 | The Light of the World or The Great Consummation |  |
But Mary's great eyes gleamed,
Crying:“Oh, Sir! in those good opening days
We were as glad as maids at marriage-time;
As jocund as the bird that hangs his heart—
Bursting with song—midway 'twixt Earth and Heaven,
And hath, to ravish it, the sky all his
Up to the utmost blue, and, green below,
The Earth his, down to that one dearest nook,
The little happy hollow in the grass
Where his mate listens on her warm grey eggs
In woven nest. So owned we two wide worlds,
Following behind Him, over Galilee.
Nay, and those never knew my Master's mind,
Nor touched the golden hem of what He taught,
Nor tasted honied lesson of His lips,
Who drew not from the treasure of those lips
Joyance to make him glad to live or die!
Wistful and woeful may well go, I know,
The days of those who, driven by the winds
Of strife, and avarice, and lust of eye,
Chase, what shall never be attained on Earth,
Contentment with the joys which are of Earth.
Who knows, but Miriam of Magdala,
How the red bubbles, bursting on the wine,
Foretell, at the cup's bottom, bitterness?
Truly, such souls are like our ‘gal-gal’
here—
If thou hast seen it,—the wild artichoke,
Which putteth forth brave branches in the spring,
Dying at autumn into dusty globes
That break, and fall, and roll, all helplessly,
Ten score together in a leaping crowd,
O'er hill and vale, bounding like things possessed;
Till the thorns take them, or the wrathful sea.
The Desert-rider reins his frightened beast,
As ‘the accursëd’ whirls, and cries in scorn:
‘Oh! gal-gal! whither goest thou to lodge?’
And the dry, miserable, ball replies:
‘Where the wind lodgeth for the night, I lie!’
Crying:“Oh, Sir! in those good opening days
We were as glad as maids at marriage-time;
As jocund as the bird that hangs his heart—
Bursting with song—midway 'twixt Earth and Heaven,
And hath, to ravish it, the sky all his
166
The Earth his, down to that one dearest nook,
The little happy hollow in the grass
Where his mate listens on her warm grey eggs
In woven nest. So owned we two wide worlds,
Following behind Him, over Galilee.
Nay, and those never knew my Master's mind,
Nor touched the golden hem of what He taught,
Nor tasted honied lesson of His lips,
Who drew not from the treasure of those lips
Joyance to make him glad to live or die!
Wistful and woeful may well go, I know,
The days of those who, driven by the winds
Of strife, and avarice, and lust of eye,
Chase, what shall never be attained on Earth,
Contentment with the joys which are of Earth.
Who knows, but Miriam of Magdala,
How the red bubbles, bursting on the wine,
Foretell, at the cup's bottom, bitterness?
167
If thou hast seen it,—the wild artichoke,
Which putteth forth brave branches in the spring,
Dying at autumn into dusty globes
That break, and fall, and roll, all helplessly,
Ten score together in a leaping crowd,
O'er hill and vale, bounding like things possessed;
Till the thorns take them, or the wrathful sea.
The Desert-rider reins his frightened beast,
As ‘the accursëd’ whirls, and cries in scorn:
‘Oh! gal-gal! whither goest thou to lodge?’
And the dry, miserable, ball replies:
‘Where the wind lodgeth for the night, I lie!’
| The Light of the World or The Great Consummation | |