Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

I saw a Hand, a piercèd Hand,
Which called me from this pleasant land
And every idle whim,
The scarlet flowers
And happy bowers,
And beckoned me to Him—
Unto a tryst, a holy tryst
With my fair Master, the sweet Christ.

It came at night, one awful night
Stabbed by the levin's dart;
And yet a marvellous great Light,
Broke from a bleeding Heart.
I saw His eyes, His loving eyes
More soft than sun in summer skies—
More beautiful than day
With holy tears
That washed my fears,
And made me kneel and pray;
Till in that Heart, that bleeding Heart,
I found myself, my better part.

It was no dream, no passing dream,
It was no fancied tryst;
And life was that gray tossing stream,
Which carried me to Christ.
I saw His feet, His piercèd feet
On cutting stone, in cruel street,
Wherein He had no lot;
For labour's pen
And striving men—
Alas, they knew him not.
Though toil and tryst, each noble tryst,
Drew virtue from the wounds of Christ.

I bent my brow, my rebel brow,
And struck this guilty breast;
And to my lips a sudden vow
Rushed, with a sacred rest.
I heard His voice, His healing voice,

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That mixed with my own settled choice;
And on my drooping head
He bade me bear
The cross of care,
Which He had borne instead.
And on His breast, His heavenly breast,
I found the very thorns were rest.

And now I keep, I daily keep
Beneath the Cross a tryst,
And in the visions of my sleep
I suffer still with Christ.
I know His face, His wondrous face
Is all my glory, all my grace,
If life be sometimes dim;
And, when I ail
Some tender nail
Will marry me to Him.
And so a tryst, a lover's tryst
Is what I only ask of Christ.

A CHRISTOPHANY.—II.

Offspring of sadness, astray on the street,
Tost as in madness with bruisèd brown feet,
Cometh a ranger of alleys and slums
Suckled on danger and starved with our crumbs;
Wizened and tattered and harshly by mire
Spotted and spattered and flecked as with fire,
Bearing a burden of refuse and crusts
Left as the guerdon of drains and the dust;
Crushed, with no portion of pleasure or taste,
Cast an abortion on misery's waste:—
Who is this, Holy One? Speak to my heart;
Who is this lowly thing, lost and apart?

Sudden the shadows of time roll away,
As from the meadows the mists that delay
Struck by the arrows of sunlight, and woe
Tells how it harrows the poor with its throe;

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Child he no longer appears, and the brow
Brightens and stronger his bearing is now;
Ah, and the bitter mean load on his back,
Sends a strange glitter through ruin and wrack;
Holy the fashion, and cruel the loss;
Here is the Passion, for here is the Cross.
Yes I see, Holy One, under the pain
Unto this lowly lot Christ nailed again.

Food for the gallows, he slinks to his cell
Wrecked on the shallows that lead us to hell,
Hopeless, a spoiler of men, with no brand
Borne by the toiler and ruddy of hand;
Brutal in features and gloomy in mind,
Shaped as the creatures that prey on their kind,
Sinister, scenting the blood from afar;
Grim, unrelenting, with many a scar
Scorching the traces of anger and lust,
Pestilent places and all the unjust.
Who is this, Living One, evil and dim?
Is there forgiving yet treasured for him?

Lo, as I ponder this problem of night,
If for such yonder there yet may be light,
Somehow and somewhere, and happier lot
Ever can come where the heart is one blot;
Into the prison, which frowns as if hope
Could not have risen or found there a scope,
Shineth a splendour but not of our skies
Making it tender and pure those dark eyes,
Turning to golden delight the sere dross
Till with its olden sad tale stands the Cross.
Yes, I see, Living One, in that vile flesh
Christ the forgiving is murdered afresh.

Tramping the pavement, a blight on the flags,
Gilded enslavement with virtue in rags,
In the surrender that loses the whole
Paid by the vender of body and soul;
Dizened and nameless, the daughter of sin
Strolls along shameless with impudent chin,

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Wanton, a scorner of honester trade,
Now at a corner and now in the shade
Flaunting the jewel as false as her speech,
Greedy and cruel, athirst as a leech.
Who is this, Blessèd One, yet in the bud,
Basely caressèd and cheap as the mud.

Over the tricking of powder and stains,
Horribly sticking like leperous blains,
Over the sneering of folly and vice
Spread as veneering and bought at a price,
Surges a glory and shimmers a grace
Read not in story of earth's highest place;
Tenderly soften those features through paint
Saddened, as often the eyes of a saint
Through the wild welter of temptings that toss
To the one shelter, revealing the Cross.
Now I see, Blessèd One, from the black mire
Christ has caressèd this form as with fire.