Mystic Trees by Michael Field [i.e. K. H. Bradley and E. E. Cooper] |
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PASCHAL PENANCE |
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 | Mystic Trees |  |
109
PASCHAL PENANCE
I
Come, let us sing these plaintive litanies,Come, let us pass in penitence consenting,
And sing lamenting
Among the budding trees.
The rain is stirring among the beans, how soft!
We offend God very oft....
Come, for our tears alone can give Him ease!
II
Eden-spring He spreads before His fallen—Come to the flowering-place of His sorrowing!
He will do a thing—
Die on the cross for men:
His blood drops down on their heads as they pass,
On their heads as they pass—
On the white, little flocks of the cyclamen.
III
Let us weep the lovely world we have undone;Come, let us weep in the apple-orchard!
God's justice lies at His Heart too hard—
It will melt in the sun:
Soft and warm and full of deep perfume our sighing;
For our God is dying;
Broken His Heart, and the way of our pardon won.
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IV
Penance! Ah, now let us be prodigalIn tears—as the hawthorn-boughs are lading,
And their roses braiding!
God in the midst of all
Shedding His Blood for us, shedding drop by drop.
Surely our tears shall not stop—
Our prayers rise up from our sins, as they appal.
V
No sorrow is like Thy sorrow—that we see!Patient, and very long and slow be our praying,
As we pass a-maying
By Thy three hours' Agony.
Till we pause at the Cross to compassionate
Thee, the grief of Thy estate,
Nor cease our dirge, till Thy death comes over Thee.
VI
What we have done, very well have we known,We the vilest beneath the sun now living;
Hell our desert, Thou giving
Place for us by Thy throne:
Come, let us draw Thee down and bury Thee
In a garden, under this Cedar-tree,
And make for our God fresh memory.
| Mystic Trees | |