Mystic Trees :: :: University of Virginia Library

Who is this?
Oh, behold the little thing!
Oh, behold the angels clustering
In a circle of supremest wing,
Following her steps, who is so small,
She against the Temple-stones may fall!

Mary's self it is:
To the Temple-Courts she draweth nigh,
Offering
Her three years beneath the sky
To her King;
With the years that by and by
The years will bring;
And the deep Eternity beside,
Ere the hills were cloven wide,
When with God she did abide—
With her now for her remembering,
With her as a lovely guide.

II

Fair art thou in thy youth,
Deriving from God's truth;
Thou liv'st in meekness, very still,
And fillest as a river with God's Will.

Lovely thy feet that climb,
In musical, swift rhyme,
The steps up to the Temple, where all day
Thy portion is to serve:
None tempteth thee to swerve,
Nor sigh at other children in their play.

When Joseph asks troth-plight,
Fair is he in thy sight,
O Virgin, yet thou feelest the control
Of something that doth keep
Thee closed as in a sleep;
As one asleep thou smilest on his soul:

Or, as the sun that peers
Forth from a cloud, yet steers
No way to cast a radiance on the plain.
Joseph receives thee so,
And mourns, and bows him to his woe,
And mourns that thou shouldst love him back again.