faith that shoulders great buds lustily; - Hope that shoots up a hundredfold; - And Love in roses wondrous to behold. - - - - -UNIVERSA COHORS - - - They call the cohort from all sides together.... - There is a king, a king of mockery, - His kingdom a pretence, - An actor to be dressed for all to see, - Whose body oozes from the cords or leather - That struck with lashes dense-- - There is a king to mock, a make-believe - To be derided, a poor form to grieve - With haughty purple of the robe of state, - And acclamations powerless to elate; - A victim to be tortured and made grand - With clothes whose pomp He cannot understand, - Claiming with slavish brow their heritage: - There is the mocking of a solemn dupe, - With laughter and a jollity of rage. - They call together, like the vultures called - To feast on what is yet a feast forestalled, - The cohort in a troop. - - O Martyrs, press together from all regions, - You have a King, a King for whom you died-- - His kingdom built on gems-- - And ye are dressed in purple from His side; - The stoles of glory, clothing all your legion, - His purple to their hems! - Press round Him whom the Romans mocked that day, - Press round Him, Martyrs; keep His foes at bay! - And let me, though far off from your bright red - Of vestures triumphing in Blood He shed, - Yet wrap my heart in His deep sanguine robe, - Ensanguined from the scourge, and nails that probe, - And spear that cleaves! Wrapt in His Blood, O heart, - We must bear witness that His purple dress - Is not the dressing of an actor’s part, - But of a Royalty no woof of man - Might clothe that Day of Woe, nor ever can-- - That is the Martyr’s dress. - - - - -IN EXTREMIS - - - What is the desert? Thirst, - And very immolation’s loneliness! - Upon that land of death dry ridges press, - Like to sand-drifts on the tongue-- - And the sequestered heart through fear will burst. - - Armies have gone along, - Defeated, to oblivion among - The naught of those bare sands-- - Banners and horses and bright-harnessed bands. - None hath beheld the banners wave and slip - Abyssward, and the horses, under whip - Of crazy dust, plunge down - With manes sand-tossed, - Beneath the plain they crossed, - Making athwart the breadth a little frown, - Gone in its very moment, like the smile - That followed, as the horsemen flashed awhile - Above the grave, and sank bright, and were gone. - - O desert, full of plots, - On lapping water, of sleek palm-tree knots, - And isles in haunted channels; cruel earth, - Mirage of desolation, grace of dearth, - Many have died in anguish at the pain - Never to drink those lakes that gibe and wane! - “I thirst”--“My God, Thou hast forsaken Me!” - Parched, sinking in abysses mortally, - O Christ, and there is none to succour Thee, - Water of Life, perpetual Deity! - - - - -A LIGNO - - - There were trees that spring-- - One on a little hill, - One in a small, green field. - One stood a leaf-stripped thing; - One had begun to fill - With leaves from shoots unsealed, - With purple flowers along the wood-- - So those trees stood. - - One bore up a Form - On the clean branches nailed, - Ineffable in peace: - One bent as if a storm - In its descent had trailed - Down the red blossom-fleece; - And where the boughs most sullen hung - A crisped form swung. - - One the Tree of Life-- - Both near Jerusalem-- - And one of Death the Tree! - One bore a bitter strife; - A cry came from its stem: - “Thou hast forsaken Me!” - The other heard no sound at all, - Save a dumb fall. - - Both were gibbet-trees-- - From one was said, “Forgive! - They know not what they do.” - One rocked in purple breeze - Despair, that would not live, - Nor trust forgiveness:--no! - And from the wreathèd branches fell - A soul to Hell. - - - - -ONE REED - - - Shaken by winds to sigh, to song, - One reed amid the misty throng - That to a reed-bed, Christ, belong-- - One reed among - Those who are reeds to every wind, - Now in Thy Presence, now declined: - - Cut me away from dim caprice, - And sheer me from the reedy fleece! - Let my poor, shivering motion cease, - Dead of Thy peace: - A reed and no more shaken--yea, - No more a slant sedge-reed I pray! - - No more! But, Mercy infinite, - Let me not be a reed to smite - The thorns within Thy forehead tight, - And urge to sight - Thy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain! - Better the devious winds again! - - Upon Thy lips let me but lay - Such sour, dun vintage as I may; - Push not the sponge-tipped spear away, - But let it stay! - Oh, let the bitter draught through me - Bring to Thy Cross some lenity! - - - - -CRYING OUT - - - In the Orient heat He stands-- - Heat that makes the palm-trees dim, - Palms that do not shelter Him, - As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands. - - As a lizard of the rocks, - Under furnace-sun He stays; - Earth beneath Him in a daze - Is faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks. - - He among them mid the blue, - With a mouth wide open held, - As a lion-fountain welled - Under the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through. - - Wide His mouth as lion’s, set - Wide for waters of a fount! - Through them words of challenge mount, - Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met. - - “Ye the thirsty come to Me!” - So He cries with lion-roar: - “Ye will thirst not any more. - Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free. - - Jesus, in the Eastern sun, - A strange prophet with His cry! - While the folk are passing by, - And clack their tongues, nor will they run where thirst is done. - - - - -AD MORTEM - - - This sin is unto death. Whose death? Fair tomb - Of virgin rock, not for my corse such room! - Where never man hath lain - Shall I by sin attain-- - Among the unpolluted crystals lie - In my malignity? - - For I have killed my God, and I behold - His burial, behold His Body rolled - In a new sheet with nard, - And in the grotto hard - Lying as hard--O tenderest Love!--as block - Of that new-cloven rock. - - As a vile, wandering spectre I must stray, - Now I have quenched the Light, that was my Day, - By wickedness, almost - Against the Holy Ghost, - Laying within His tomb God, laying Him - Wound tight in face and limb. - - I cannot see! My eyes are wells that beat - Fountains of tears forth on my hands and feet: - With fire of pain I cry, - That angels of the sky - Come forth.... “My God, arise and live once more! - My sin I will abhor! - - “Divine One, be not dead and put away! - O Holy Ghost, blow down the stone, I pray, - Though it should crush me there - Outspread, the worst I dare. - Divine One, mid the tombs, with pardoning grace - Unwrap Thy limbs, Thy face! - - “Austere come forth upon me as grey dawn! - Well it had been that I had not been born, - Who could Thy burial see!.... - What will become of me, - Unless Thou wilt arise and bid me live, - Unless Thou wilt forgive?” - - But there is Easter every day and hour - When by the crevice of Thy tomb we cower, - Ghosts from dank night, and call, - And wait for one footfall - Of the arising, awful Love we doomed - Ourselves to lie entombed. - - - - -THE FLOWER FADETH - - - The Lord died yesterday:-- - Lowly and single, lost, - His worn disciples, tossed - With pain of tears, have wandered wide - In the country-fields, as sheep might stray. - No need to hide, - For harvesters that shout and sing have heard - Of the far city’s rumour scarce a word, - And only stare to see a stranger lost. - - Tears fight with Peter’s breath-- - He roves a field of grass, - At eventide ... a mass - Of faded flower of grass, grown grey, - Cut from sap and clinging into death, - And bowed one way. - Alone amid the darkness soon to be - Deep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterly - Christ buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass. - - Yet he had hailed Him Christ.... - The straw and clover feel - Sudden a lifted heel, - And, rudely whirled aside, are left - By the stranger’s feet, they had enticed - Beneath their weft. - But he is on the rock, the narrow way, - As if he talked with something he would say, - As if he would conceive as he could feel. - - He stands thus in sweet dark, - The hay upon the air, - His feet on bare rock bare, - Set as a statue’s, waiting on.... - Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark, - Hath a torch shone? - The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dry - Is Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry, - As the first Easter Day assumes the air. - - - - -FEAR NOT - - - A little chamber, shadowed, still - As cave within a marble hill-- - O Virgin Mother, thou dost fill - The little space, bent down in prayer! - Sudden, through tears, thou art aware - How One is standing at thy door, - As stood, some thirty years before, - The Angel when thy fear was sore. - - O Virgin--Virgin-Mother now, - No creature half so still as thou, - With the black wimple round thy brow, - For He hath entered: very white - His body, lovely as first light. - Thou tremblest ... Mother, thou dost hear - An _Ave_ stealing through thy fear, - As He who entered draweth near! - - “Jesus?”--She quickly hid in dread - The name that through her being spread - Its lustre, for her Son was dead.... - And yet her arms rise up, her eyes - Raised as at morning sacrifice: - For blessèd is she in this dower - Beyond the Holy Ghost’s, that hour - When He encompassed her in power. - - - - -RECOGNITION - - - Breath from the water, breath down from the moon, - A trembling influence between, so mild, - The water-hen makes tempest if she croon, - And fishers from the ship look forth beguiled: - They look on, careless of the reeds aswim, - And know not why they watch the shoreway dim; - - Why watch the single form that moves along, - So dark in nobleness of solitude, - By the lake-side, and gathers from among - The rushes fallen rush as fuel rude. - One from the ship bows forwards in the night.... - What makes that fisher’s face so gaily white? - - A voice comes to them: “Children, have ye caught - All the night nothing?” And the voice entreats: - “Stretch forth your nets!”--Behold, the nets are fraught, - Once dipped, with fish, a silver dance, that beats - Against the trellis.... And John’s face shines now - As Lucifer, the Dawn-star, from the prow. - - In Peter’s ear “It is the Lord” he saith-- - Virgin, he knows the Virgin Deity: - Then on the secret holding back his breath, - While Peter girds his clothes on boisterously - To spring out overboard, John doth abide - With his own smile, and steers to the Loved Side. - - - - -VENIT JESUS - -(IN THE CONFESSIONAL) - - - “Peace be to you!”--The door is closed. - “Peace be to you!”--Only His Wounds lie wide, - His Wounds in hands, and side. - And feet, His Wounds exposed. - And I rejoice - At His still hands and at the voice - Of the Wounds calling through twilight; - For here the day is almost night, - In its severe and curtained dark.... - But I rejoice to hark - What on His priest He whispers low, - Breathing the breath of power through day’s eclipse, - A sigh on all the place - As of creation on the waters’ face: - “Receive the Holy Spirit! All the sins - You shall remit, remitted are, - And those you shall retain, they are retained.” - Listen! The empery this chamber wins! - A Law moves here as peaceful as a star - Moves on the circle of its sway ordained. - Here let me kneel, and every struggle cease! - Here the dark Wounds bleed over me in peace: - Here God hath come to bless me at nightfall, - With words of consolation that appal, - For I had left Him, as the gathered few - Of His disciples He passed, darkling, through: - And yet He came to them as comes a dew.... - O bounty of such stillness!--“Peace to you!” - - - - -ASCENSION - - - Fine, jealous, in suspicion as a child, - In jealousy more infinitely wild, - Forth to us from Thy Father Thou didst come: - Now to Thy Father in His home - Ascend--to the Beginning and the Dawn! - Pass to the East, - New-born our priest-- - The East, - And where the rose is born! - - O Heaven of Heavens, as no sea is clear, - O Eastern Gate of Waters, with a spear - Day rings you wide for Christ to be released! - He passes free from Earth, our priest - Forth to His Shrine: our love, grown tense, - Would follow Him, - Through Seraphim - Lost dim, - His servers who incense. - - - - -CONFLUENCE - - _Genitori genitoque - Laus et jubilatio._ - - - One--from the limits of the sky, whence rain - And sun and dew come down, - Moveth, a sheet of fire, and in His train, - Where the flames ripple brown, - Are spirits to be born - Into the Earth, dim creatures slender, - Girt in the train of Him whose brows are tender, - Compulsive, sweet as in the strength of morn. - - One--from the deepness of the Earth, where graves - Have fallen on gems in rock, - Moveth, a sheet of fire, whose ruddy waves - Have gathered up a flock - Of people on all sides, - Redeemed from Earth by that red flowing - Behind a Form, as if from sunset glowing - Above the wheat, when harvest-home betides. - - - - -IMPLE SUPERNA GRATIA - - - We may enter far into a rose, - Parting it, hut the bee deeper still: - With our eyes we may even penetrate - To a ruby and our vision fill; - Though a beam of sunlight deeper knows - How the ruby’s heart-rays congregate. - - Give me finer potency of gift! - For Thy Holy Wounds I would attain, - As a bee the feeding loveliness - Of the sanguine roses. I would lift - Flashes of such faith that I may drain - From each Gem the wells of Blood that press! - - - - -WORDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM - - - Ye who would follow Me with song, - My heavenly bodyguard, My throng - Of happy throats, with voices free - As birds in deep-wood secrecy; - Ye who would be the core of Heaven round Me, - And therefore songsters of felicity - Beyond all ranges of the singing - That myriad voices of the Blessed are flinging - In skylark madness to Me distantly; - My Virgins, My delight and neighbourhood, - The white flowers of My Precious Blood, - Through whom it rises up and yields - Fragrance to Me of lily-fields; - How shall ye keep the whiteness of your vow? - My Virgins, My white Brides, I whisper how: - Of Virgin flesh, a Virgin God, - Incarnate among men I trod; - And when as Bread they feed on Me - Needs must that Bread be of Virginity. - Feed at My altar, My white Doves, - Feed on the Bread My Mother loves! - - - - -A MAGIC MIRROR - - - Thou art in the early youth - Of Thy mission, Thou the Truth: - Thy young eyes behold the glory - Of the lilies’ burnished story - That the lovely dress they don - Vaunts it over Solomon. - Fields of lilies and of corn - Thou dost tarry through at dawn, - Seeing in their life a spell, - Drawing it as grace to dwell - In Thy first disciples’ eyes. - We of far-off centuries - See Thee on the cornfields’ sod, - Mid the lily-heads, a God - Young and dumb as yet of grief. - Lo, although the time is brief, - All the heavenly things, Thou must - Suffer, because Love is just - To a perfect building’s measure, - Thou hast buried under pleasure - Of Thy heart incarnate mid - Youths Thou call’st and forces hid - With fresh flowers and stems of gold. - Yet Thy vision, waxing bold - Through the Truth, amid the light - Of this world’s green, gold and white, - Sees a desert stretch away, - Stretched on its upheavals gray, - Round a serpent lifted high - In untarnishable sky. - Thou dost see that serpent high - In untarnishable sky: - And with ruddy lips dost say - How the Son of Man one day - Must be lifted for Love’s sake. - Thy bright eyes, so clear awake, - See Thy Body lifted high - As a serpent’s in the sky. - Day by day Thou see’st Thy Cross-- - Yet the cornfields are not dross; - Nor the lilies, kinglike clad, - Grave-clothes of a weaving sad. - Life for lily-flowers too fair-- - No sustaining corn may share-- - Thou dost hail for those who gaze - On the serpent’s lifted maze. - Feeder among Lilies, Bread - To Thy multitudes outspread, - Let me love Thy pasture, all - Bliss that round my life may fall, - Though my eyes and voice, as Thine, - Witness the raised serpent’s twine. - - - - -DESCENT FROM THE CROSS - - - Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself--come down! - Thou wilt be free as wind. None meeting thee will know - How thou wert hanging stark, my soul, outside the town. - Thou wilt fare to and fro; - Thy feet in grass will smell of faithful thyme; thy head ... - Think of the thorns, my soul--how thou wilt cast them off, - With shudder at the bleeding clench they hold! - But on their wounds thou wilt a balsam spread, - And over that a verdurous circle rolled - With gathered violets, sweet bright violets, sweet - As incense of the thyme on thy free feet; - A wreath thou wilt not give away, nor wilt thou doff. - - Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself; yea, move - As scudding swans pass lithely on a seaward stream! - Thou wilt have everything thou wert made great to love; - Thou wilt have ease for every dream; - No nails with fang will hold thy purpose to one aim; - There will be arbours round about thee, not one trunk - Against thy shoulders pressed and burning them with hate, - Yea, burning with intolerable flame. - O lips, such noxious vinegar have drunk, - There are through valley-woods and mountain-glades - Rivers where thirst in naked prowess wades; - And there are wells in solitude whose chill no hour abates! - - Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself! A sign - Thou wilt become to many, as a shooting star. - They will believe thou art æthereal, divine, - When thou art where they are; - They will believe in thee and give thee feasts and praise. - They will believe thy power when thou hast loosed thy nails; - For power to them is fetterless and grand: - For destiny to them, along their ways, - Is one whose Earthly Kingdom never fails. - Thou wilt be as a prophet or a king - In thy tremendous term of flourishing-- - And thy hot royalty with acclamations fanned. - - Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself!... Beware! - Art thou not crucified with God, who is thy breath? - Wilt thou not hang as He while mockers laugh and stare? - Wilt thou not die His death? - Wilt thou not stay as He with nails and thorns and thirst? - Wilt thou not choose to conquer faith in His lone style? - Wilt thou not be with Him and hold thee still? - Voices have cried to Him, _Come down!_ Accursed - And vain those voices, striving to beguile! - How heedless, solemn-gray in powerful mass, - Christ droops among the echoes as they pass! - O soul, remain with Him, with Him thy doom fulfil! - - - - -UNSURPASSED - - - Lord Jesus, Thou didst come to us, to man, - From Godhead’s open golden Halls, - From Godhead’s hidden Throne - Of glory, no imagination can - Achieve, and it must glow alone, - Behind a cloud that falls - Over the Triune Perfectness its voice - Of thunder, making Cherubim rejoice, - And Seraphim as doves in rapture moan. - - Yet Thou didst come to us a wailing child, - Homeless, tied up in swaddling-clothes, - To live in poverty - And by the road: then, with detractions piled, - And infamies of misery - From scourge and thorns and blows, - To die a felon fastened into wood - By nails that in their jeering harshness could - Clamp vermin of the forests to a tree. - - And Thou dost come to us from Heaven each day, - Obeying words that call Thee down - On mortal lips; and Thou, - Jesus, dost suffer mortal power to slay - Its God in sacrifice: dost bow - Thy bright Supremacy to lose its Crown, - Closed in a prison, yet through Godhead free - To every insult, gibe and contumely-- - Come from Forever to be with us Now. - - So Thou dost come to us. But when at last - Thou callest us to come to Thee, - We only have to die, - Only from weary bones our flesh to cast, - Only to give a bitter cry; - Yea, but a little while to see - Our beauty falling from us, in its fall - Destined to lose its suasions that enthral, - Destined to be as any gem put by. - - We but fulfil our stricken Nature’s law - To fail and to consume and end; - While Thou dost come and break, - Coming to us, Thy Nature with a flaw - Of death and for our mortal sake - Thou dost Thy awful wholeness rend. - Oh, let me run to Thee, as runs a wind, - That leaves the withered trees, it moved, behind, - And triumphs forward, careless of its wake! - - - - -WASTING - - - I need Thee, O my Food, - O Christ, for whom I pine fourteen long days-- - And, as the time delays, - More sad my mood, - More faint my powers; - Like that poor Beast of fairy-tale, - Who by the fountain cowers, - Reft of his Beauty, his poor love’s avail, - By whom he lives, and, missing, dies - By inches, at the fountain, with wan eyes! - - O come, my Beauty, come, - My Lord, by whom I flourish and am strong; - If I must wait so long, - And mourn so dumb, - Reach me in time, - Before I shudder into death and die! - Bow down sublime, - O Beautiful in pity, where I lie, - And rouse me, sovereign, from my woe, - Empowering me with Thy celestial glow! - - - - -THE HOUR OF NEED - - - O mother of my Lord, - Beautiful Mary, aid! - He, whom thy will adored, - When thy body was afraid, - Is coming in my flesh to dwell-- - Pray for me, Mary ... and white Gabriel! - - To thee He came a child, - To me He comes as wheat: - And He descended mild - To His Mother, as was meet. - To me He comes where sin hath been ... - Gabriel, sweep thy lily-stem between! - - He came, O Mary, down - To bless thy virgin womb: - From me He sweeps God’s frown, - And He lifts me from a tomb. - Thou wert afraid.... Have grace toward me! - Help me, O Mary! Gabriel, hearten me! - - Great love it was to give - His Body to thy care, - In thine awhile to live: - For me this love He will dare.... - Pray, Mary, pray! My soul is shent! - Thy wings, thy wings, O Gabriel, for my tent! - - - - -EXTREME UNCTION - - - Soft fall the Holy Oils, their drip - Peaceful as Jesus sleeping on the ship. - Our eyes, so restless and so full of grip, - Reflecting as the sea, - Give up their range and their possession, free - As if to sleep--the sleep of Deity. - - Upon the ears a lull that dowers - With gentleness of bees in laurel-flowers; - So that it gives to Quiet breeding powers, - A future wrought of gold, - When we shall hear what never hath been told, - And fathom sound it takes all heaven to hold. - - Oh, softness on the nostrils, where they strained - After their airy lusts till they attained; - Now, by the Cross of balm so softly reined, - They wait to breathe for breath - The vigour of their God, as a shell saith, - Left on the beach, “The brine will wake my death.” - - The lips receive no coal of fire - To urge their fervent crying should not tire; - A tender Cross gives check to such desire, - And bids them wait their song, - Till they are far from peril and among - The consonant and ever-praising throng. - - The hands, the feet ... O Jesus, all - Marked with Thy Cross, but as a dream may fall - In mercy on a mind great woes appal-- - A healing shade, - A priestly grace, so soft the Cross is made, - Embracing, by the nails we are not frayed. - - Crosses as flowers on every sense - Fall, rest on them in heavenly suspense; - And then we know the holy, the immense - Delight of what shall be. - When, sanctified and calm for joyance, we - Shall have of God our bodies deathlessly. - - - - -AFTER ANOINTING - - - Joy of the senses, joy of all - And each of them, as fall - The Holy Oils!... O senses, ye would dance, - Would circle what ye cannot see, - Nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch, - Yet ye receive of your felicity, - Till ye would reel and dance; - The joy apparent from your bliss being such - That, in a fivefold garland knit, - Softly ye would circle it. - - Joy ripples through each covered lid; - Nor are the ears forbid - Sounds as of honeycomb, so sweet is Heaven - Afar, such sweet, such haunting sound! - O nostrils, myrtle ye shall love! - The lips taste fully, as if God were found. - Swift, under peace, toward Heaven - The hands, the feet, so still, like still lakes move, - Delighted Powers of Sense, ye dance, - Woven in such a lovely chance! - - - - -VIATICUM - - - O heart, that burns within, - Illuminated, hot! - O feet, that tread the road - As if they trod it not-- - So lifted and so winged - By rare companionship! - No matter tho’ the road - Doth unto shadow dip; - The meaning of the night - My ears, attentive, hail. - The mighty silence brings - Music no nightingale - Hath warbled from its fount; - Music of holy things - Made clear as song can make, - With marvellous utterings: - The Past become a joy - Of instant clarity, - As the deep evening fills - With converse brimmingly. - O nightingale, hold back - Your wildest song’s discant; - You cannot make my heart - With such devotion pant - As He who steps along - Beside me in the shade, - Down the steep valley-road, - The enveloping, dark glade! - Hush, O dim nightingale!... - Is it my God whose Feet - Wing mine to travel on; - Whose voice in current sweet - Shows how divine the thought - And purpose is of all - That hath been and shall be, - And shall to me befall? - Stay, nightingale! Behold! - This Wayfarer, with strange, - Wild Voice that rouses gloom - Thy voice could never range, - Hath broken Bread with me! - No resinous, balmed shrine - Glows from its core as I, - When I behold His sign, - And touch His offering Hand. - O holiest journey, sped - With Him who died for me, - Who breaking with me Bread, - Is known to me as Life, - Is felt by me as Fire; - Who is my Way and all - My wayfaring’s Desire! - - - - -A GIFT OF SWEETNESS - - - I thought to lay my hands about Thy Crown, - And gather, bleeding, its sharp spines: - But as I knelt and bowed my forehead down, - Worshipping thy cruel desert-Crown, - Worshipping its thicket of sharp spines-- - Through them blew a little wind, - Clearer than the dew in breath - Round Thy Mother’s feet at Nazareth; - In a cloud it left behind - Scent of violets, of such birth - They had never broken earth, - But through meshes of the Crown of Thorn, - In a fertilising cloud, were born; - And, fresh with piety of grace, - Were thrown--oh sweet!--unseen across my face. - That never will a mould-born violet-bed - Smell like the violets from the Sacred Head. - - - - -IN CHRISTO - - - As shade doth on a dial slide, - Those dark and parting eyes abide - Toward me from the tall vessel’s side: - Eyes lovelier than the stones of grace - That build for God His dwelling-place; - Beyond all jewels in device, - Yea, beyond amethyst in price, - The hyacinth-stone in loveliness. - Delectable, dear eyes that bless; - A saviour’s eyes, bent down on me, - As New Jerusalem might be - Come down, adorned with Charity.... - Let the tall vessel sweep to sea! - - - - -SIGHTS FOR GOD - - - A woman, heavenly as dew - Of the fresh morning, in a little room - Is kneeling down, and through - The door of it an Angel’s bloom - Of light, how lonely, hath advanced, - And on the walls his lovely light hath danced, - As he hath told God’s utter Will - Unto that creature heavenly and still-- - God the Father’s terrible, high Will. - Motions of fear and wonder - The girl sways under; - Her eyes distraught, as wings - A hawk’s suspension brings - To panic, when two doves - Tremble mid their sweet loves. - She sees beyond sight’s rim - God and the Power of Him; - His Promise fallen on her - As grace He would confer-- - Men and the fear their speech - Must startle should it reach - A virgin’s secrecy.... - How can such terrors be? - Then over her, distraught, - Falls a contentment wrought - To courage of a word - By the Archangel heard - With heart’s felicity-- - “Be it done unto me - According to His Will.” - The little room thereafter grew more still, - And Mary knelt and shone - With grace, although the Angel’s beam was gone. - This was the fairest sight God yet had looked upon-- - Mary, the chosen Mother of His Son, - Obedient to Him - As glowing Seraphim. - - A lonely Man, beneath the trees, - That stoop above a sward of garden-ground, - Kneels in the evening breeze, - Felt as flow without a sound. - While He kneels in that cool place, - With the moonlight settled on His face, - He is praying that He may not drink - Of a Cup filled bitter to the brink, - Praying in His anguish not to drink. - And, in strife tremendous - Of woe stupendous, - He strains with power so great-- - As a red pomegranate - That splits and bleeds His head - With blood is scarlet-red. - He struggles with the might - Of the world’s sin in sight, - That He must bear if now - He bends ensanguined brow, - And drinks that awful Cup - Before his eyes raised up. - Sin!--us He meets the shock, - Earth reddens to its rock - With blood.... Then peace from storm - Comes to that ruddy Form, - And a brave word of God - Blows over the wet sod-- - “If I must drink, not mine, - My will, O Father, thine - Be done! Not mine, Thy Will!” - The garden-shades thereafter grew more still, - Because an angel came, - And the red forehead whitened in his flame. - This was the fairest sight God ever looked upon-- - Jesus, His loved, only-begotten Son, - Obedient to Him - As sworded Cherubim. - - - - -TRANSIT - - - _Cloud that streams its breath of unseen flowers, - Cloud with spice of bay, - Of roses, lily-breathings, and the powers - Of small violets, or, aloft, black poplars as they quiver!_ - - _Cloud that streams its song of birds--no bird - Seen to chant the song: - Yet wide and keen as sun-breath it is heard, - All the air itself a voice of voices chiming golden!_ - - _Mary hath passed by. All plants sweet-leaved, - Sweet-flowered; birds, sweet-voiced, - Round her passing have their sweetness weaved. - Let us yield our incense up, our anthems and our homage!_ - - - SOME OF THESE POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED - IN “THE IRISH MONTHLY” AND - IN “THE ROSARY.” ONE WAS PUBLISHED - IN “THE UNIVERSE.” - - - PRINTED BY - BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD - AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS - TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN - LONDON - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems of Adoration, by -Michael Field and Katherine Bradley and Emma Cooper - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ADORATION *** - -***** This file should be named 61070-0.txt or 61070-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/7/61070/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Poems of Adoration - -Author: Michael Field - Katherine Bradley - Emma Cooper - -Release Date: January 1, 2020 [EBook #61070] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ADORATION *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="c"> -<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="328" height="500" alt="" /></a> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span> </p> - -<p class="c">POEMS OF ADORATION</p> - -<h1> -POEMS OF ADORATION<br /> -BY<br /> -MICHAEL FIELD</h1> - -<p>SANDS & CO. LONDON & EDINBURGH<br /></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v">{v}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<p class="c">POEMS OF ADORATION</p> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td> </td><td class="rt"><small><small>PAGE</small></small></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DESOLATION">DESOLATION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ENTBEHREN_SOLLST_DU">ENTBEHREN SOLLST DU</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_3">3</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FREGIT">FREGIT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_5">5</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#SICUT_PARVULI">SICUT PARVULI</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_6">6</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#AURUM_THUS_ET_MYRRHA_ALLELUIA">AURUM, THUS, ET MYRRHA—ALLELUIA!</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_7">7</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#HOLY_COMMUNION">HOLY COMMUNION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_8">8</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#OF_SILENCE">OF SILENCE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_9">9</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#REAL_PRESENCE">REAL PRESENCE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_11">11</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FROM_THE_HIGHWAY">FROM THE HIGHWAY</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_13">13</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THAT_HE_SHOULD_TASTE_DEATH_FOR_EVERY_MAN">“THAT HE SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR EVERY MAN”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_14">14</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#NIMIS_HONORATI_SUNT">NIMIS HONORATI SUNT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_16">16</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#BLESSED_ARE_THE_BEGGARS">BLESSED ARE THE BEGGARS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_17">17</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT1">THE BLESSED SACRAMENT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_19">19</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT2">THE BLESSED SACRAMENT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_20">20</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td> </td></tr> - -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#COLUMBA_MEA">COLUMBA MEA</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_22">22</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#VIRGO_POTENS">VIRGO POTENS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_23">23</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ANOTHER_LEADETH_THEE">ANOTHER LEADETH THEE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_25">25</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_GARDEN_OF_LAZARUS">THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_28">28</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#HOLY_CROSS">HOLY CROSS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_30">30</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PURGATORY">PURGATORY</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_31">31</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FORTITUDO_EGENIS">FORTITUDO EGENIS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_32">32</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PAX_VOBISCUM">PAX VOBISCUM</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_33">33</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PURISSIMAE_VIRGINI_SACELLUM">PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IN_THE_BEGINNING">IN THE BEGINNING</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_36">36</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#AN_ANTIPHONY_OF_ADVENT">AN ANTIPHONY OF ADVENT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_37">37</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ANNUNCIATIONS">ANNUNCIATIONS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_40">40</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#STONES_OF_THE_BROOK">STONES OF THE BROOK</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_41">41</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#RELICS">RELICS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_43">43</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ON_CAUCASUS">ON CAUCASUS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_47">47</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IN_THE_SEA">IN THE SEA</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_49">49</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#COMMUNICANTES_ET_MEMORIAM_VENERANTES_JOANNIS_ET_PAULI">... JOANNIS ET PAULI”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_52">52</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IN_MONTE_FANNO">IN MONTE FANNO</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_55">55</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#MACRINUS_AGAINST_TREES">MACRINUS AGAINST TREES</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_57">57</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PASCHALS_MASS">PASCHAL’S MASS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_59">59</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_SNOW-CAVE">A SNOW-CAVE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_61">61</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#PROPHET">PROPHET</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_63">63</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#LOOKING_UPON_JESUS_AS_HE_WALKED">LOOKING UPON JESUS AS HE WALKED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_65">65</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_DANCE_OF_DEATH">A DANCE OF DEATH</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_67">67</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#OBEDIENCE">OBEDIENCE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_71">71</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#GARDENS_ENCLOSED">GARDENS ENCLOSED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_72">72</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#GARDEN-SEED">GARDEN-SEED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_73">73</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#UNIVERSA_COHORS">UNIVERSA COHORS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_74">74</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IN_EXTREMIS">IN EXTREMIS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_76">76</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_LIGNO">A LIGNO</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_78">78</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ONE_REED">ONE REED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_80">80</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CRYING_OUT">CRYING OUT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_81">81</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#AD_MORTEM">AD MORTEM</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_83">83</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_FLOWER_FADETH">THE FLOWER FADETH</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_85">85</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#FEAR_NOT">FEAR NOT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_87">87</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#RECOGNITION">RECOGNITION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_88">88</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#VENIT_JESUS">VENIT JESUS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_89">89</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#ASCENSION">ASCENSION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_90">90</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#CONFLUENCE">CONFLUENCE</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_91">91</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IMPLE_SUPERNA_GRATIA">IMPLE SUPERNA GRATIA</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_92">92</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii">{vii}</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#WORDS_OF_THE_BRIDEGROOM">WORDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_93">93</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_MAGIC_MIRROR">A MAGIC MIRROR</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_94">94</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#DESCENT_FROM_THE_CROSS">DESCENT FROM THE CROSS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_96">96</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#UNSURPASSED">UNSURPASSED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_99">99</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#WASTING">WASTING</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_101">101</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#THE_HOUR_OF_NEED">THE HOUR OF NEED</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_102">102</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#EXTREME_UNCTION">EXTREME UNCTION</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#AFTER_ANOINTING">AFTER ANOINTING</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_105">105</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#VIATICUM">VIATICUM</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_106">106</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#A_GIFT_OF_SWEETNESS">A GIFT OF SWEETNESS</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#IN_CHRISTO">IN CHRISTO</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_109">109</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#SIGHTS_FOR_GOD">SIGHTS FOR GOD</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> -<tr><td valign="top"><a href="#TRANSIT">TRANSIT</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_113">113</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii">{viii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="DESOLATION" id="DESOLATION"></a>DESOLATION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">WHO comes?...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Beautiful!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Low thunder thrums,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun runs forth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To stare at Him, who journeys north<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O beautiful and whole,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In that red stole!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O clustered grapes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His garment rolled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">See, there is blood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now on His garment, vest and hood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though there is none to play<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Vintage-lay.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The Word<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of God, His name ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But nothing heard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save beat of His lone feet forever stirred<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tread the press—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">None with Him in His loneliness;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No treader with Him in the spume, no man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">His flesh shows dusk with wine: since He began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hath not stayed, that forth may pour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Vineyard’s store.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He treads<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The angry grapes ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their anger spreads,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all its brangling passion sheds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In blood. O God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy wrath, Thy wine-press He hath trod—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The fume, the carnage, and the murderous heat!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet all is changed by patience of the feet:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The blood sinks down; the vine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is issued wine.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O task<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sacrifice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That we may bask<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Treader lone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How pitiful Thy shadow thrown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Athwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the berries, dark and wet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thee we forget!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ENTBEHREN_SOLLST_DU" id="ENTBEHREN_SOLLST_DU"></a>ENTBEHREN SOLLST DU</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">’Neath the Garden of Gethsemane’s<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Olive-wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst cast Thy will away from Thee<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In Thy blood.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Through the shade, when torches spat their light,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And arms shone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst find Thy lovers and Thy friends<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Were all gone.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In the Judgment Hall, Thy hands and feet<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bound with cord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst lose Thy freedom’s sweetness—all<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thy freedom, Lord.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In the Soldiers’ Hall, Thy Sovereignty<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Laughed to naught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wert scourged, Thy brow by bramble-wreath<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sharply caught.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Stripped of vest and garments Thou didst lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Mid hill-moss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Naked, helpless as a nurse’s child,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On Thy cross.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Raised, Thou gavest to another son,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Standing by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her who bore Thee once, and, deep in pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Watched Thee die.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All was cast away from Thee; and then,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With wild drouth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Why dost Thou forsake me, Father?” broke<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From Thy mouth.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Everything gone from Thee, even daylight;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">None to trust;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst render up Thy holy Life<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To the dust.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Help me, from my passion, to recall<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thy sheer loss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And adore the sovereign nakedness<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of Thy Cross!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="FREGIT" id="FREGIT"></a>FREGIT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">ON the night of dedication<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of Thyself as our oblation,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Christ, Belovèd, Thou didst take<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In Thy very hands and break....<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O my God, there is the hiss of doom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When new-glowing flowers are snapt in bloom;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When shivered, as a little thunder-cloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A vase splits on the floor its brilliance loud;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or lightning strikes a willow-tree with gash<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cloven for death in a resounded crash;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I have heard that one who could betray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His country and yet face the breadth of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bowed himself, weeping, but to hear his sword<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Broken before him, as his sin’s award.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These were broken; Thou didst break....<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Thou the Flower that Heaven did make<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of our race the crown of light;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou the Vase of Chrysolite<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Into which God’s balm doth flow;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou the Willow hung with woe<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of our exile harps; Thou Sword<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the Everlasting Word—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou, betrayed, Thyself didst break<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thy own Body for our sake:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thy own Body Thou didst take<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In Thy holy hands—and break.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="SICUT_PARVULI" id="SICUT_PARVULI"></a>SICUT PARVULI</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">WITH me, laid upon my tongue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As upon Thy Mother’s knee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wert laid at Thy Nativity;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she felt Thee lie her wraps among.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tenderest pressure, dint of grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All she dreamed and loved in God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a shoot from an old Patriarch’s rod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laid upon her, felt by her embrace.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O my God, to have Thee, feel Thee mine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Thy helpless Presence! Love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not to dream of Thee in power above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But receive Thee, Little One divine!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As the burthen of a seal<br /></span> -<span class="i0">May give kingdoms with its touch,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, Thy meek preponderance is such,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am straight ennobled as I kneel.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Teach me, tiny Godhead, to adore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On my flesh Thy tender weight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Thy Mother, bowing, owned how great<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was the Child that unto us she bore.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="AURUM_THUS_ET_MYRRHA_ALLELUIA" id="AURUM_THUS_ET_MYRRHA_ALLELUIA"></a>AURUM, THUS, ET MYRRHA—ALLELUIA!</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O GIFT, O Blessèd Sacrament—<i>my Gold</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All that I live by royally, the power,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like gold, that buys life for me, hour by hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And crowns me with a greatness manifold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such that my spirit scarce hath spring to hold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its treasure and its sovereignty of dower!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Blessèd Sacrament—<i>my Frankincense</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God raised aloft in His Divinity,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet-smelling as the dry and precious tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That spreads round sacrifice an odour dense,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hiding with mystic offering our offence;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O holy Balm of God that pleads for me!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Gift, O Blessèd Sacrament—<i>my Myrrh</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou art to die for me—a holy Thing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That will preserve my soul from festering,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor may it feel mortality, the stir<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And motion into dust, if Thou confer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On it Thy bitter strength of cherishing!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="HOLY_COMMUNION" id="HOLY_COMMUNION"></a>HOLY COMMUNION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">IN the Beginning—and in me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flesh of my flesh, O Deity,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bone of my bone;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In me alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Create, as if on Thy sixth day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I, of frail breath and clay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were yet one seed with Thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Engendering Trinity!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My Lord, the honour of great fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be Thy teeming <i>fiat</i> here;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In blood and will<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Urged to fulfil<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy rounded motion of behest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One with Thy power and blest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To act by aim and right<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thy prevenient might!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="OF_SILENCE" id="OF_SILENCE"></a>OF SILENCE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Be it done unto me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">According to Thy word....”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into Mortality<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slips the Eternal Word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When not a sound is heard.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">She spake those words, and then<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was silent in her heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mother of Silence, when<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her will spake from her heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her lips had done their part.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And only once we hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her words that intercede;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her will so sweetly clear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those lips should intercede,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And help men in their need.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Out of her silence grew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Word, and as a man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He neither cried nor knew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The strivings of a man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When doom for Him began.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And after He had gone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Earth to Heaven away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He came and lingered on;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He would not pass away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But with His people stay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Son of the Silent Maid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He chose her silence too.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In dumbness He hath stayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dumbness unbroken too,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Past measure—as night-dew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O quiet, holy Host,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our pondering Joy and Light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Thy still power engrossed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a mute star pleads light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou pleadest, Infinite!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="REAL_PRESENCE" id="REAL_PRESENCE"></a>REAL PRESENCE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I APPROACH Thy Altar.... Stay!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Let me break away!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Level stones of marble, brazen lights,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Linen spread, flowers on the shelves and heights—<br /></span> -<span class="i8">I bow down, I kneel ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And far away, where the sun sets, would reel!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For from forth Thy altar Thou<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Strikest on me now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strikest on me, firm and warm to thrill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the charm of one whose touch could kill;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Giving me desire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward substance, yet for flight the lightning’s fire.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">So, if close a lover kneels,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Praying close, one feels<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the body’s flow of life reined tight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As when waters struggle at their height;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From Thy altar-stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou in my body bodily art known.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And I fear Thee worse than death,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As we fear Love’s breath:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou art as a tiger round a camp;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And I kindle, terrified, my lamp,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Since I cannot fly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But to hold Thee distant, lest I die.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Thou art God, and in the mesh,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Close to me, of flesh;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we love and we have been in range<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wild secrecies of interchange:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Could I bear Thee near<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I should be humble to Thee—but I <i>fear</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="FROM_THE_HIGHWAY" id="FROM_THE_HIGHWAY"></a>FROM THE HIGHWAY</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">KING of Kings, Thou comest down the street<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To my door ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As from ankles of the heavenly feet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wild angels, tinkling pedals sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And sweet bells;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if water-carriers from bright wells<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jangled freshets to a dewless land,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou art called upon the air,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Thou mountest to me, stair by stair:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In my presence Thou dost stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Thou comest to me on my bed....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lord, I live and am not dead!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">I should be dead—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I, a sinner! And Thou comest swift....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woe, to wake such love to roam about,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wandering the street to find me out,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bringing wholesome balm for gift,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As, in contrariety,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come to Magdalen, not she,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Pure, to Thee!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THAT_HE_SHOULD_TASTE_DEATH_FOR_EVERY_MAN" id="THAT_HE_SHOULD_TASTE_DEATH_FOR_EVERY_MAN"></a>“THAT HE SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR EVERY MAN”</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">IN all things Thou art like us and content,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bowing, receiv’st Thy sacrament.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is it?—that Thou kneelest meek?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what the gift that Thou dost seek<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside us at Thy altars? Hour by hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What is it lays up in Thee holy power?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ, if Thou comest suppliant<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is to Death, the Celebrant!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Death gives the wafer of his dust;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ashes of his harvest thrust<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon Thy tongue Thou tastest, then<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost swallow for the sake of men.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Brightness of the Heavens, to save<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy creatures Thou dost eat the grave!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Our Sacrament—oh, generous!—of wheat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dust that out of corn we eat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whiteness of Life’s fair grain! O Christ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No grinding of the cornfield had sufficed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lay upon our tongues Thy holy Bread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless Thou hadst Thyself so harshly fed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With grindings of the bone of death, the grit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That once was beauty and the form of it;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once welcome, now so sharp to taste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once featured, now the dregs of waste;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hope once filled, now lacking aught<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of treasure to be sold or bought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span>—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dust of our substance Thou each day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dost taste of in its fated clay....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O soul, take thought! It is thy God<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That to His lips presses this choking sod!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="NIMIS_HONORATI_SUNT" id="NIMIS_HONORATI_SUNT"></a>NIMIS HONORATI SUNT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">“Cast not your pearls down before swine!”<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The words are Thine!—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Listen, cast not<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The treasure of a white sea-grot,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An uncontaminate, round loveliness,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pearl of ocean-waters fathomless,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A secret of exceeding, cherished light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dream withdrawn from evening infinite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A beauty God gave silence to—cast not<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This wealth from treasury of Indian seas,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Or Persian fisheries,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down in the miry dens that clot<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The feet of swine, who trample, hide and blot.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">To us Thy words!... But, see,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In Thy idolatry<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of us, all thought<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of counsel fails and falls to nought!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pearl of Great Price, within the monstrance set,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why wilt Thou for Thyself Thy charge forget?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Love, from deeps before the world began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Sheltered of God’s Bosom, why for man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt Thou so madly in the slough be cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Concealed ’mid tramplings and disgrace of swine?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Host, O White, Benign!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why spend in rage of love at last<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy wisdom all eternity amassed?<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="BLESSED_ARE_THE_BEGGARS" id="BLESSED_ARE_THE_BEGGARS"></a>BLESSED ARE THE BEGGARS <span class="smcap">Matt.</span> v. 3</h2> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">TAKE me along with thee, O blessed, seeking one!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take me along with thee! Thou art not poor;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Arimathea doth thy wealth immure;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast a garden in the country sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast a new, clean-chiselled grave awaits thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A grave, self-chosen, neither low nor narrow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thou couldst bring excess of myrrh and aloe<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As gift where thou dost love,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">If thou thy love wouldst prove:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet must thou beg. A beggar Pilate rates thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coming to beg the body of thy Lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cast from the Cross by men, of thee adored.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> “This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of -Jesus.”—Luke xxiii. 52.</p></div> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">TAKE me along with thee, and let me learn thy prayer!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Take me along with thee! I must prevail.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all that I possess is void and stale<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless I have God’s Body in my care.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kneeling together, make for both petition!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only upon our knees shall we receive Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only by importunity achieve Him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">And crying with one need.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Prompt in thy grace, give heed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I am a beggar of thy wild condition:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I huddle to thy side, my hope is thine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy will my will—His Body must be mine.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT1" id="THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT1"></a>THE BLESSED SACRAMENT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">LO, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Father, the Paraclete is sent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—I must die:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sure as a star within the firmament<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His Son is back among us, with His own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And craving at our hands an altar-stone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thereon, a victim, meek He takes his place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while to offer Him His priests make bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He looketh upward to His Father’s Face.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT2" id="THE_BLESSED_SACRAMENT2"></a>THE BLESSED SACRAMENT</h2> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">GATHER, gather,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Drawn by the Father,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drawn to the dear procession of His Son!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They are bearing His Body.... Run<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the Well-Belovèd! Haste to Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Who down the street passeth secretly,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Adorned with Seraphim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still as the blooms of an apple-tree.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Gather, gather,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Drawn by the Father!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not now He dwelleth in the Virgin’s womb:<br /></span> -<span class="i6">In the harvests He hath His room;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the lovely vintage, from the wheat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the harvests that we this year have grown,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He giveth us His flesh to eat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in very substance makes us His own.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Gather, gather,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Drawn by the Father!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun is down, it is the sundown hour.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He, who set the fair sun to flower,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And the stars to rise and fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span>—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Kneel, and your garments before Him spread!<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Kneel, He loveth us all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is come in the breaking of Bread.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">Gather, gather<br /></span> -<span class="i6">(Drawn by the Father),<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To our God who is shown to us so mild,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Borne in our midst, a child!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is King and with an orb so small:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And not a word will He say,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Nor on the Angels call,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though we trample Him down on the way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the Holy Angels He will not call....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, guard Him with breasts impregnable!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i3"><i>Sept. 25-26, 1908</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="COLUMBA_MEA" id="COLUMBA_MEA"></a>COLUMBA MEA<br /><br /> -<small>“<i>Una est Columba mea, perfecta mea.</i>”</small></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">DOVE of the Holy Dove,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His one, His mate—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One art thou, single in thy mortal state<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To be the chosen of Love,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His one, white Dove,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For whom He left His place in Trinity,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Letting His pinions fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Low to the earth, that His great power might be<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Around thee, nor appal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, soft in singleness of strength, might bring<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The glory of the Father and the Son<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To thee, the chosen One,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the sounding clash of each vast wing.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">His Perfect, thou art made<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Immaculate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For thou with dovelike whiteness must elate<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That Heavenly Spouse arrayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Beyond all shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In whiteness of the Godhead of God’s throne,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That loves in utter white<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From Person unto Person, and alone<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Had dwelt in His pure light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until one day the Holy Dove was sent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Thee, O Mary, thee, O Dove on earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And God the Son had birth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of thee, Perfection of thy God’s intent.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="VIRGO_POTENS" id="VIRGO_POTENS"></a>VIRGO POTENS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">YOUNG on the mountains and fresh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the wind that thrills her hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the dews that lap the flesh<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of her feet from cushions of thyme;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While her feet through the herbage climb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Growing hardier, sweeter still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On rock-roses and cushions of thyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As she springs up the hill!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A goat in its vaultings less lithe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From rock, to a tuft, to a rock;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the young of wild-deer blithe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The young of wild-deer, yet alone:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strong as an eaglet just flown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She wanders the white-woven earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the young of wild-deer, yet alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In her triumph of mirth.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">She will be Mother of God!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Secret He lies in her womb:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this mountain she hath trod<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was later in strength than is she,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who before its mass might be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was chosen to bear her bliss:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Conceived before mountains was she,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Before any abyss.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The might that dwells in her youth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is song to her heart and soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of joy that, as joy, is truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That magnifies, and leaps<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With its jubilant glee and sweeps,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O fairest, her breast, her throat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her mouth, and magnanimous leaps,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As the mountain-lark’s note!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Across the old hills she springs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With God’s first dream as her crown:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She scales them swift, for she brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Elizabeth news of grace.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The charity of her face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is that of a lovely day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When the birds are singing news of grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And the storms are away.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ANOTHER_LEADETH_THEE" id="ANOTHER_LEADETH_THEE"></a>ANOTHER LEADETH THEE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">IN whose hands, O Son of God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was Thy earthly Mission held?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not in Thine, that made earth’s sod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the ocean as it welled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From creation to the shore;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not in Thine, whose fingers’ lore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Checked the tide with golden bars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ruled the clouds and dinted stars—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not in Thine, that made fresh leaves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the flourished wheat for sheaves;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grapes that bubbled from a spring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the nightingale might sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the blood of her wild throat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not in Thine that struck her note;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Maned the lion and wrought the lamb;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breathed on clay, “Be as I am!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it stood before Thee fair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thinking, loving, furnished rare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like Thee, so beyond compare....<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Not within Thy hands!—Behold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By a woman’s hand unrolled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the mystery sublime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thy ableness through Time!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou, in precious Boyhood, knew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Thy Father what to do;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And delayed Thyself to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Questions and to answer clear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the Doctors’ chiming throng,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou, admired, wert set among.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straight Thy Mission was begun,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the Jewish Rabbis spun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round Thy fetterless, sweet mind<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Problems no one had divined.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Thy Mother came that way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who had sought Thee day by day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And her crystal voice reproved<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy new way with Thy beloved.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Thy wisdom-widened eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Throbbed a radiance of surprise:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, Thy Mother having chidden,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou in Nazareth wert hidden;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Thy Father’s Work begun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stayed full eighteen years undone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till Thou camest on Thine hour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Thy Mother loosed Thy power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Thy Father’s business, said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a murmur softly spread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rippling to a happy few,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“What He says unto you do!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the spring-time to a tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sudden spring she was to Thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When her strange appeal began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy stayed Mission unto man;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stayed but by her earlier blame,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When from three days’ woe she came;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet renewed when she gave sign<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Son, they have not any wine!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Holy trust and love! She gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Thy sake oblation brave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of her will, her spotless name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou for her didst boldly tame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God the Word to wait on her;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God’s own Wisdom might not stir<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till her lovely voice decreed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wouldst have our hearts give heed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And revere her lovely voice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wait upon her secret choice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stay her pleasure, as didst Thou,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a marvel on Thy brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a silence on Thy breath.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We must cherish what she saith;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As she pleadeth we must hope<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For our deeds’ accepted scope,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Humble as her Heavenly Son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till our liberty be won.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_GARDEN_OF_LAZARUS" id="THE_GARDEN_OF_LAZARUS"></a>THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">IN a garden at Bethany,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Mother, Mother, Mother!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the passion-flowers and olive-leaves—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His Mother—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet, behold, how tranquilly<br /></span> -<span class="i4">She is sad and grieves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though her Son is gone away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she knows Passover Day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will not leave her Lamb, her Child unslain!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He hath spoken to deaf ears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All save hers, of mortal pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And of parting, yet she has no tears....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He is gone away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With His chosen few to eat the Pasch,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leaving in the eyes, she raised to ask,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mute assurance He would come no more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back to Bethany, nor Lazarus’ door.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Mother, Mother, Mother!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But she keeps so many things apart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In their silence, pondering them by heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Always she has pondered in her heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it knows her Son is Son of God....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Silently she gazes where He trod<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the valley to Jerusalem—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His Mother!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round her birds are at their parting song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the light that will not strike them long;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the flowers are very gold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the light before whose loss they fold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Keen the song, as on each wing,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on each rose and each rose-stem<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Full the burnishing.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She hath crossed her hands around her breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it seems her heart is taking rest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With some Mystery her spirit heeds....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Song of Songs the birds now chaunt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the lilies vaunt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How among them, white, He feeds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who but now hath left her—fair and white<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the lover of the Sunamite.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idd">. . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In the city, in an upper room,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As fair Paschal Bread He breaks and gives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto men His Body while He lives—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then seeks out a Garden for His Doom.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="HOLY_CROSS" id="HOLY_CROSS"></a>HOLY CROSS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">MYSTERIOUS sway of mortal blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That urges me upon Thy wood!—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Holy Cross, but I must tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My love; how all my forces dwell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon Thee and around Thee day and night!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I love the Feet upon thy beam,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a wild lover loves his dream;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My eyes can only fix upon that sight.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Tree, my arms are strong and sore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To clasp Thee, as when we adore<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The body of our dearest in our arms!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each pang I suffer hath for aim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy wood—its comfort is the same—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A taint, an odour from inveterate balms.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">My clasp is filled, my sight receives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The compass of its power; pain grieves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About each sense but as a languid hum:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, out of weariness, at length,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My day rejoices in its strength,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My night that innocence of strife is come.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PURGATORY" id="PURGATORY"></a>PURGATORY</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">PERFECTION of my God!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With hands on the same rod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With robes that interfold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One weft together rolled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With two wings of one Dove<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stretched the royal heads above—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God severs from His Son,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That what is not be won;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Immortal, mortal grow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God entering manhood know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What was not and shall be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of cogent Deity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Perfection of my soul!—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How shall I reach my goal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless I leave His Face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who is my dwelling-place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless in exile do<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His will a short while through,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the time’s sharpest rim:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless, deprived of Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I may achieve Him, lie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His victim, sigh on sigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bearing consummate pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Supremely to attain?<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="FORTITUDO_EGENIS" id="FORTITUDO_EGENIS"></a>FORTITUDO EGENIS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">LOVER of Souls, Immaculate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mary, by thy Immaculate Conception,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy soul and body white for God’s reception,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the ridg’d snows on the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the treasure of white beams that lie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the golden casket of the sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the excelling franchise of thy state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plead for the Holy Souls, O Holiest One!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Till they be cleansed grief hath no date!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Them, through thy spotless grace, embolden<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To passion for their God, but once beholden,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor ever more beheld till pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath made their souls’ recesses bright from stain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plead they may swiftly see Him, nor may shun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Vision, each achieved immaculate!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pure from the first, plead for them, Holiest One!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PAX_VOBISCUM" id="PAX_VOBISCUM"></a>PAX VOBISCUM<br /><br /> -<small><span class="smcap">To Notre Dame de Boulogne</span></small></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">MY heart is before thee, Queen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a mariner at sea—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It vows its sighs that swell to thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sighs as great as against waves may be.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For thou art above the waves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On their summits thou dost float;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy locks of gold along thy throat;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou more gold than gold upon thy boat.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Pomp of thy body, thy Child—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On thy arm, small-crowned and sweet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou, large-crowned! Where billows meet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why these crowns, like shocks of golden wheat?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The Prince of Peace He is....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a mariner at sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When waves are high and thronging free,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">High my heart entreats thy Son and thee.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PURISSIMAE_VIRGINI_SACELLUM" id="PURISSIMAE_VIRGINI_SACELLUM"></a>PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">IT is new in the air from the sea and the height,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">New as a nest by a sea-bird fashioned....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Carmel, thy mound the rock-site!...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And roofless our chapel, the home we, impassioned,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Have built for her coming, O Gift from the Sea!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Elijah, our father, descend to thy mountain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where once was thy shrine, God created by flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where from a land dry in well as in fountain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou did’st keep vigil—as we—till she came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Cloud from God’s Bosom, the Grace of His favour,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sweetness of Rain! O balm, oh, the savour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of air on the throat! O Desire from the Sea!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Surrounded by roses and lilies of valleys,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweeter than myrrh, or than balsam in chalice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Queen of the East, O Magnificent, bring<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sweetness familiar as rain to man’s cry;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Murmur as rain round our hearts lest we die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White Cloud of felicity, Voice to our ears!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Girt with vale-lilies and roses a spring-day appears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Thou, Queen of Carmel, art Spring.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Surely the last, we are first in our glory:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Splendid out-broke in our desert the story<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How flame that fell down on our shrine at the call<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of our father Elijah had fallen down on all.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So Christ is received of us, Carmel receives Him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">The stones and the dust and the sea-winds believe Him:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But after God’s Fire there is hope of God’s Rain.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To us art thou come, O Abundance of Rain!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Thy little, roofless sanctuary, Queen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Finds us in winds, in sunset or at night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With stars to help our candles, wild and free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Pagans by their Virgin of moonlight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Diana of the Hunters’ rocks: so we<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the heights, and in the breeze are seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And called the Brothers of thy lovely name,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blest Mary of Mount Carmel. Asia, cry<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her splendour! Cry to her, O Eastern Kings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Encompass her! She is our very own,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In mercy manifest to us alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our Cloud of Mercy that from seaward springs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And crouched Elijah sought for, sigh on sigh.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And for our thanks ... O Eastern Kings, your treasure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this may serve us, that a pearl may lurk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or in your chests there may be jewel-work<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That, as she is a Queen, might give her pleasure.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We are her monks, we have no precious things.<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Close round her, Kings!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">With frankincense and myrrh,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Open a fount for her!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With cloth of gold proclaim her and enthrone!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Afar off we will weep—she is our own.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IN_THE_BEGINNING" id="IN_THE_BEGINNING"></a>IN THE BEGINNING</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">HOW still these two!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ with far eyes, John with the fond eyes closed,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And close unto<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The breast wherefrom is peace—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No slumber that shall cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But charmed safety of a faith as sure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a mountain’s founding to endure:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And warm as sleep John’s love<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For the rapt Face above.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Far-rapt, Christ’s eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In strength, remember His own resting-place,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where, in this wise,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He, the Eternal Word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had kept deep lull unstirred,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the bosom of the Father laid;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And, of that peace divined,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Knew the Eternal mind.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Then the raised Face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breaks soft and the eyes droop and bend above<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The sweet head’s place,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where from closed eyelids John<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Setteth his love upon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God, his Lord, his Thought, his Lover dear:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, in lapse of silence falling clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One heareth only this—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On the sweet head, a kiss.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="AN_ANTIPHONY_OF_ADVENT" id="AN_ANTIPHONY_OF_ADVENT"></a>AN ANTIPHONY OF ADVENT<br /><br /> -<small><span class="smcap">Ad Laudes</span></small></h2> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">COME to a revel, happy men!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far away on the hills a wine of joy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Makes golden dew in drops, that cloy<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The fissures of the glen,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The crevices of rock;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Caught in its sweetness thyme and cistus lock;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hills are white and gold<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In every fold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hills are running milk and honey-rivers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet not a thyrsus on a mountain quivers.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">DOES not the distant city cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if filled with an unexpected rout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Alleluia</i>, shout on shout?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Nor can the city high<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Exult in song enough,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tuning to smoothness all her highways rough.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet the Bromian god<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Hath never trod<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With choir the pavements, nor each grape-haired dancer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Given to the mountain-streams a city’s answer.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">BEHOLD, O men, a vivid light!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is it the lightning-fire that blazes wide,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">Or torches lit on every side<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That turn the sky so bright?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through this great, sudden day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No levin-gendered god’s triumphant way<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The brands of pine confess:<br /></span> -<span class="i6">A loveliness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within that mighty light of larger story<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is come among us with exceeding glory.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">YE that would drink, come forth and drink!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the hills are rivers white and gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clear mid the day a portent to behold.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Stoop at the water’s brink,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Seek where the light is great!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why should the revellers for revel wait?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now ye can drink as thirsty stags<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Where no source flags.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forth to the water-brooks, forth in the morning;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forth to the light that out of light is dawning!<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">TIRESIAS, with thy wreath, not thou!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gray prophet of the fount of Thebes, behold<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A prophet neither blind nor old,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Spare and of solemn brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is risen to make all young:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He dwells among<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The freshets of the stream. Come to the Waters;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Sons of Adam, haste, and Eva’s daughters!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">This revel, children, is a revelry<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascetic, of a joy that cannot be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless we fast and pray and wear no wreaths,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor brandish cones the forest-fir bequeathes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor make a din—but sweet antiphonies—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor blow through organ-reeds to sing to these,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of ourselves make song: it is a feast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That by the breath of deserts is increased;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by ablution in the river lifts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its grain to crystal—earth so full of gifts<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Most exquisite, breaths that are infinite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of infinite judgment, hesitations light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of infinite choiceness, life so fine, so fine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since of our flesh we welcome the Divine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Since by our fast and reticence, our food<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From honey-bees in haunts of solitude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O mighty Prophet of the river-bank,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We see that light that makes the sun a blank,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a white dove makes a whole region dim;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">See in the greatness of the great Light’s rim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One we must fall down under would we win<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ecstasy of revel—all our sin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Borne from us by the Wine-Cup in a hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That bleeds about the vessel’s golden stand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bleeds as the white throat of a lamb just slain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behold! No <i>Evoe</i> at that poured red stain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No <i>Evoe</i>—<i>Alleluia!</i> He is dumb:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But let us laud Him, Eleutherius come!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ANNUNCIATIONS" id="ANNUNCIATIONS"></a>ANNUNCIATIONS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Blessèd art Thou among women, Mary!”<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through white wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The angel brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a Saviour’s birth annunciation—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tidings of great joy to one afraid.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Blessèd art thou Simon, son of Jonah!”<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In his power,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His smile as dower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of His Church’s birth, annunciation<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is by God Himself, no angel, made.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Blessèd art Thou, Mary; blessèd, Peter!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But the grace<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of God’s own face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is on Peter for annunciation,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he speaks, by flesh and blood unswayed.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="STONES_OF_THE_BROOK" id="STONES_OF_THE_BROOK"></a>STONES OF THE BROOK</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">FORTH from a cloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Loosed as a greyhound is loosed,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To sweep down the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To sweep down the hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A torrent of water unnoosed—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The rain rushes on aloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And becometh a stream on the earth, and still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Groweth and spreadeth as its stream sweeps by.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And the stones of its course<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are bright with its joy as it leaps<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Around them in might,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Beyond them in joy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it sings round the rocky heaps,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From the brightness of its force;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor can pebbles nor boulders of granite cloy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In their multitude the stream’s delight.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">With a torrent’s bliss,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Martyr Stephen receives<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The stones for his head,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The stones for his breast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smiles from his strength that believes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Sweet stones of the brook!”—for this<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is the singing, the song of his heart expressed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he kneels, looking up, his hands outspread.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A river of blood, the tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of martyrdom, gathers round<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His soul as a stream;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">While the stones are drenched<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tides of his blood as they bound<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From temple and mouth and side ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stones of offence, dark stones from the torrent wrenched,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye strike the trend of his joy as a dream!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="RELICS" id="RELICS"></a>RELICS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">AN alabaster box,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A tomb of precious stone—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">White, with white bars, as white<br /></span> -<span class="i8">As billows on a sea:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With spaces where some flush<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of sky-like rose is conscious and afraid<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of whiteness and white bars.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lovely sepulchre of loveliest stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">This alabaster box—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Coy as a maiden’s blood in flush,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">White as a maiden’s breast in stretch,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Alive with fear and grace;<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Transparent rose,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Translucent white;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A treasury of precious stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A strange, long tomb....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">’Twas Maximin, who had this casket made,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The holy Maximin, who travelled once<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With Mary Magdalen, and preached with her;<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Till on a wind as quiet<br /></span> -<span class="i8">As it had been a cloud,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">She was removed by Christ to dwell alone.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Alone she dwelt, her peace<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A thought that never fell<br /></span> -<span class="i8">From its full tide.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ever beside her in her cave,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A vase of golden curls,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A clod of blooded earth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when she died at last, and Maximin<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Must bury her;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Being man and holy, in his love<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He laid her in an alabaster box,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As she had laid her soul’s deep penitence,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Her soul’s deep passion, a sweet balm, within<br /></span> -<span class="i8">An alabaster box:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So Maximin gave Magdalen to God—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Shut as a spice in precious stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In bland and flushing box<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Of alabaster stone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And knowing all her secrets, Maximin,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Being man and holy, laid within<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The priceless cave of alabaster two<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Most precious, cherished things—<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A vase of curly hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A vase of golden web;<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A clod of withered soil,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A clod of blooded earth.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The curls were crushed together in gold lump,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Crushed by the hand that wiped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Holy Feet, kept in a crush of gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as they dabbed the sweetly smelling Feet—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The curls enwoven by the balm they dried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knotted as rose of Sharon, when the winds<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweep it along the desert.... Curls, of power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To float the charm of Eve in aureole<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round her they covered, till she crushed them tight<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">To dab the Holy Feet, and afterward<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Be severed from their growth,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Stiff in their balm and gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A piece of honeycomb in rings and web;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweetness of shorn, gold, unguent-dabbled hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A handful in a vase.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">The clod, a bit of hill-turf dry;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The turf that sheep might pull up as they graze;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Or men might throw upon the fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At sundown when the air is loosed and cold:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A clod an eagle might<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ascend to build with, or a goat<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Kick down a valley’s side;<br /></span> -<span class="i8">A clod dark-red<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if it mothered ruby of the mines.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hand that gathered it one hollow night<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Gathered it up red-wet from Golgotha.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Three crosses lay about the grass—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such arms and shafts of crosses on the grass!—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">When she, who gathered, crept<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Among the prostrate arms;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Roused a great death-bird from the ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">And, in its place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bent down and pressed her lips where it had couched,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lifted up the ground to press her heart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And went her way, hugging the Sacred Blood<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As in a sponge of turf,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That dried about the treasure, now grown hard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if it mothered ruby of the mines—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A clod of blooded soil.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Relics of the Holy Magdalen!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The balmy hair her plea,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">God’s Blood her grace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within a vase her gift,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within a turf-clod His—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Her relics, by her corpse;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">All she had cared to keep,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through hermit years of life,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To bless her in her tomb<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Till Judgment-Day.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ON_CAUCASUS" id="ON_CAUCASUS"></a>ON CAUCASUS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">LO, Crimean marble-quarries tower<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Colder even than snow-peaks in their power,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To the very heart stone-white:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And the Christian captives strain<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On the hillsides in their pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As they toil for Trajan day and night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who is this who comes with stirless brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sweet eyes that never could allow<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Rebels save upon their knees?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through the hills a voice is fanned<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That Pope Clement hath been banned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straightly to the marble Chersonese.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Toiling with his people ’mid the rocks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On a streamless slope, the quarried blocks<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He compels to whiteness clear.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">There a bitter cry is made<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the thirst that, unallayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dreams of well, or freshet, or wide mere.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He hath climbed to pray.... A lamb he sees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pawing gladly in the mountain-breeze,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Very golden unto snow:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lamb of God, cross-aureoled,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lovely on His vertex bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Set above a River’s gush and flow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">By the brazen footstroke is expressed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Impetus as of God’s River blest.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Dew and snow in all their shine<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Round that heavenly Lamb and Stream<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Take the lustre of their dream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a flood and blush of flame combine.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">On the heavens, from Patmos’ shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">John beheld this crystal sight before—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Not to bring a people aid;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But, sweet Clement, thou hast seen, on earth<br /></span> -<span class="i4">God’s own Lamb, His River’s birth;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How He shone and how its waters played!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IN_THE_SEA" id="IN_THE_SEA"></a>IN THE SEA<br /><br /> -<small>(<span class="smcap">The Martyrdom of St. Clement</span>)</small></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy! Save him, save!”—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Father, receive my spirit from the wave.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Rolls the great Sea of the Chersonese<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Tossed and facing him and these....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Cold in waters, high in heap<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As a quarry should it sweep<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With a landslip down on men:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And it roars as in its den<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Roars a monster apt for blood.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He must journey on this flood<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To the harbour of his soul;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He must seek his furthest goal,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With an anchor round his neck,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From yon tossing vessel’s deck<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Cast to drown, when out at sea<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Full three miles that ship may be.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And his fellow-exiles cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Let him not, Lord Jesus, die!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">On the clouds the vessel is a spot.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Lord Jesus, save him!... Is there not,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O brothers, in the sea retreat—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Caught back, rolling from our feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Not in waves, as under tide,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But withdrawn on every side?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">Very solemn is this floor!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">We can see the waves no more.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Let us follow them athwart<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sea-deeps with no waters fraught;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Let us wipe our tears away,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Let us take this holy way!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Large the floor and larger still:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Must the whole horizon fill<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With a land of weed and shell,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Where no billows native dwell<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Any more—we know not why:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Any more, since we made cry?”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">As the sunset clears the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Yet across its wondrous space<br /></span> -<span class="i4">There is one transcendent place<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Where the sun is laid to rest:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So these mourners, strangely blessed—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Over sand and coral clean<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And unbroken shells, serene,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With the peace where sea hath been,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Over panting sea-stars bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Silver-raying fishes, mad<br /></span> -<span class="i4">For the livesome brine they had—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Come upon a Temple-grot,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Set before them in a spot<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the naked desert, left<br /></span> -<span class="i4">By the ocean’s woof and weft<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the tidal streams withdrawn.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">There upon the sand, forlorn<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In its beauty, far remote,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">Stands a Temple-shrine, they note<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the Holy Spirit’s dream....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And they cross a little stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thrilling with the far-off sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And they follow what must be,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As they tread within the shrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Builded marble for a sign<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Angels had been set to build<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On a ground the ocean filled.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In a tabernacle lies,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lone and grand to seeking eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Not the sunk sun, but a tomb,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Whitest marble, and the room<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the holy Clement dead.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">There he lies, how comforted!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through the mighty water brought<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To a peace, a harbour wrought<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the holy Angels’ care.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Close his anchor! He so still<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And sufficed—the waves that kill<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Driven away by angel-hands;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">While his people’s exile bands<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Kneel around him in the sea....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Come to port, his anchor by!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thus the sun each day must die:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thus sweet Clement but one day<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In the sea sank down, and lay<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As at sunset, full of peace.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They bear him to the land: and the flood-tides increase.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="COMMUNICANTES_ET_MEMORIAM_VENERANTES_JOANNIS_ET_PAULI" id="COMMUNICANTES_ET_MEMORIAM_VENERANTES_JOANNIS_ET_PAULI"></a>“COMMUNICANTES ET MEMORIAM VENERANTES ... JOANNIS ET PAULI”</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">TWO olive-branches—silver; two candelabra,—gold:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Precious as only tried and precious things<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Are of their essence bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Roman John and Paul—young heads together—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pray on, nor is there any question whether<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The image that the Emperor’s Præfect brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For worship will be worshipped, for already<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The service of their ritual is so steady<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is as day moving to noon, and moving to night’s fold.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In one white, empty chamber two brethren, yet as one,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as a sepulchre their home made bare.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ye ask what they have done?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the poor answer, “These would have no treasure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Save this, that they can die.” O solemn pleasure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see their home a casket everywhere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrought for their hour of death! Gone the slow mornings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through which they wearied out the Emperor’s warnings!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now they would hold their jewel safe in their white walls, with prayer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The silence! One can listen how the gold morning sun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sings through the air, the hush is grown so fine.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Steps!—Thus intrusive run<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rain-storms on solitudes—A white-flashed gleaming!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The brow of Jove, the cloud-white hair, the beaming<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cloud-swirl of beard! A voice that bids, “Incline,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And offer homage!” ... How the silence tingles!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sun with air in call and echo mingles:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those brethren of closed senses—peace! they have made no sign.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lilies of their garden—head by head,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The older with the newer—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now the garden of their home uncloses<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To cover into secrecy the dead:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep hidden by the roses they had watered,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lying together sanctified and slaughtered,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idd">. . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unclean, tormented, and that do not cease<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Their rending cries for aid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The son of him who slew the saints, by daytime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Is cured of his distraction and at peace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of which his well-belovèd is the warden,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IN_MONTE_FANNO" id="IN_MONTE_FANNO"></a>IN MONTE FANNO</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">SYLVESTER by an open tomb<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beheld Time’s vanity and doom—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A lovely body, as a flower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester meditated, thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His days to solitude were brought.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sight of a corpse within its grave!...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be an eremite alone were brave.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester is a monk: and men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grow frequent round his holy den:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thence to a mount he leads them out,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Called <i>Fannus</i> ... through the wood they hear a shout.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester builds his cloister.—Hush!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Across the doorstep comes a rush,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the monks faint with a lure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester calls into the dark—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There is a breath of those that hark—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester in the woods, as still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even as the grave that bowed his will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When he became at first a monk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester conquers by his name:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">King Fannus and all Fauns lie tame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath it, and the wild-wood Cross,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he hath planted deep into the moss.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sylvester and his monks are clear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From any advent warm and drear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through any door: but sometimes he<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looks with slant eyes through piles of leafery.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="MACRINUS_AGAINST_TREES" id="MACRINUS_AGAINST_TREES"></a>MACRINUS AGAINST TREES</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“How bare! How all the lion-desert lies<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Before your cell!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Could, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That turn to the soft mass from barren rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Familiarly dwell.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“O Traveller, for me the empty sands<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Burning to white!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There nothing on the wilderness withstands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The soul or prayer. I would not look on trees;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And buried as by night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Yea, listen! If you build a cell, at last,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Turned to the wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your fall is near, your safety over-past;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And if you plant a tree beside your door<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your fall is there beside it, and no more<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The solitude is frank and good.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“For trees must have soft dampness for their growth,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And interfold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their boughs and leaves into a screen, not loath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hide soft, tempting creatures at their play,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, playing timbrels and bright shawms, delay,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And wear one’s spirit old.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Smoothly such numberless distractions come—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Impertinence<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of multiplicity, salute and hum.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Away with solitude of leafy shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mustering coy birds and beasts, and men waylaid,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Tingling each hooded sense!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Did not God call out of a covert-wood<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Adam and Eve,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, cowering under earliest sin, they stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hugged green-leaves in bunches round their den?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Himself God called them out—so lost are men<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Whom forest-haunts receive!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PASCHALS_MASS" id="PASCHALS_MASS"></a>PASCHAL’S MASS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THE sheep still in dew, but the sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In sun, the far river in sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the incense of flowers steeped bright—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Their smell as sweet light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the shepherd-boy tethered on high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To his flock and his day’s work begun.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The bees in the wind of the dawn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The larks not yet climbing aloft<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As high as the Aragon Hills ...<br /></span> -<span class="i4">What bell-ringing thrills<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the bell-wether’s pastoral lorn?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the valley a bell clear and soft.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The shepherd-boy kneeling in dew;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The bell of his wether rung sharp;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Below him the tinkle and sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From far, far away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the sacring-bell, clear as a harp<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In its chime of God lifted anew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For his God, in the vale, on the height<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He weeps; while the morning-larks rise.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lo, in chasuble, living and rich<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Golden rays cross-stitch,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Foreshown by magnificent light—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, an angel grows firm on his eyes!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As an altar of marvellous stone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before him the mountain hath blazed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round the angel, who lifts in the air<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A Sun that is there:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the sheep and the shepherd-boy shown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the ringing of larks, God is raised.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Angel-priest, fragrant with thyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Girt with sixfold glorious wings!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O sky of the mountains above<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Adventurous Love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How through air and the larks’ watchful chime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Earth her incense, as thurifer, flings!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Sacrament, shown to a boy,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More blest than the Shepherds of old,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is thine for his lifetime, cast<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On his mountain vast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In his joy, his great freshness of joy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From that high, singing daylight of gold!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="A_SNOW-CAVE" id="A_SNOW-CAVE"></a>A SNOW-CAVE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">SUDDENLY the snow is falling fast:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Slow the lovely speed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the air being full with fulness cast<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On the mounded world ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the firmamental snow will give no heed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor the snow terrestrial have a care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For anything its heavy deluge hides,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">For anything upcurled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In its mountain-hug, nor what abides<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Imprisoned deep of the imprisoning air.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Peter of Alcantara, how wide<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And untrodden quite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swells the sudden snow on every side,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Speckled with no sign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One in uncontrollable and fearful white!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="idd">. . . .<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Swiftly, as it came, its mood is changed ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now it drifts a white flame of caress,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As if it took design,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Learnt a new art of its loveliness,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in a cave above the Saint is ranged.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Hour on hour the world is flooded bright<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With fair agency,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In continuance a sleep, of might<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To lay death athwart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Any bosom, any limbs that cannot flee:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet safely housed the holy traveller waits,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Though in that white storm caught;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the deep snow of earth its snow abates<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before a force of deeper chastity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Little flakes, that touch with feet like birds,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Touch him not at all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But lie convex in a wave that curds,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bowed upon its vault,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stooping on him almost won to fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet in strength withheld, whole in its love,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a virgin praying for a priest:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So in its lovely halt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So aloof from sense, it rears above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The saint its covert, not a flake released.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PROPHET" id="PROPHET"></a>PROPHET</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">BLESSED with joy, as daybreak under cloud—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tender light of youth in the old face—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroud<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the years before this day of Grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Simeon blesses God and praises Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a little child and mother slim<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With first girlhood come their way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward his face, and night becometh day.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wide the welcome and the peace of joy!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he takes the infant on his hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Graciously receives the milking boy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the mother’s bosom, from her heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While she stands in reverence apart.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lo, the old man’s countenance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a wave of anguish breaks from trance!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All the features lift with power, and sink,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through them, from a sudden thought they think.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can a child of but a few weeks old<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So confuse with terror an old man?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Is for the ruin or the rise<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the generations, Simeon cries.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleek<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a pearl—and the dire earthquake’s power<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In his little body set, to wreak<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dread requital on the souls that cower<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mad with desolation, naked, lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or uplifted wild from a dead host:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">For the rise and ruin set<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of so many—but not yet, not yet!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the slender Mother, bright and bowed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woe again! A flawless lightning burns<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through his eyes and his weak voice rings loud,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How a sword shall pierce her heart alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That out of many hearts their thoughts be shown.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Simeon, terror masks all joy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In this Mother and her milking Boy!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="LOOKING_UPON_JESUS_AS_HE_WALKED" id="LOOKING_UPON_JESUS_AS_HE_WALKED"></a>LOOKING UPON JESUS AS HE WALKED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">WHAT is it thou hast seen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O desert prophet, hung with camel’s hair, and lean?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">What makes thine eyes so wide?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not the huge desert where the camel-owners ride;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But One, who comes along,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So humble in His steps, and yet to Him belong<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thy days in their surcease,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because He must increase as thou must now decrease.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Behold thy God, whose strength<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is as the coiling-in of thy life’s length!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou of wide eyes, wide soul,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy heart-blood as He comes to thee heaves on its goal!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Saint of the sinner, John,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those whom thy lustral water hath been poured upon,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Those who have kept thy fast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With locusts and wild honey and long hours have passed<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In penance, when they see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ coming toward them, young and fair with what shall be,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And giving God delight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They know, by very doom of that remorseless sight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">That they, as they have been,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will fade away, diminish and no more be seen:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">They must, O desert saint,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bow them to certain death and yet they must not faint,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And yet they must proclaim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The obliterating flourish of their Slayer’s name.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="A_DANCE_OF_DEATH" id="A_DANCE_OF_DEATH"></a>A DANCE OF DEATH</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">HOW lovely is a silver winter-day<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of sturdy ice.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That clogs the hidden river’s tiniest bay<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With diamond-stone of price<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To make an empress cast her dazzling stones<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Upon its light as hail—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So little its effulgency condones<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Her diamonds’ denser trail<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of radiance on the air!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How strange this ice, so motionless and still,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet calling as with music to our feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So that they chafe and dare<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their swiftest motion to repeat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These harmonies of challenge, sounds that fill<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The floor of ice, as the crystalline sphere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around the heavens is filled with such a song<br /></span> -<span class="i6">That, when they hear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The stars, each in their heaven, are drawn along!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Oh, see, a dancer! One whose feet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Move on unshod with steel!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She is not skating fleet<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On toe and heel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But only tip-toe dances in a whirl,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A lovely dancing-girl,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon the frozen surface of the stream.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Without a wonder, it would seem,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">She could not keep her sway,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The balance of her limbs<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sure on the musical, iced river-way<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That, sparkling, dims<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her trinkets as they swing, so high its sparks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tingle the sun and scatter song like larks.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">She dances mid the sumptuous whiteness set<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of winter’s sunniest noon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She dances as the sun-rays that forget<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In winter sunset falleth soon<br /></span> -<span class="i8">To sheer sunset:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She dances with a languor through the frost<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As she had never lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In lands where there is snow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Orient’s immeasurable glow.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Who is this dancer white—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A creature slight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Weaving the East upon a stream of ice,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That in a trice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might trip the dance and fling the dancer down?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Does she not know deeps under ice can drown?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This is Salome, in a western land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An exile with Herodias, her mother,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With Herod and Herodias:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And she has sought the river’s icy mass,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Companioned by no other,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dance upon the ice—each hand<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Held, as a snow-bird’s wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">In heavy poise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ecstatic, with no noise,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Athwart the ice her dream, her spell she flings;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Winter in a rapture of delight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flings up and down the spangles of her light.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Oh, hearken, hearken!... Ice and frost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From these cajoling motions freed,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Have straight given heed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Will more firm. In their obedience<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Their masses dense<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are riven as by a sword....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where is the Vision by the snow adored?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The Vision is no more<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Seen from the noontide shore.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, fearful crash of thunder from the stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As there were thunder-clouds upon its wave!<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Could nothing save<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dancer in the noontide beam?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She is engulphed and all the dance is done.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bright leaps the noontide sun—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But stay, what leaps beneath it? A gold head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That twinkles with its jewels bright<br /></span> -<span class="i8">As water-drops....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O murdered Baptist of the severed head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her head was caught and girded tight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And severed by the ice-brook sword, and sped<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In dance that never stops.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">It skims and hops<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Across the ice that rasped it. Smooth and gay,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">And void of care,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">It takes its sunny way:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But underneath the golden hair,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And underneath those jewel-sparks,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Keen noontide marks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A little face as grey as evening ice;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lips, open in a scream no soul may hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eyes fixed as they beheld the silver plate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That they at Macherontis once beheld;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While the hair trails, although so fleet and nice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The motion of the head as subjugate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To its own law: yet in the face what fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To what excess compelled!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Salome’s head is dancing on the bright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And silver ice. O holy John, how still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was laid thy head upon the salver white,<br /></span> -<span class="i5">When thou hadst done God’s Will!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="OBEDIENCE" id="OBEDIENCE"></a>OBEDIENCE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O INSTRUMENT of God, baptizing men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In vehement, lone Jordan of the wilds,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Amid the rushes, when<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wert startled by the sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of One coming, simply bright<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a Lamb, across the sand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst tremble to abide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the shallows and to dash the tide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the current on a Head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That must bow beneath the sin of men!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wouldst only, at command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Keep thy awful station, grown more awful then.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But thou wert obedient to His word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who was greater beyond words than thou,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As thy lips averred:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, obedient, thou wert blest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the presence manifest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the Holy Trinity—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou the Body of the Son<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Didst behold on which thy rite was done;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou didst hear the Father’s Voice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the firmament soft thunder heard;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thy senses, blest to hear and see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might behold the Spirit poised, a sunlit Bird.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="GARDENS_ENCLOSED" id="GARDENS_ENCLOSED"></a>GARDENS ENCLOSED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">GARDEN by the brook,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The brook Kedron—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Olive-silvered nook,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Red flowers to kneel on:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There in blood and strife divine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There a Eucharist outspread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ gave the Father in a chalice Wine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in His yielded Will He offered Bread.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Garden on the hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Mount Golgotha,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Have you a running rill<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From your rocky spur?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Yea, a water from His side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who was hanging on a Tree:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Son of Man, they called Him, and He died,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And is hidden in my rock with me.”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="GARDEN-SEED" id="GARDEN-SEED"></a>GARDEN-SEED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">WHAT art Thou sowing in the garden-ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sowing, sowing with such pain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clouds are overhead, and all around<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Spring hath fallen spring-rain<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of seed-growing power.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, where Thou bowest down, it seems a shower<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Hath laid the grass, as rain ran through,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Engendering rain, stronger than early dew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It is Thy Agony that pierces deep<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through the sod of that still place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Thou bowest down where Thou dost weep,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bowest down Thy face;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And Thou sowest seed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drops of Thy most Holy Blood, that bleed<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through brow and limbs in sweat, and stay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Red on the Earth, while the tears sink away.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Sower, what herb shall spring, what flower be born?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Will pomegranate-apples hang,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When we pass this way, some morn?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Struck with spring’s own pang,<br /></span> -<span class="i4"><i>This</i> our eyes will see—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faith that shoulders great buds lustily;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Hope that shoots up a hundredfold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Love in roses wondrous to behold.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="UNIVERSA_COHORS" id="UNIVERSA_COHORS"></a>UNIVERSA COHORS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THEY call the cohort from all sides together....<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There is a king, a king of mockery,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His kingdom a pretence,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An actor to be dressed for all to see,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whose body oozes from the cords or leather<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That struck with lashes dense—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There is a king to mock, a make-believe<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To be derided, a poor form to grieve<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With haughty purple of the robe of state,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And acclamations powerless to elate;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A victim to be tortured and made grand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With clothes whose pomp He cannot understand,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Claiming with slavish brow their heritage:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">There is the mocking of a solemn dupe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With laughter and a jollity of rage.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They call together, like the vultures called<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To feast on what is yet a feast forestalled,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The cohort in a troop.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Martyrs, press together from all regions,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You have a King, a King for whom you died—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His kingdom built on gems—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And ye are dressed in purple from His side;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The stoles of glory, clothing all your legion,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His purple to their hems!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Press round Him whom the Romans mocked that day,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Press round Him, Martyrs; keep His foes at bay!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And let me, though far off from your bright red<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of vestures triumphing in Blood He shed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet wrap my heart in His deep sanguine robe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ensanguined from the scourge, and nails that probe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And spear that cleaves! Wrapt in His Blood, O heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We must bear witness that His purple dress<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Is not the dressing of an actor’s part,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But of a Royalty no woof of man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might clothe that Day of Woe, nor ever can—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That is the Martyr’s dress.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IN_EXTREMIS" id="IN_EXTREMIS"></a>IN EXTREMIS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">WHAT is the desert? Thirst,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And very immolation’s loneliness!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Upon that land of death dry ridges press,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like to sand-drifts on the tongue—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the sequestered heart through fear will burst.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Armies have gone along,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Defeated, to oblivion among<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The naught of those bare sands—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Banners and horses and bright-harnessed bands.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">None hath beheld the banners wave and slip<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Abyssward, and the horses, under whip<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of crazy dust, plunge down<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With manes sand-tossed,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Beneath the plain they crossed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Making athwart the breadth a little frown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gone in its very moment, like the smile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That followed, as the horsemen flashed awhile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above the grave, and sank bright, and were gone.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">O desert, full of plots,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On lapping water, of sleek palm-tree knots,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And isles in haunted channels; cruel earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mirage of desolation, grace of dearth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Many have died in anguish at the pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Never to drink those lakes that gibe and wane!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">“I thirst”—“My God, Thou hast forsaken Me!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parched, sinking in abysses mortally,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Christ, and there is none to succour Thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Water of Life, perpetual Deity!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="A_LIGNO" id="A_LIGNO"></a>A LIGNO</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THERE were trees that spring—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One on a little hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One in a small, green field.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One stood a leaf-stripped thing;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One had begun to fill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With leaves from shoots unsealed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With purple flowers along the wood—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So those trees stood.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">One bore up a Form<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the clean branches nailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ineffable in peace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One bent as if a storm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In its descent had trailed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the red blossom-fleece;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where the boughs most sullen hung<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A crisped form swung.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">One the Tree of Life—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Both near Jerusalem—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And one of Death the Tree!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One bore a bitter strife;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A cry came from its stem:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Thou hast forsaken Me!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The other heard no sound at all,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Save a dumb fall.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Both were gibbet-trees—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From one was said, “Forgive!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">They know not what they do.”<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One rocked in purple breeze<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Despair, that would not live,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Nor trust forgiveness:—no!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the wreathèd branches fell<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A soul to Hell.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ONE_REED" id="ONE_REED"></a>ONE REED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">SHAKEN by winds to sigh, to song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One reed amid the misty throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That to a reed-bed, Christ, belong—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">One reed among<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those who are reeds to every wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now in Thy Presence, now declined:<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Cut me away from dim caprice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sheer me from the reedy fleece!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let my poor, shivering motion cease,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Dead of Thy peace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A reed and no more shaken—yea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No more a slant sedge-reed I pray!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No more! But, Mercy infinite,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let me not be a reed to smite<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thorns within Thy forehead tight,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And urge to sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Better the devious winds again!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Upon Thy lips let me but lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Such sour, dun vintage as I may;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Push not the sponge-tipped spear away,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But let it stay!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, let the bitter draught through me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bring to Thy Cross some lenity!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="CRYING_OUT" id="CRYING_OUT"></a>CRYING OUT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">IN the Orient heat He stands—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Heat that makes the palm-trees dim,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Palms that do not shelter Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">As a lizard of the rocks,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Under furnace-sun He stays;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Earth beneath Him in a daze<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">He among them mid the blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With a mouth wide open held,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As a lion-fountain welled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Wide His mouth as lion’s, set<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Wide for waters of a fount!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through them words of challenge mount,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">“Ye the thirsty come to Me!”<br /></span> -<span class="i4">So He cries with lion-roar:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Ye will thirst not any more.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Jesus, in the Eastern sun,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A strange prophet with His cry!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">While the folk are passing by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clack their tongues, nor will they run where thirst is done.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="AD_MORTEM" id="AD_MORTEM"></a>AD MORTEM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THIS sin is unto death. Whose death? Fair tomb<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of virgin rock, not for my corse such room!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Where never man hath lain<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Shall I by sin attain—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Among the unpolluted crystals lie<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In my malignity?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For I have killed my God, and I behold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His burial, behold His Body rolled<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In a new sheet with nard,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And in the grotto hard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lying as hard—O tenderest Love!—as block<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of that new-cloven rock.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As a vile, wandering spectre I must stray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now I have quenched the Light, that was my Day,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">By wickedness, almost<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Against the Holy Ghost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laying within His tomb God, laying Him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Wound tight in face and limb.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I cannot see! My eyes are wells that beat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fountains of tears forth on my hands and feet:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With fire of pain I cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That angels of the sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come forth.... “My God, arise and live once more!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">My sin I will abhor!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Divine One, be not dead and put away!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Holy Ghost, blow down the stone, I pray,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Though it should crush me there<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Outspread, the worst I dare.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Divine One, mid the tombs, with pardoning grace<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Unwrap Thy limbs, Thy face!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Austere come forth upon me as grey dawn!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well it had been that I had not been born,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Who could Thy burial see!....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">What will become of me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unless Thou wilt arise and bid me live,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Unless Thou wilt forgive?”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But there is Easter every day and hour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When by the crevice of Thy tomb we cower,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ghosts from dank night, and call,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And wait for one footfall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the arising, awful Love we doomed<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Ourselves to lie entombed.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_FLOWER_FADETH" id="THE_FLOWER_FADETH"></a>THE FLOWER FADETH</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THE Lord died yesterday:—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lowly and single, lost,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His worn disciples, tossed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With pain of tears, have wandered wide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the country-fields, as sheep might stray.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">No need to hide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For harvesters that shout and sing have heard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the far city’s rumour scarce a word,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And only stare to see a stranger lost.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tears fight with Peter’s breath—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He roves a field of grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">At eventide ... a mass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of faded flower of grass, grown grey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cut from sap and clinging into death,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And bowed one way.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Alone amid the darkness soon to be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Yet he had hailed Him Christ....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The straw and clover feel<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sudden a lifted heel,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, rudely whirled aside, are left<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the stranger’s feet, they had enticed<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Beneath their weft.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he is on the rock, the narrow way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if he talked with something he would say,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if he would conceive as he could feel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">He stands thus in sweet dark,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The hay upon the air,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His feet on bare rock bare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Set as a statue’s, waiting on....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Hath a torch shone?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dry<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the first Easter Day assumes the air.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="FEAR_NOT" id="FEAR_NOT"></a>FEAR NOT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A LITTLE chamber, shadowed, still<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As cave within a marble hill—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Virgin Mother, thou dost fill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The little space, bent down in prayer!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sudden, through tears, thou art aware<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How One is standing at thy door,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As stood, some thirty years before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Angel when thy fear was sore.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Virgin—Virgin-Mother now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No creature half so still as thou,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the black wimple round thy brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For He hath entered: very white<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His body, lovely as first light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou tremblest ... Mother, thou dost hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An <i>Ave</i> stealing through thy fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As He who entered draweth near!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Jesus?”—She quickly hid in dread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The name that through her being spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its lustre, for her Son was dead....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet her arms rise up, her eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Raised as at morning sacrifice:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For blessèd is she in this dower<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the Holy Ghost’s, that hour<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When He encompassed her in power.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="RECOGNITION" id="RECOGNITION"></a>RECOGNITION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">BREATH from the water, breath down from the moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A trembling influence between, so mild,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The water-hen makes tempest if she croon,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fishers from the ship look forth beguiled:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They look on, careless of the reeds aswim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And know not why they watch the shoreway dim;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Why watch the single form that moves along,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So dark in nobleness of solitude,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the lake-side, and gathers from among<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The rushes fallen rush as fuel rude.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">One from the ship bows forwards in the night....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What makes that fisher’s face so gaily white?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A voice comes to them: “Children, have ye caught<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the night nothing?” And the voice entreats:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Stretch forth your nets!”—Behold, the nets are fraught,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once dipped, with fish, a silver dance, that beats<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against the trellis.... And John’s face shines now<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As Lucifer, the Dawn-star, from the prow.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">In Peter’s ear “It is the Lord” he saith—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Virgin, he knows the Virgin Deity:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then on the secret holding back his breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While Peter girds his clothes on boisterously<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To spring out overboard, John doth abide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With his own smile, and steers to the Loved Side.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="VENIT_JESUS" id="VENIT_JESUS"></a>VENIT JESUS<br /><br /> -<small>(<span class="smcap">In the Confessional</span>)</small></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Peace be to you!”—The door is closed.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Peace be to you!”—Only His Wounds lie wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His Wounds in hands, and side.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And feet, His Wounds exposed.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And I rejoice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At His still hands and at the voice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the Wounds calling through twilight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For here the day is almost night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In its severe and curtained dark....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">But I rejoice to hark<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What on His priest He whispers low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Breathing the breath of power through day’s eclipse,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A sigh on all the place<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As of creation on the waters’ face:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Receive the Holy Spirit! All the sins<br /></span> -<span class="i4">You shall remit, remitted are,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And those you shall retain, they are retained.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Listen! The empery this chamber wins!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A Law moves here as peaceful as a star<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moves on the circle of its sway ordained.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here let me kneel, and every struggle cease!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here the dark Wounds bleed over me in peace:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here God hath come to bless me at nightfall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With words of consolation that appal,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I had left Him, as the gathered few<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of His disciples He passed, darkling, through:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet He came to them as comes a dew....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O bounty of such stillness!—“Peace to you!”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="ASCENSION" id="ASCENSION"></a>ASCENSION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">FINE, jealous, in suspicion as a child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In jealousy more infinitely wild,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forth to us from Thy Father Thou didst come:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Now to Thy Father in His home<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ascend—to the Beginning and the Dawn!<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Pass to the East,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">New-born our priest—<br /></span> -<span class="i8">The East,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And where the rose is born!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O Heaven of Heavens, as no sea is clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Eastern Gate of Waters, with a spear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Day rings you wide for Christ to be released!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He passes free from Earth, our priest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Forth to His Shrine: our love, grown tense,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Would follow Him,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Through Seraphim<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Lost dim,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His servers who incense.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="CONFLUENCE" id="CONFLUENCE"></a>CONFLUENCE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Genitori genitoque</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Laus et jubilatio.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">ONE—from the limits of the sky, whence rain<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And sun and dew come down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moveth, a sheet of fire, and in His train,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Where the flames ripple brown,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Are spirits to be born<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Into the Earth, dim creatures slender,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Girt in the train of Him whose brows are tender,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Compulsive, sweet as in the strength of morn.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">One—from the deepness of the Earth, where graves<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Have fallen on gems in rock,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moveth, a sheet of fire, whose ruddy waves<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Have gathered up a flock<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Of people on all sides,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Redeemed from Earth by that red flowing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind a Form, as if from sunset glowing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above the wheat, when harvest-home betides.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IMPLE_SUPERNA_GRATIA" id="IMPLE_SUPERNA_GRATIA"></a>IMPLE SUPERNA GRATIA</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">WE may enter far into a rose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Parting it, hut the bee deeper still:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With our eyes we may even penetrate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a ruby and our vision fill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though a beam of sunlight deeper knows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How the ruby’s heart-rays congregate.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Give me finer potency of gift!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Thy Holy Wounds I would attain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a bee the feeding loveliness<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the sanguine roses. I would lift<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flashes of such faith that I may drain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From each Gem the wells of Blood that press!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="WORDS_OF_THE_BRIDEGROOM" id="WORDS_OF_THE_BRIDEGROOM"></a>WORDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">YE who would follow Me with song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My heavenly bodyguard, My throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of happy throats, with voices free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As birds in deep-wood secrecy;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye who would be the core of Heaven round Me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And therefore songsters of felicity<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond all ranges of the singing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That myriad voices of the Blessed are flinging<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In skylark madness to Me distantly;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Virgins, My delight and neighbourhood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The white flowers of My Precious Blood,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through whom it rises up and yields<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fragrance to Me of lily-fields;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How shall ye keep the whiteness of your vow?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Virgins, My white Brides, I whisper how:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Virgin flesh, a Virgin God,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Incarnate among men I trod;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when as Bread they feed on Me<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Needs must that Bread be of Virginity.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Feed at My altar, My white Doves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Feed on the Bread My Mother loves!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="A_MAGIC_MIRROR" id="A_MAGIC_MIRROR"></a>A MAGIC MIRROR</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">THOU art in the early youth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thy mission, Thou the Truth:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy young eyes behold the glory<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the lilies’ burnished story<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That the lovely dress they don<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Vaunts it over Solomon.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fields of lilies and of corn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou dost tarry through at dawn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seeing in their life a spell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drawing it as grace to dwell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Thy first disciples’ eyes.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We of far-off centuries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">See Thee on the cornfields’ sod,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mid the lily-heads, a God<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Young and dumb as yet of grief.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lo, although the time is brief,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the heavenly things, Thou must<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Suffer, because Love is just<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a perfect building’s measure,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou hast buried under pleasure<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Thy heart incarnate mid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Youths Thou call’st and forces hid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With fresh flowers and stems of gold.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet Thy vision, waxing bold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the Truth, amid the light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of this world’s green, gold and white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sees a desert stretch away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stretched on its upheavals gray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round a serpent lifted high<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">In untarnishable sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou dost see that serpent high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In untarnishable sky:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with ruddy lips dost say<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How the Son of Man one day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must be lifted for Love’s sake.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy bright eyes, so clear awake,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">See Thy Body lifted high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As a serpent’s in the sky.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Day by day Thou see’st Thy Cross—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet the cornfields are not dross;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor the lilies, kinglike clad,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Grave-clothes of a weaving sad.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Life for lily-flowers too fair—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No sustaining corn may share—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou dost hail for those who gaze<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On the serpent’s lifted maze.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Feeder among Lilies, Bread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Thy multitudes outspread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let me love Thy pasture, all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bliss that round my life may fall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though my eyes and voice, as Thine,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Witness the raised serpent’s twine.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="DESCENT_FROM_THE_CROSS" id="DESCENT_FROM_THE_CROSS"></a>DESCENT FROM THE CROSS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">COME down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself—come down!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wilt be free as wind. None meeting thee will know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How thou wert hanging stark, my soul, outside the town.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou wilt fare to and fro;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy feet in grass will smell of faithful thyme; thy head ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Think of the thorns, my soul—how thou wilt cast them off,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With shudder at the bleeding clench they hold!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But on their wounds thou wilt a balsam spread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And over that a verdurous circle rolled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gathered violets, sweet bright violets, sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As incense of the thyme on thy free feet;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wreath thou wilt not give away, nor wilt thou doff.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself; yea, move<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As scudding swans pass lithely on a seaward stream!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wilt have everything thou wert made great to love;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou wilt have ease for every dream;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No nails with fang will hold thy purpose to one aim;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">There will be arbours round about thee, not one trunk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Against thy shoulders pressed and burning them with hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yea, burning with intolerable flame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O lips, such noxious vinegar have drunk,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There are through valley-woods and mountain-glades<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rivers where thirst in naked prowess wades;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there are wells in solitude whose chill no hour abates!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself! A sign<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wilt become to many, as a shooting star.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They will believe thou art æthereal, divine,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">When thou art where they are;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They will believe in thee and give thee feasts and praise.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They will believe thy power when thou hast loosed thy nails;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For power to them is fetterless and grand:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For destiny to them, along their ways,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is one whose Earthly Kingdom never fails.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wilt be as a prophet or a king<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In thy tremendous term of flourishing—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And thy hot royalty with acclamations fanned.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Come down from the Cross, my soul, and save thyself!... Beware!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Art thou not crucified with God, who is thy breath?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt thou not hang as He while mockers laugh and stare?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Wilt thou not die His death?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt thou not stay as He with nails and thorns and thirst?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt thou not choose to conquer faith in His lone style?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wilt thou not be with Him and hold thee still?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Voices have cried to Him, <i>Come down!</i> Accursed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And vain those voices, striving to beguile!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How heedless, solemn-gray in powerful mass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Christ droops among the echoes as they pass!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O soul, remain with Him, with Him thy doom fulfil!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="UNSURPASSED" id="UNSURPASSED"></a>UNSURPASSED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">LORD Jesus, Thou didst come to us, to man,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From Godhead’s open golden Halls,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From Godhead’s hidden Throne<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of glory, no imagination can<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Achieve, and it must glow alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Behind a cloud that falls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over the Triune Perfectness its voice<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of thunder, making Cherubim rejoice,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Seraphim as doves in rapture moan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet Thou didst come to us a wailing child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Homeless, tied up in swaddling-clothes,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To live in poverty<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And by the road: then, with detractions piled,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And infamies of misery<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From scourge and thorns and blows,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To die a felon fastened into wood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By nails that in their jeering harshness could<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clamp vermin of the forests to a tree.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And Thou dost come to us from Heaven each day,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Obeying words that call Thee down<br /></span> -<span class="i4">On mortal lips; and Thou,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jesus, dost suffer mortal power to slay<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Its God in sacrifice: dost bow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy bright Supremacy to lose its Crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Closed in a prison, yet through Godhead free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To every insult, gibe and contumely—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come from Forever to be with us Now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So Thou dost come to us. But when at last<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Thou callest us to come to Thee,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">We only have to die,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only from weary bones our flesh to cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Only to give a bitter cry;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yea, but a little while to see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our beauty falling from us, in its fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Destined to lose its suasions that enthral,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Destined to be as any gem put by.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We but fulfil our stricken Nature’s law<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To fail and to consume and end;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">While Thou dost come and break,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Coming to us, Thy Nature with a flaw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of death and for our mortal sake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou dost Thy awful wholeness rend.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, let me run to Thee, as runs a wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That leaves the withered trees, it moved, behind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And triumphs forward, careless of its wake!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="WASTING" id="WASTING"></a>WASTING</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">I NEED Thee, O my Food,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O Christ, for whom I pine fourteen long days—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And, as the time delays,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">More sad my mood,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">More faint my powers;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Like that poor Beast of fairy-tale,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Who by the fountain cowers,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Reft of his Beauty, his poor love’s avail,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">By whom he lives, and, missing, dies<br /></span> -<span class="i4">By inches, at the fountain, with wan eyes!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">O come, my Beauty, come,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Lord, by whom I flourish and am strong;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">If I must wait so long,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And mourn so dumb,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Reach me in time,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before I shudder into death and die!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Bow down sublime,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">O Beautiful in pity, where I lie,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And rouse me, sovereign, from my woe,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Empowering me with Thy celestial glow!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="THE_HOUR_OF_NEED" id="THE_HOUR_OF_NEED"></a>THE HOUR OF NEED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">O MOTHER of my Lord,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Beautiful Mary, aid!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He, whom thy will adored,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">When thy body was afraid,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is coming in my flesh to dwell—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pray for me, Mary ... and white Gabriel!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">To thee He came a child,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To me He comes as wheat:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And He descended mild<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To His Mother, as was meet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To me He comes where sin hath been ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gabriel, sweep thy lily-stem between!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">He came, O Mary, down<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To bless thy virgin womb:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">From me He sweeps God’s frown,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And He lifts me from a tomb.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thou wert afraid.... Have grace toward me!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Help me, O Mary! Gabriel, hearten me!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i4">Great love it was to give<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His Body to thy care,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In thine awhile to live:<br /></span> -<span class="i4">For me this love He will dare....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pray, Mary, pray! My soul is shent!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy wings, thy wings, O Gabriel, for my tent!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="EXTREME_UNCTION" id="EXTREME_UNCTION"></a>EXTREME UNCTION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">SOFT fall the Holy Oils, their drip<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Peaceful as Jesus sleeping on the ship.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our eyes, so restless and so full of grip,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Reflecting as the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give up their range and their possession, free<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if to sleep—the sleep of Deity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Upon the ears a lull that dowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gentleness of bees in laurel-flowers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So that it gives to Quiet breeding powers,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A future wrought of gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When we shall hear what never hath been told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And fathom sound it takes all heaven to hold.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Oh, softness on the nostrils, where they strained<br /></span> -<span class="i0">After their airy lusts till they attained;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, by the Cross of balm so softly reined,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">They wait to breathe for breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The vigour of their God, as a shell saith,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Left on the beach, “The brine will wake my death.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The lips receive no coal of fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To urge their fervent crying should not tire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A tender Cross gives check to such desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And bids them wait their song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till they are far from peril and among<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The consonant and ever-praising throng.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The hands, the feet ... O Jesus, all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Marked with Thy Cross, but as a dream may fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In mercy on a mind great woes appal—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A healing shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A priestly grace, so soft the Cross is made,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Embracing, by the nails we are not frayed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Crosses as flowers on every sense<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fall, rest on them in heavenly suspense;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then we know the holy, the immense<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Delight of what shall be.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When, sanctified and calm for joyance, we<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shall have of God our bodies deathlessly.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="AFTER_ANOINTING" id="AFTER_ANOINTING"></a>AFTER ANOINTING</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">JOY of the senses, joy of all<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And each of them, as fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Holy Oils!... O senses, ye would dance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would circle what ye cannot see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet ye receive of your felicity,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Till ye would reel and dance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The joy apparent from your bliss being such<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That, in a fivefold garland knit,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Softly ye would circle it.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Joy ripples through each covered lid;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Nor are the ears forbid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sounds as of honeycomb, so sweet is Heaven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Afar, such sweet, such haunting sound!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O nostrils, myrtle ye shall love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The lips taste fully, as if God were found.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Swift, under peace, toward Heaven<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hands, the feet, so still, like still lakes move,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Delighted Powers of Sense, ye dance,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woven in such a lovely chance!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="VIATICUM" id="VIATICUM"></a>VIATICUM</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O HEART, that burns within,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Illuminated, hot!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O feet, that tread the road<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if they trod it not—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So lifted and so winged<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By rare companionship!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No matter tho’ the road<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Doth unto shadow dip;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The meaning of the night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My ears, attentive, hail.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mighty silence brings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Music no nightingale<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath warbled from its fount;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Music of holy things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Made clear as song can make,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With marvellous utterings:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Past become a joy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of instant clarity,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the deep evening fills<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With converse brimmingly.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O nightingale, hold back<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your wildest song’s discant;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You cannot make my heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With such devotion pant<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As He who steps along<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beside me in the shade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the steep valley-road,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The enveloping, dark glade!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hush, O dim nightingale!...<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is it my God whose Feet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wing mine to travel on;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose voice in current sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shows how divine the thought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And purpose is of all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That hath been and shall be,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And shall to me befall?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stay, nightingale! Behold!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This Wayfarer, with strange,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wild Voice that rouses gloom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thy voice could never range,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hath broken Bread with me!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No resinous, balmed shrine<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glows from its core as I,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When I behold His sign,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And touch His offering Hand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O holiest journey, sped<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With Him who died for me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who breaking with me Bread,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is known to me as Life,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is felt by me as Fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who is my Way and all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My wayfaring’s Desire!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="A_GIFT_OF_SWEETNESS" id="A_GIFT_OF_SWEETNESS"></a>A GIFT OF SWEETNESS</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I THOUGHT to lay my hands about Thy Crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And gather, bleeding, its sharp spines:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But as I knelt and bowed my forehead down,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worshipping thy cruel desert-Crown,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worshipping its thicket of sharp spines—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Through them blew a little wind,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Clearer than the dew in breath<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Round Thy Mother’s feet at Nazareth;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">In a cloud it left behind<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Scent of violets, of such birth<br /></span> -<span class="i4">They had never broken earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But through meshes of the Crown of Thorn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a fertilising cloud, were born;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, fresh with piety of grace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were thrown—oh sweet!—unseen across my face.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That never will a mould-born violet-bed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smell like the violets from the Sacred Head.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="IN_CHRISTO" id="IN_CHRISTO"></a>IN CHRISTO</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">AS shade doth on a dial slide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those dark and parting eyes abide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Toward me from the tall vessel’s side:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Eyes lovelier than the stones of grace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That build for God His dwelling-place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond all jewels in device,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yea, beyond amethyst in price,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The hyacinth-stone in loveliness.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Delectable, dear eyes that bless;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A saviour’s eyes, bent down on me,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As New Jerusalem might be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come down, adorned with Charity....<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let the tall vessel sweep to sea!<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="SIGHTS_FOR_GOD" id="SIGHTS_FOR_GOD"></a>SIGHTS FOR GOD</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A WOMAN, heavenly as dew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the fresh morning, in a little room<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Is kneeling down, and through<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The door of it an Angel’s bloom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of light, how lonely, hath advanced,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the walls his lovely light hath danced,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he hath told God’s utter Will<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Unto that creature heavenly and still—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">God the Father’s terrible, high Will.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Motions of fear and wonder<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The girl sways under;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Her eyes distraught, as wings<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A hawk’s suspension brings<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To panic, when two doves<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Tremble mid their sweet loves.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">She sees beyond sight’s rim<br /></span> -<span class="i4">God and the Power of Him;<br /></span> -<span class="i4">His Promise fallen on her<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As grace He would confer—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Men and the fear their speech<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Must startle should it reach<br /></span> -<span class="i4">A virgin’s secrecy....<br /></span> -<span class="i4">How can such terrors be?<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Then over her, distraught,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Falls a contentment wrought<br /></span> -<span class="i4">To courage of a word<br /></span> -<span class="i4">By the Archangel heard<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With heart’s felicity—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“Be it done unto me<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">According to His Will.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The little room thereafter grew more still,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And Mary knelt and shone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With grace, although the Angel’s beam was gone.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was the fairest sight God yet had looked upon—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mary, the chosen Mother of His Son,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Obedient to Him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As glowing Seraphim.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A lonely Man, beneath the trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That stoop above a sward of garden-ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Kneels in the evening breeze,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Felt as flow without a sound.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While He kneels in that cool place,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the moonlight settled on His face,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He is praying that He may not drink<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of a Cup filled bitter to the brink,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Praying in His anguish not to drink.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And, in strife tremendous<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of woe stupendous,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He strains with power so great—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As a red pomegranate<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That splits and bleeds His head<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With blood is scarlet-red.<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He struggles with the might<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Of the world’s sin in sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">That He must bear if now<br /></span> -<span class="i4">He bends ensanguined brow,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And drinks that awful Cup<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Before his eyes raised up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i4">Sin!—us He meets the shock,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Earth reddens to its rock<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With blood.... Then peace from storm<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Comes to that ruddy Form,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">And a brave word of God<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Blows over the wet sod—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">“If I must drink, not mine,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">My will, O Father, thine<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Be done! Not mine, Thy Will!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The garden-shades thereafter grew more still,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Because an angel came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the red forehead whitened in his flame.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This was the fairest sight God ever looked upon—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Jesus, His loved, only-begotten Son,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Obedient to Him<br /></span> -<span class="i4">As sworded Cherubim.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="TRANSIT" id="TRANSIT"></a>TRANSIT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Cloud that streams its breath of unseen flowers,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i4"><i>Cloud with spice of bay,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Of roses, lily-breathings, and the powers</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Of small violets, or, aloft, black poplars as they quiver!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Cloud that streams its song of birds—no bird</i><br /></span> -<span class="i4"><i>Seen to chant the song:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Yet wide and keen as sun-breath it is heard,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>All the air itself a voice of voices chiming golden!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Mary hath passed by. All plants sweet-leaved,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i4"><i>Sweet-flowered; birds, sweet-voiced,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Round her passing have their sweetness weaved.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Let us yield our incense up, our anthems and our homage!</i><br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><small> -<span class="i0">SOME OF THESE POEMS HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED<br /></span> -<span class="i0">IN “THE IRISH MONTHLY” AND<br /></span> -<span class="i0">IN “THE ROSARY.” ONE WAS PUBLISHED<br /></span> -<span class="i8">IN “THE UNIVERSE.”<br /></span> -</small></div></div> -</div> - -<p> </p> - -<p class="c"><small> -<span class="smcap">Printed by</span><br /> -BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD<br /> -AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS<br /> -<span class="smcap">Tavistock Street Covent Garden<br /> -London</span><br /></small> -</p> - -<p class="c"> -<img src="images/back.jpg" width="318" height="500" alt="" title="" /> -</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems of Adoration, by -Michael Field and Katherine Bradley and Emma Cooper - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF ADORATION *** - -***** This file should be named 61070-h.htm or 61070-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/7/61070/ - -Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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