English Roses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Breath of the living God, come down
And fill my soul with sacred fire;
To give the Lord a worthy crown,
And clothe Him with a meet attire
Who was and is the World's Desire,
But seeketh not His own renown.
And lift me to a loftier height,
Imparadised in Love and Light;
That these poor lips may proudly sing
What shall become my Christ and King,
And blend with music and the might
Which flow from the eternal spring.

Come, Holy Spirit, be Thou near
And make me, if not equal quite
To tasks which angels well might fear,
Yet robed with innocences white
And touched by passion infinite—
The tones that faith afar can hear.
O speak through me, most humbly bent
Before Thee as an instrument,
Which tries but only echoes part
Of its great Teacher's aim and art;
And all the ages' blind intent,
Shall burst in blossom from my heart.

Sweet Love of Loves, Incarnate Lord,
How shall I venture close to Thee
Whose purity is as a sword,
From which the mountains well might flee?

587

But yet I come, of purpose free
And with Thine own in calm accord.
For though Thou wearest as a dress
The sun of awful Holiness,
And I am soiled with many a sin;
Thou are the Door to enter in,
And death is but the last caress
Which proves we are so nigh akin.

I know these feeble words of mine
Must as an idle mockery sound
In that deep shadow which is shine,
Though midnight by our senses found;
But never bridge was like the bound,
Which makes Thee dearest and Divine.
And over the great gulf I mark
Through the intolerable dark,
A pathway like a crimson Cross;
And if the flames of fury toss,
They only bear me in the Ark
More quickly to the Life-by-loss.

Ah, though the Story of Thy Pain
Is written large on earth and sky,
And reaps all records in its train—
The soul of each fair mystery,
With issue in Eternity—
Yet who shall tell the under-strain?
And Thou, sweet Christ, to every breast
Hast something new of rank or rest,
A secret and a different side;
From which no earthly pomp or pride,
When Thou art really manifest,
Nor powers of hell can once divide.

And thus I know, whate'er I say,
I must add to the goodly store,
And help a soul along the way,
Which leads to Peace and Heavenly lore;
What never hath been said before,
And now will never cease to stay.

588

It may be little or be much,
A melody or a mere touch
And prophecy of better morn;
But it will surely blunt a thorn
Of fellow-suffering, and be such
As even the Master need not scorn,

So, if I only let my heart
Sing what it hath of separate weal,
To smoothe a wrinkle, soothe a smart
Where sorrow lays its bitter seal;
It will be precious balm, to heal
A brother's wound in woe apart.
If I am faithful to the note,
Which sadness in the darkness wrote
Deep in me with its iron pen;
I shall enlarge a neighbour's ken,
Though it but take away a mote
Within one ray rejoicing men.

But still I tremble to set bare
All that Thou, Saviour, art to me;
Who liftest up a common care,
And teachest in the flower or tree;
Nor dost in grief, when sunbeams flee,
Despise a more than equal share.
Our union and communion sweet
When in a solemn tryst we meet,
So sacred and so private are;
To whisper ought may leave a scar
Upon the precious Hands or Feet,
And cloud the brightness of the Star.

O doth the newly-wedded bride
Reveal each tender clasp or kiss
Which draws her to the bridegroom's side,
And welds a closer bond by this?
Would she profane their perfect bliss,
By babble uttered far and wide?
How shall I dare unbosom all
To curious ear or vulgar call,

589

Of what Thy tenderness hath been—
The songs unknown, the joys unseen;
And Love that softened every fall
From happy heights, and came between?

But something I may yet unfold
And lift the curtain for a space,
That reverent eyes may here behold
A glimmer of Thy glorious Face,
And guess the fulness and the grace—
Though half the wonder be untold.
I will adventure for the weak,
On whom misgivings often wreak
The cruel wrong of deadly doubt;
To let in part the secret out,
And hint (what none can rightly speak)
The splendour wrapping me about.

Lo, at the midnight hour, when sleep
Forsakes me for the solemn sense
Of Thy great Presence and a Deep
Beyond the darkness when most dense;
Thou comest, in a Truth intense,
A Lover with a watch to keep.
I see not, but my blackest care
Is one with what Thy Passion bare,
And turns to sunshine the unrest;
I know Thou art my Spirit's guest,
Heart within heart, and am aware
Of a Divinely-beating Breast.

The touch not of a mortal hand
Falls on mine own, as fingers press
Which are a flame and must command
Response by rapture of their stress;
The pain of such deliciousness,
I would not if I could withstand.
But though unearthly, and not wrought
Of flesh and as ecstatic thought
Which asks for ransom of reply;
They thrill my being and defy

590

Our common bars, and give unsought
The breadth of all Humanity.

Then like a cactus flowers the night
From out the superincumbent gloom,
And something more than prophet sight
Makes infinite my little room;
It breaks into a sudden bloom,
With avenues of endless light,
The walls of bounding space are gone,
And brightness which hath never shone
Above an earthly sea and shore
Talks to me of celestial lore;
And in Thy Grandeur I live on,
All lives which saints have lived before.

The laws of time, the limits set
By nature on the eye and ear,
No longer fetter me or fret
The mind, and every cause is clear;
Unveiled I view, with gladsome fear,
What few can see and then forget.
Love reigns the Sovereign Lord, and none
Loses delight in what is done;
Abundance and the desert dearth,
Are kindled at a common Hearth;
And beauty and the truth seem one,
While earth is Heaven and Heaven is earth.

The meaning of the Cross grows plain,
It is the shelter of Thine Arms
So often pierced with human pain—
When we had chosen fleeting charms,
And heeded not their fatal harms—
Sore pierced again and yet again.
Lo, it is scored upon the sky,
And painted in the agony
Of rushing wind and writhing cloud;
And in the shadow of the shroud
Which marks each thing's mortality,
It speaks with ruddy lips aloud.

591

For Thou and It no longer part,
Merged in the same triumphant end
Attained but by celestial art;
And as one broken bleeding Heart
Unite to be a fairer start,
Whence man and God alike ascend.
If morning comes and mists disperse
Yet the whole mighty universe,
Redeemed from death and evil dross
By suffering and a daily loss,
Will rest on (what all times rehearse)
The blessed Passion of the Cross.

I feel the destiny, I find
The awful stress of earthly things,
Which we a petty moment bind
And harness to our hopeful wings;
For in our feeblest flutterings,
Thou art the same, though unconfined.
Dear Lord, Thy love for ever throbs
In thunder anthems and the sobs
Of bursting breasts that reap their due;
The sure and saving golden clue
Which, if a bitter sentence robs
Our lives of all, remaineth true.

The systems come, the systems go,
Like ceaseless bubbles on a stream
Which must for ever onward flow
Through changeful tracts of gloom and gleam;
And if they are an idle dream,
Thy Mercy gives to each its glow.
Yes, in the petal of the flower
Which only claims the dew as dower,
And in the planet's dreadful sweep;
There is a glory which we keep,
And beats a pulse's common power
Untouched by death, unsought of sleep.

Where art Thou not? However short
The shadow of the winter day,

592

Wherein we seem the wretched sport
Of evil spirits at their play;
Thine is the one redeeming ray,
To guide us safely into Port.
The breath of liberties to be
Uplifted in a nation's plea,
Is Thine as truly as the plaint
In bondage of some pure-souled saint;
And like the movement of a sea,
Which rolls above a world's restraint.

When wast Thou absent? At the dawn
Of young creation didst Thou stand,
Ere purple night with stars was strawn,
Co-builder at our God's right hand;
To fence the ocean from the land,
And bid old Chaos be withdrawn.
Even when the primal lamb was slain,
Or in the ministry of pain
Man offered up a costlier price;
The precious blood, the fragrant spice,
To Thee all witnessed not in vain
And showed the deeper Sacrifice.

The centre and the source of each
Great Kosmic outcome, or the act
Of private effort's petty reach
Spent (and in mere unsplendid fact)
Ere it can ripple to the beach,
And merge in some sublimer pact;
Thy Guardian Spirit governs both
And keeps with them a constant troth,
Be it a meanness or a mount;
Alike in all Thy careful count
Preserves the barren lands from sloth,
And warms them at one blessed Fount.

Thy wondrous method hath its way
On heaven and earth, it rules the stars;
And is that sad Divine delay
Of progress won through iron bars,

593

With bitter scorn and jewelled scars—
The light of darkest disarray.
It triumphs over change and chance,
And moulds the gloom of circumstance
Until it leaps and laughs and shines;
In sweating mills and swarthy mines,
It is the secret ordinance
And mainspring of eternal lines.

O Saviour, I but kiss the hem
Of that grand Beauty which is more
Than words, and with its stately stem
Props planets on their shifting shore;
It holds the future too in store,
And precious thought's pure Diadem.
When I would syllable the grace
Of that which only hides Thy Face,
And dazzles us with sweet defence;
I feel my work is poor pretence,
And mars the orbit beyond space
Or mocks Thy dread magnificence.

But still no creature is so mild
As Thou, O dear unsetting Sun,
Amid our failures weak and wild
Along the path which we would run;
Thou, ere these systems had begun
And still, the Everlasting Child.
For, though more awful than the flame
Which bursts the bondage of its frame,
Thou art the gentlest thing no less;
And in Thy soft and righteous dress,
Lo, I can cloke my sinful shame
Or play with Thy meek Loveliness.

Ah, silence Lord, doth praise Thee more,
With sealed lips and upturned look
That maketh but of Thee its boast;
In love, that like a quiet brook
Goes murmuring round a mighty coast

594

And chants in some forgotten nook.
This heart would only break with bliss
To sing Thee more, that sings amiss;
I am content to gaze and hark
Or toss with Thee inside the Ark,
To face the fears of the abyss
And voyage through the unmapt dark.

Adored One, my Redeemer, Friend,
The Husband to outlive each tie
Of fading earth that soon must end,
When all upon Thy Breast must lie;
With Thee I live, with Thee I die,
And fall that thus I may ascend.
Thou wast before the birth of time,
And mad'st the music for its chime;
While every land is fair and sweet,
For the pure passage of Thy Feet,
And saddest souls in every clime
With Thee at last must somewhere meet.

PAIN THE DIVINE.

O blessèd Pain,
I look to thee
For all the comforts that I know,
The music in the mourning strain,
The fruit upon the blasted tree
More sweet than any fruit below.
Whate'er is fitter
Or beautiful and fine and sweet,
Is by the bitter—
The deadly secret drop at core,
Or surly dross that hides the ore—
Made wonderful and wise and meet.
O Blessed Lord,
Thou art more near
And precious in the test of flame,
Beneath the judgment of the sword

595

Or solemn night of sudden fear,
Than at the silken ease of shame.
It is the cruel
Sharp nail, or crimson-flowering thorn,
Which grows a jewel
Deep in the wounded brow or breast,
And frets the weary soul to rest
As though on Thine own Bosom borne.

Thrice-holy pain,
Thy passion streams
Forth from the broken Heart of God;
It flows through all the golden gain
Which, mingled of our deeds and dreams,
Opens new joys of worlds untrod.
Thou art the marrow,
Of sturdy toil that rounds the days;
Else were they narrow,
Poor sheeptracts and the narrow ruts
Of tameness which on trifling shuts,
And not the broad imperial ways.
Thrice Holy Lord,
This is Thy Life,
The very pulse that in Thee beats
And moulds our minds in true accord
With Thee, and blossoms out of strife—
It stirs the systems' hidden seats.
Thy crown of Glory
Is not the risen and radiant star,
A triumph story;
But agony of Love and Loss,
Which smiles in rapture o'er the Cross,
Whereat the gates of Death unbar.

Divinest Pain,
Mysterious food,
Thou givest all the spirit asks;
While nerving arms that else in vain
(The sport of some rebellious mood)
Were braced to meet their iron tasks.

596

Monarchs and ermined
High judges tread Thy troubled road,
Dim but determined
From everlasting; and the sheen
Of beauty, shed by bloom or queen,
Were nought without Thy piercing goad.
Divinest Lord,
Thy perfect will
Demands the payment of the pangs
Which strike in Thee a common chord,
And make us partners though they kill—
Eternity upon them hangs.
Thy throne majestic
Is built of sadness, and finds woes
Dear and domestic;
And only he can reign as king
Who with Thee walks through suffering,
Shaken and shaped by fiery throes.