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. 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