Devotional Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I was a mighty king's daughter, who knew not the Name
Whereby we are saved; and one feast-day, at noon-tide, there came
A lad from the bounds of our kingdom, who told us that men
Were come from a country far off, and were waiting as then
With a message of peace unto men of good will. Then my sire
Laughed loud, and the princes laughed too, and he called the lad nigher,
To know of him who was the monarch whose message of peace
Was sent unto him, the most mighty; to him whose increase
Was the waxing of earth, and whose failing her sorrowful wane.—

And the lad smiled a smile in his calmness, and answered again,
“Sir King, they who sent me will tell thee.” Great laughter and mirth
Out leapt at the word of my sire, “He is king of all earth,
Small doubt, who hath sent us a herald so mighty as thou,
Ungrown of the beard and the shoulders, and smooth of the brow!”

But the lad, lowly louting, spake nought, though I deemed his heart said,
“My King is the greatest of kings of the living and dead!”

Then my father made sign unto me, who was standing anear,
To approach him yet nearer; and whispered his word in my ear.
I heard him, and trembled and shuddered, but knew not the why,
For oft he had bid me, his daughter, to look with the eye
Of the sight beyond sight I was born with, and tell what should be;
For the wisdom of women was on me, and far could I see;
I heard what was silent for him, and I saw what was veiled,
And oft I had saved his great lordship from woes that assailed,
For the soul of a prophet was in me; but now I stood stark,
And the heart of me died in my bosom, as, stifling and dark,
The silence enwrapped me and held me. My women upraised,
And took me away from the sight of the courtiers that gazed,

And bore to a chamber soft-lighted, to lay on a bed
And watch me, as women sit watching their lady that's dead.
Not stilled was the shout of the feast, nor its laughter made vain,
For they deemed I should rise from my trance to behold them again.

Oh the blindness and darkness that wrapped me! The loneness and woe
Of the spirit that goeth alone where her mates cannot go!
A land of the shadow of death, and the quenching of life;
A land of the breaking of hope, and of anguish and strife;
A land of upheaval and terror, a land of despair,
Of a presence that blasted and slew with its cark and its care.

But out of the blindness and darkness of night, and the awe
Of the sorrow and loneness, One lifted my soul, and I saw
Far away to the still happy blue of the sky and the sea,—
Where the meeting of ocean and ether unwist of by me—
That blue was a glory of tenderness radiant and soft,
And the birds therein spread out their wings, as they soared high aloft;

And the light of the distant gleamed lovely and lighted the near,
And the eyes that were blessed by the sight of the far-off grew clear,
Till I knew of a beauty, a splendour more fair than a dream,
And I knew that it was and would be, nor a whit did it seem.
The glory sank down to my soul, and the fear was all gone,
And I looked out with eyes newly purged, and they looked upon One
More fair than the men that I knew, than the gods that I guessed,
With the love of the earth and the heaven for a zone round His breast;
With the might of the Maker of all for a crown on His head,
And with eyes that could pierce to the heart of the hell of the dead;
With lips that were bright with the radiance of utterance like gold,
And hands that were strong with the strength that ne'er droops nor grows old.
The glory of youth and of prime, and the glory of eld,
Behaloed the Body enshrining the Spirit beheld
By men who had willed the beholding, by women who loved,
And children who laughed in His arms in their joy unreproved.

They thought I had died, and they came with their anguish and wail.
And dressed me in garments of splendour, and laid on the bale;
But I rose, and I spake—Let them come, O my father, for lo!
I have tasted the bitter of darkness, the sweet of a glow
That spake to the heart of the darkness and bad it depart;
And I kneel to a Presence unknown with the knee of my heart.

Then the black-vested men with the tonsure were fetched, and I stood,
And knew they were speaking, and bowed me, and knelt to the Rood,
And the tale that they told was the tale of Redemption. I sat,
As one who with ears of the listening hears nothing thereat.
And I know not, have no understanding of how I was taught,
But the rapture and awe was upon me; the vision was brought
That blinded me, glad of the blinding for so could I see
The vision again in its beauty that came unto me;
To me, who should know of the men what they knew and believed,
But could not hold open my eyes for the glory received

On the eye-balls, whose lids were close-shut, to behold Him once more,
The Lord of high fairness and worship I saw heretofore.

But, lo! as I looked on Him steadily, dimness dropped down,
And the glory was blotted away in the dusk of a frown
From a Face that I saw not, for no man could live did he see;
And I saw how the Face was in shadow, and slow upon me,
Came the vision, the last of my visions for ever. I knew,
Even I, how a tree was uplifted stark-straight 'gainst the blue,
And a bar ran across it, and wide on that bar were outstretched
The arms of the Mighty, the Glorious; and sighings were fetched
From the heart of the world as the Fairest hung heavily there,
And the lips of Him parted to utter a cry of despair,
The lips that were parched in the anguish of terrible thirst;
And I knew in the depth of my soul how the Last and the First,
With thorns for the crown, and blood-chrism, and cross for the throne,
Was King over Death by His dying. I knew that alone

He entered the place of the veiling, the realms of the shade,
To give God again the lost world which through Him had been made.
The Spirit commended to God and the Body all slack,
And the sun gone away from the heaven and the night-tide come back.

I watched as the hours of His darkness rolled heavily on,
Till the sun rose again, and grew high, and fell low, and was gone;
And the earth passed again into darkness, and kept her embrace
Of the Body in wrappings of linen, the white-covered Face;
And the fragrance of spikenard and myrrh was in every fold
Of the cerements that clung to the Body, so stiff and so cold:
But the tomb was all filled with a fragrance more fragrant than nard,
As the Fairest One lay in the bosom of darkness, and shared
The sleep that's alike for the highest and meanest of men,
Till the earth had passed out of the shadow of darkness, and then—

Oh, gladness exceeding! Oh, light of all splendours the sum!
Oh, glory of praise to love's glory, for Easter has come!

Then I rose in the light, and I lifted my voice to proclaim
The King, and the Lord and the Master, Christ Jesus, His name.
I spake to the priests, and they listened, and little they said,
But looked upon me as though looking on one who had fed
On the fruitage of Eden, by man unwithheld, unbestowed,
From the hand of no angel, indeed, but the hand of her God.

But the hearts of my kinsmen were angry because of this thing,
And they fell on the men of good-will and the peace of the King,
And left them all ghastly and broken, bedrenched with their blood,
And they laughed, and they shouted, and maddened, and trampled the Rood.
And late, when I stole through the darkness to help, an I might,
But one of the priests was alive, and I helped him that night,

And we fled from the land through the wilds, in the deep of the shade,
And he sealed me Lord Christ's in a stream that we crossed undismayed;
And he gave me the fairest of names, of the Mother of God.
Me, the first fruits, and only, as then, of the Faith on the sod.

So we passed out together, God-guided, until that we came
To the land of a people that knew of the Lord by His name;
He gave me in charge to the Abbess, whose convent looked down
From the height of the hills on the pastures that girded a town;
And there did I pray for my father and each of my kin,
That He who had died for us all would assoil them of sin.

Monks bore them the message of peace and good will once again,
And they listened, and bowed the knee low, where the martyrs were slain.
I know, for the merchants have told it, that now in that land,
Where my father once ruled in the might that no man could withstand,

High honour is paid to the Name that is high above names,
And the crucified Maker of man, in allegiance that claims
The soul, and the spirit, and body, is worshipped and loved,
And the idols are swept into darkness, untroubled, unmoved.

So now ye have heard me, my Sisters, and know of God's ways
To me and to mine in the flesh, in the spirit, His praise
Be uplifted by me and by mine,—nay, the whole world uplift
Its heart to its Maker and Lover, the Giver, the Gift.
O children He gave me, abide in the love that makes whole,
And pray for the souls that He died for, and pray for my soul.