 | Sacred Poems |  |
78
CHRIST'S MOTHER.
THOUGHTS UPON THE PROBABLE DAILY RECIPROCITIES OF DUTY AND TENDERNESS BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS MOTHER, IN THE SAVIOUR'S CHILDHOOD—SUGGESTED BY THE READING OF THAT EXQUISITE NARRATIVE, THE SECOND CHAPTER OF LUKE.
The boy was sad, yet fair.
The marvels of his birth were strange to hear,
And, to regard his gentle face and speak
Some fond word of him to his youthful mother
Seemed kindness to the humble Nazarenes
Who stopp'd at Mary's door; but thoughtfully,
She listen'd to their praises of the child—
So less than all she knew—and let her heart
Look with its answer up to God. And day
Followed on day, like any childhood's passing;
And silently sat Mary at her wheel,
And watched the boy Messiah as she spun;
And—as a human child, unto his mother
“Subject” the while—he did her low-voiced bidding,
Or gently came to lean upon her knee
And asked her of the thoughts that in him stirred
Dimly as yet, or with affection sweet,
Tell murmuring of his weariness; and there,
All tearful-hearted, as a human mother
Unutterably fond, while touch'd with awe—
She paused, or with a tremulous hand spun on,
The blessing that her lips instinctive gave,
Asked of Him with an instant thought again.
And when they “went up to Jerusalem,
After the custom of the feast,” and there
“Fulfilled the days,” and back to Nazareth
Went a day's journey, and sought Jesus there,
Among their kinsfolk who had gone before,
And found him not—the mother's heart of Mary
Well knew, that wheresoever strayed the child,
He could not go by angels unattended;
But, therefore, was her tenderness untroubled? No.
Though in her memory lay Gabriel's words,
Brought her on wings at God's own throne unfolded;
Though in rapt speech, Anna the prophetess
Had named him the Redeemer, newly born—
And Simeon, forbidden to see death
Till he had seen the Christ, had taken Him
Into his arms, and prayed that he might now
Depart in peace—though of the song they sang,
(That host, who, while the glory of the Lord
Shone round about, told of his birth by night
Unto the shepherds as they watched,) she knew
The burden was a work yet unfulfilled—
To Him the Saviour given, and yet, to do.—
Still was the child she loved gone from her now
And Mary “SOUGHT HIM SORROWING.”
The marvels of his birth were strange to hear,
And, to regard his gentle face and speak
Some fond word of him to his youthful mother
Seemed kindness to the humble Nazarenes
Who stopp'd at Mary's door; but thoughtfully,
She listen'd to their praises of the child—
So less than all she knew—and let her heart
Look with its answer up to God. And day
Followed on day, like any childhood's passing;
And silently sat Mary at her wheel,
And watched the boy Messiah as she spun;
And—as a human child, unto his mother
“Subject” the while—he did her low-voiced bidding,
Or gently came to lean upon her knee
And asked her of the thoughts that in him stirred
Dimly as yet, or with affection sweet,
Tell murmuring of his weariness; and there,
All tearful-hearted, as a human mother
Unutterably fond, while touch'd with awe—
She paused, or with a tremulous hand spun on,
The blessing that her lips instinctive gave,
Asked of Him with an instant thought again.
79
After the custom of the feast,” and there
“Fulfilled the days,” and back to Nazareth
Went a day's journey, and sought Jesus there,
Among their kinsfolk who had gone before,
And found him not—the mother's heart of Mary
Well knew, that wheresoever strayed the child,
He could not go by angels unattended;
But, therefore, was her tenderness untroubled? No.
Though in her memory lay Gabriel's words,
Brought her on wings at God's own throne unfolded;
Though in rapt speech, Anna the prophetess
Had named him the Redeemer, newly born—
And Simeon, forbidden to see death
Till he had seen the Christ, had taken Him
Into his arms, and prayed that he might now
Depart in peace—though of the song they sang,
(That host, who, while the glory of the Lord
Shone round about, told of his birth by night
Unto the shepherds as they watched,) she knew
The burden was a work yet unfulfilled—
To Him the Saviour given, and yet, to do.—
Still was the child she loved gone from her now
And Mary “SOUGHT HIM SORROWING.”
And who
“Kept all his sayings in her heart” but Mary?
It was not with unnatural brightness beaming
From the fair forehead of the boy, nor yet
By revelations from his infant lips
Too wondrous to deny, that Jesus first
Gave out the dawn of the Messiah morn
Breaking within his soul. With wisdom only
Reached by the child's simplicity—so oft
Truer than sage's lore—and outward pressed
By the divinity half conscious now,
He argued in the Temple, and amazed
The elders, seated in their midst—but none
In these first teachings saw the Son of God,
And he went back to Nazareth—a child—
Unsought by the disputing priests again,
And his strange words forgotten but by Mary,
Who “KEPT THEM IN HER HEART.”
“Kept all his sayings in her heart” but Mary?
It was not with unnatural brightness beaming
From the fair forehead of the boy, nor yet
By revelations from his infant lips
80
Gave out the dawn of the Messiah morn
Breaking within his soul. With wisdom only
Reached by the child's simplicity—so oft
Truer than sage's lore—and outward pressed
By the divinity half conscious now,
He argued in the Temple, and amazed
The elders, seated in their midst—but none
In these first teachings saw the Son of God,
And he went back to Nazareth—a child—
Unsought by the disputing priests again,
And his strange words forgotten but by Mary,
Who “KEPT THEM IN HER HEART.”
Oh, not alone
In his pure teachings and in Calvary's woe,
Lay the blest errand of the Saviour here.
His walk through life's dark pathway blessed yet more.
Distant from God so infinitely far
Was human weakness, till He came to bear,
With us, our weaknesses awhile, that fear
Had heard Jehovah's voice, in thunder only,
And worshipped trembling. Heaven is nearer now.
At God's right hand sits One who was a child,
Born as the humblest, and who here abode
Till of our sorrows he had suffered all.
They who now weep, remember that he wept.
The tempted, the despised, the sorrowing, feel
That Jesus, too, drank of these cups of woe.
And oh, if of our joys he tasted less—
If all but one passed from his lips away—
That one—A MOTHER'S LOVE—by his partaking
Is like a thread of heaven spun through our life,
And we, in the untiring watch, the tears,
The tenderness and fond trust of a mother,
May feel a heavenly closeness unto God—
For such, all human in its blest excess,
Was Mary's love for Jesus.
In his pure teachings and in Calvary's woe,
Lay the blest errand of the Saviour here.
His walk through life's dark pathway blessed yet more.
Distant from God so infinitely far
Was human weakness, till He came to bear,
With us, our weaknesses awhile, that fear
Had heard Jehovah's voice, in thunder only,
And worshipped trembling. Heaven is nearer now.
At God's right hand sits One who was a child,
Born as the humblest, and who here abode
Till of our sorrows he had suffered all.
They who now weep, remember that he wept.
The tempted, the despised, the sorrowing, feel
That Jesus, too, drank of these cups of woe.
And oh, if of our joys he tasted less—
81
That one—A MOTHER'S LOVE—by his partaking
Is like a thread of heaven spun through our life,
And we, in the untiring watch, the tears,
The tenderness and fond trust of a mother,
May feel a heavenly closeness unto God—
For such, all human in its blest excess,
Was Mary's love for Jesus.
| Sacred Poems | |