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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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