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

Speak to me, Holy One, speaking in love,
Come to me, Lowly One, come from above,
Down to my weaknesses, down to my sin;
Mould me with meeknesses, new-made within.
Lift me and leaven me righteous and pure,
Lift to Thy Heaven me cleansed and secure;
Breathe as the wind on me, breath on my face
Airs as of Ind on me, odorous grace.
Burn as the fire in me, burn up the dross,
Kindle desire in me true to the Cross;
Flow as the ocean full, strong as Thou art,
Fill with devotion full sweetly my heart.
Through little lips of mine, stammering, weak,
Purged from eclipse of mine, mightily speak;
Quicken the blindnesses, scatter the haze,
With Thy clear kindnesses open my gaze.
Dim is my hearkening, deaf with the choice
Of this world's darkening, waiting Thy voice.
Crown my unmeetnesses with Thy own might,
With Thy completenesses perfect my sight.
Show me myself, O God, brighten the book
Of that dark shelf, O God, every dark nook;
Unveil Thy Being, Lord, dearer than day,
Better than seeing, Lord, light'ning the way;
Bear me, through billowing waters that toss,
Safe to Thy pillowing, Home to the Cross.
Cover this nakedness (as the wide globe)
With new awakedness under Thy robe,
Fitting most feelingly to each dark stain
As I go reelingly bowed with my pain.
Form of Thy witnesses me to endure
Sealed with the fitnesses Thou dost assure,
Stript of all vanities weighing me down
For Thy humanity's clothing and crown—
Garments of glorious uses and art
Proved and victorious mail for my heart.
Deal with me tenderly, armour my life
Feeble and slenderly fashioned for strife,

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Fence it with graciousness flowing from Thee
Out of Thy spaciousness wonderful, free;
Safe from the rancour and evil and dross,
Build me and anchor and nail to the Cross.

THE CRIMSON CROSS.

“The Cross leads generations on.”—
Shelley.

I saw a Crimson Cross set on a bitter hill,
The red sun hid his face, the troubled earth stood still,
While all the powers of hell worked out their wicked will.

Upon it hung a Form, with hands upraised to bless
The murderous foes whose sins He suffered to redress,
In crowned and conquering woe an awful Loveliness.

And from each pleading wound that opened scarlet lips
The great drops trickled down on spearheads' iron tips,
And all but that dear Face was robed in dread eclipse.

But round the Cross there rolled a ghastly shadowed shine,
That showed the features yet and every tortured line
Bathed in the Love that filled those Human eyes Divine.

The darkness like a sea washed on with stifling waves
Against it, and behold! from rended rocky caves,
Upstarted all the sheeted dead in dusty graves.

And out of every tomb and dim unquiet deep,
The buried things of ages left their haunted sleep,
And came as ghostly shapes around the Cross to weep.

A fearful silence gathered up the world, and slid
Upon each waiting heart, like death itself, and hid
And hushed the stormy beats as with a coffin lid.

The very birds were dumb and frozen in mid song
Beneath the crushing pall of that gigantic wrong,
Which with consenting Heaven and earth grew fresh and strong.

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A horror crept from brow to brow in cursèd might,
With muttered oaths and agony of bane and blight,
And in the aching breast was shadow more than night.

But there that patient Figure in the blasting ray
Which fell on Him alone as with a dawnèd day,
Still stood with outstretched hands that seemed to watch and pray.

And from His withered Face and from His wounded side
Compassion writ with blood welled in a saving tide,
Around His foes and slayers in their palaced pride.

And then, as He in lone unutterable shame
Hung on the Crimson Cross with spent and bleeding frame,
A solitary Bird to Him with succour came.

Though it could do but little and in strength was weak,
And had no helping arm nor word of hope to speak,
It brought a drop of dew within its tiny beak.

It touched the fevered lips that were so white and worn,
And for a moment cooled the forehead pierced and torn,
But tried and tried in vain to break one cruel thorn.

And on the panting bosom one red drop was shed
That fell in benediction from that holy Head,
And would have quickened dust that lay for centuries dead.

But now the Blessèd Bird for ever wears the mark
As witness to the Truth in every region dark,
And flashes through all time its clear and crimson spark.

And, lo, when that sweet act of tender aid was done
Which made the earth and Heaven and man and Nature one,
God smiled in unveiled love upon His dying Son.

And on the quaking rocks and to the curtained sky
Rang out in solemn stillness one great Conqueror's cry,
Which opened up a door into eternity.

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But, when I looked again, the Sacred Form was gone
And through the shadow of a Cross the sunlight shone,
While the world's groaning wheels went grinding dimly on.

And, ah, a thin red streak which nothing now could stay
Rose from the awful ground which hallowed ever lay,
And through all years and tears pursued its precious way.

Forth ran that weary dread dicomfortable Path
And over it the sky stooped in one cloud of wrath,
For bitter was the fruit though rich the aftermath.

It started from the Cross, as in the veinèd flesh
With every nerve that throbs throughout that living mesh
A ruddy gash is cut and staunched and bleeds afresh.

At first the Path of Pain seemed faltering and faint,
And though it travelled on unturned by evil's taint
Yet it was paved with bones of many a martyred saint.

O maidens bright and pure were pilgrims on the track,
And when the boding air with death and doom was black
They still went humbly forth and never one looked back.

But oft they gave their gentle bodies to the foe
And suffered nameless wrong, and as with earthquake throe,
Exhaled sweet lives as flowers upon that way of woe.

A tide of troubled figures as in tossing waves,
The old and young and queens and kings and crownèd slaves
Rolled down that dreary road and only left their graves.

It gathered everywhere recruits from all the climes,
And filled the broken ranks with soldiers from new times,
While in their happy ears rang blessèd Christmas chimes.

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And as one pilgrim fell yet others in his place
Stept without stay or fear and broadened out the space,
And radiant was the Cross writ on each upturned face.

The sinking handed on his message to the next,
His shield of faith and sword, his tomb became a text
Of comfort to the weak and hope to hearts perplext.

They ate the bread of sorrow, drank the cup of tears
And spread their table in a wilderness of fears,
But more and mightier grew with hate and hostile years.

They followed no false god of dazzling dream or wraith
But harkened only to the Word the Scripture saith,
And were content with wounds if in the fight of faith.

And wider waxed the road, and brighter burnt the fire,
Which flashed from altars white and calm to Heaven a spire
Of beaconing beauty and an infinite desire.

For hoary-headed men and tottering children came,
And with their ministering blood they fed the flame
Which looked more glorious even beneath the shade of shame.

But higher rose the Path and clearer was it spread,
No more a doubtful track or tiny crimson thread,
It ran and shone betwixt the dying and the dead.

And as it moved it purged the gold from dusky dross,
It gleaned fair jewels out of empty waste and loss,
And every milestone in it was a Crimson Cross.

But as I gazed, behold, the bitter pain was joy,
The thorns and flints were roses that could never cloy,
And martyrdom was gain and earth an idle toy.

The robe of torture was a glad angelic dress,
The cutting sword a kiss, the rack but God's caress,
And killing scathe of scorn a crown of righteousness.

The ugly angry clouds like Azrael's wings took flight,
And all that seemed most wrong became Divinely right,
The grave a portal opening into Peace and Light.

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I saw throughout the lands and blazoned on the sky
That holy Crimson Cross, when suns and moons went by,
Unto the end of time, from all eternity.

It was the pledge and seal of everlasting Love,
In hecatombs of men and in the murdered dove,
In great and small a witness to the God above.

I marked it sculptured in the trees, and in the frame
Of universal Nature stamped in stone the same,
And painted on the clouds and unconsumed in flame.

For none could raise the house to be his mortal home,
And none could bathe in blue the temple's climbing dome,
Unless he signed the Cross read in the Blessèd Tome.

And none could set his hand to pleasure or to toil,
Or build the living book or pluck from fields their spoil,
Without the shadow of the Cross on page and soil.

For all the earth with all the splendour and the spice,
Was purchased with the Blood and at tremendous price,
And founded on the Cross of solemn sacrifice.

Ah, no two hands could join without the sacred sign,
And no two hearts be one without its pain benign,
And none without the Cross escape the world malign.

It was the latest word—the Cross—it was the first,
And yielding to its law alone could quench our thirst,
Or make the fountains from the stony desert burst.

It was the final form below all other shapes,
The thought beneath the thorn, the acid in the grapes,
The Cross behind the harbour stood on stormy capes.

The monarch who would rule was sceptred with its power,
The Cross gave drudges tools and wisdom's grandest dower—
Beyond the farthest dreams and in the fairest bower.

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And evermore the Way rose upward and went on,
Though systems fell with countless generations gone,
And broader, brighter, still in dreadful beauty shone.

And shouting multitudes that daily grew more strong
With shield of golden prayer and sword of silver song,
Now like a mighty sea in flood rolled free along.

The dirge of black defeat was changed to triumph tones,
The graves of martyrs clothed with thunder became thrones,
And weary stumbling blocks had turned to stepping stones.

The lurid glare of tempest vanished with the gloom,
And all the sad and sullen atmosphere of doom
Leapt out with laughter and broke into rosy bloom.

The blast of battle ceased, the bloody flags were furl'd,
Sweet children's voices round the rusty cannon purl'd
And played through every iron tideway of the world.

And mounted yet the Path beyond each fear and frown,
While from its track fell rain of richest mercies down,
Till lost in light the Cross of Glory looked a Crown.

THE SIGN.

Under crimson skies of sunset did the little child go forth,
But his sorrow with him went
And a holy discontent,
And he turned his glances southward and he looked into the north;
For the royal sun was dying
Like a hero in a battle-field and on a gory bed,
And a restless wind was crying
Like a sin that cannot slumber though with darkness on it shed;

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And his eyes were full of visions and his heart was big with prayer
While he sought some other toy,
That would be a lasting joy
And defeat the coming shadow and the curse of Time the Slayer.

O he dwelt upon the east and ranged abroad throughout the west,
With a weariness of soul
That thus early took its toll,
In the waking of the windows and the budding of the breast;
For the day had left him nothing,
Though it gave him only blisses of its blossom and its dew;
And a surfeit as of lothing
Now possest him, as he sadly asked for pleasure yet anew;
Till his baby hands discovered all but one thing was a loss,
And it sank into his life
With its emptiness and strife,
When he read on the horizon as in fire the sacred Cross.

It was written on his forehead and engraven on his hand,
But the sunset on him lay
From the breaking of the day,
And it breathed a mask of mourning for the brightness of the land;
While he asked of all a token
That would lead him on his journey and might be a certain sign,
Just a word of helping spoken
Or a miracle of promise where the portents seemed malign;
And around him every beacon looked misguiding as he moved,
Like a traveller whose gaze
Cannot pierce the closing haze,

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And goes doubtfully and dimly forth by stages still unproved.

It was sculptured in his bosom and was mingled with his blood,
And the iron entered far;
It eclipsed the very star,
And lay under the foundations and kept purging with the flood;
But he could not read the writing,
While he bent so low and earthward and found treasures in the dust;
Till he felt a true delighting,
In the beauty of affliction and the blindnesses of trust;
And he saw it then behind the flower and then beneath the gloss
Of the purple and the pride,
As a comrade at his side,
And he found the key of mysteries was in the sacred Cross.

There was light upon the meadow and a glory girt the mount,
But a burden on her prest
As a serpent at the breast,
Though she gathered gold of buttercups and drank the silver fount;
And not sweet to her the manna
Of the wilderness that fell around and gave her daily food,
For she needed yet a banner
That would shine before the shadowed way and cheer her every mood;
And she sought it in the breezes of each passing hope or whim,
She pursued it too in gain,
And inquired for it in vain
Of the cup of nectared happiness that overflowed its brim.

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But the thorn was in her paradise, the thistle at her feet,
And the cruel pavement stones
Where the sorrows sat on thrones,
Told the same thing in the murmur of the brazen-throated street;
And with clear prophetic waving
The one flag it flew before her on the cloud-land and the wind,
And in readiness of saving
It encompassed like an atmosphere and followed her behind;
Till at last she read the message of the cedar and the moss,
In the greatest and the least,
At the funeral and feast,
And was bathed through all her being gladly in the sacred Cross.

They were few and they were lowly and yet beautiful and free,
Though a curtain as if cut
Out of ebony had shut
All the avenues around them and left portal none to see;
So they asked but for a rifting
In the weary walls of darkness and a glimpse of guiding blue,
With a reverent uplifting
Of the hands that craved the Fatherhood and could not find a clue;
O they bowed upon the threshold of the awful and unknown
With the sacrifice of tears,
And dim services of fears,
While their idols now were shattered and the altars overthrown.

On their knees they begged for mercy and epiphany of might
That would strengthen them for toil,
And wash off the sinful soil

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With the cleansing of compassion, and awake the inward light.
But there came no voice of pity
From the silence of the cloister and the secret of the shrine
Or the madness of the City,
Though they felt the God was near them and they were themselves Divine;
Till a door within them opened and behind the veil of dross,
They beheld the seal of Truth,
Which bestows on worlds their youth,
And the heavenward-pointing finger of the sad and sacred Cross.

Lo, he leant across the centuries with pale prophetic glance,
In his passion for some thought
Upon fiery anvils wrought,
Which would solve the endless riddle of dear life and its romance;
A fit watchword for wise telling,
And a battle-cry to weld the nations on a common ground
After idle sentinelling
Of the seekers and the sages, one which all could rally round;
And he wanted just a lightning line or thundering phrase of flame,
Which might marry to the real
The impossible ideal,
And unite the gray philosophies and future in one name.

But none answered him, no signal flashed athwart the sullen sky
But his own reflected part,
And the beating of his heart
Was the only echo wafted from the dumb eternity;
And he read his lifetime's pages
In the wrinkled mist that crept beneath the summit where he stood,
And a curse upon the stages

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Of his brother and above the glory of bright woman-hood;
Till he saw on humble Calvaries where billows tear and toss,
And embraced within his soul
As his guidance and control,
The red beauty of the nails and kissing of the sacred Cross.

THE CROSS.

The Measure of Love.

There is no measure like the Cross,
There is no measure so,
Which is as infinite in loss
And as exceeding low;
It probes into the poisonous leaven
Of evil's awful spell,
It is as high as highest Heaven,
It is as deep as hell.
Ah, if I were Almighty God
Who suffered sore for us,
And He the crawling worm I trod,
I would not measure thus.

There is no measure like the rule
Which meted God our dearth,
And carries all the joys of Yule
Like sunshine round the earth;
Bought for us at tremendous price
And daily, hourly pangs,
In that perpetual Sacrifice
Where God the Victim hangs;
For O not once or twice alone
In agony He died,
He ever reigns upon that Throne
For us the Crucified.

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There is no measure like that tree
Of dreadful living death,
Upraised for sinners whereon He
For us draws dying breath;
And every soul that passes by
His mercy signs His doom,
And every spot is Calvary
Where Jesus finds no room.
But if I were Almighty God,
And He the midge below
A moment playing o'er the sod,
I would not measure so.

There is no measure like the span
Of God's most boundless Love,
Which took the squalid home in man
And gave him all above;
That chose the littleness and debt
And dolorous bounds of sin,
And purged that prison floor and set
Eternity within;
And though a thousand times cast out
A thousand times He yearns
For us, despite the hate and doubt,
And to His shame returns.

There is no measure like that prayer
For these dim rebel lands,
Which still for ill and God's own slayer
Uplifts the nailèd hands;
It bears all cruelty and scorn
To wipe away one tear,
It wears for crime the crownèd thorn
And leans upon the spear.
But if I were Almighty God
And He my bitterest foe,
Condemned but to the judgment rod,
I would not measure so.

There is no measure like that Heart
Of the Most Holy One,

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Which bled so for the wicked part
Which only we had done;
Which bleeds for ever, as we drive
The wounds of torture deep,
With direr woes He came to shrive,
And sorrow He must keep;
That things of darkness and the dust,
As bubbles on the tide,
May find a refuge they can trust
Safe in His riven side.

There is no measure like the Cross
Which reaches through all time,
To purge the golden ore from dross,
And gathers of each clime;
There is no measure like the Love
Of the Thrice-Blessèd Lord,
Who plants us on His seat above
While smitten by our sword.
Ah, if I were Almighty God
And He with murderer's blow
Struck at me from earth's puny clod,
I would not measure so.

THE CROSS.

The Measure of Sin.

When the name that is known not in Heaven was heard
And the eyes of the angels grew dim,
While the River of Life in its fountain was stirred
Till the waters washed over their brim;
When the word that is nameless,
The word that is woe
For a season of night entered in;
When the thing that is shameless
And every one's foe
Threw a shadow on all and was Sin;
Then the breast of the Father was torn with a throe,
As He felt the downfallen akin.

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Ah, the evil and erring was yet His own child
And begotten in beauty and joy,
Upon whom at His birth He had tenderly smil'd
And endowed with the earth as a toy;
But the root that is bitter,
The root that is bane
Now laid hold of humanity's heart,
And the glamour and glitter
Were turned into pain
And the pleasure no less had a smart;
But in all of the curse, with its sorrow and chain,
God Himself had a terrible part.

It was not that His playmate, His darling, His pride
And the crown of the blossoming years,
Now was blighted and wandered away from His side
And sought fellowship rather with tears;
But the wrong that is cruel,
The wrong that is grief
Had come home to the Father who gave,
And the bliss in His jewel
Was troubled and brief,
And between them lay death and the grave;
Though He knew what alone could redeem with relief,
And the hope that was mighty to save.

Ah, the will of his creature so righteously plann'd,
And enriched with the exquisite flower
Of all possible tributes of sea and the land,
Was now set against Him and His dower;
And the cup that is broken,
The cup that is spilt
Had been chosen by man for his aid,
And the deed with its token
Of darkness and guilt
Fell in blight on foundations He laid;
And the temple to rise must in blood be rebuilt,
When the sentence of mercy was said.

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For the sin in its infinite compass cried out
For a Sacrifice that was no less,
When from earth in its bonds came the conquering shout
Of the wrong still defying redress;
And the light that is error,
The light that is dark,
Had dethroned the bright truth of the day,
And the shadow of terror
Had curtained the Ark,
And the leaders were farthest astray;
But they looked not above for the beaconing mark,
And they looked not below at the way.

So the counsels that are of Eternity bade
That the Highest must meekliest lie,
And the Blessèd who lived in the children He made
Must alone for their trespasses die;
And the One who is Holy,
The One who is kin
To all beauty must bear all the loss,
And be reckoned most lowly
And Himself become Sin,
That His children be purged from their dross;
But, behold, when He knocked they would scarce let Him in,
And then gave Him as Kingdom the Cross.

ONE STEP OUT OF SELF INTO CHRIST.

“And immediately the ship was at the land, whither they went.”—John vi. 21.

The Lord came to me in the middle night
In light,
Although I saw and served Him ill, and spake
“Awake!
Gird up thy loins and take thy pilgrim lamp,
For damp
And dark the journey is, and yet not long
With song;

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But likewise hold thy staff, and fill with praise
And raise
Thy heart to Me and never once look back,
Though black
And endless seem the chill and rugged road
Or load.”
Then I arose and trimmed my lamp and went
Content
With Him, and lightly left with praise and staff
The chaff
And husks and evil pleasures of the earth,
That dearth
And want became at length and crying woe;
But, lo,
The first wave of my voyage was the last,
And cast
My weakness on my Saviour and my Friend—
The End.

“WHERE IS HE?”

A Christophany.

“Where is He?” So I questioned who would be
His slave, and silence answered, “Where is He?”
I was no priest or prophet and no king
With iron sceptre, but a wanderling
Astray upon the mountains of the night,
And vainly groping for a ray of light—
Somehow and somewhere in the curtained cloud,
Which was at once my shelter and my shroud—
Without one human grace or humble gift,
And seeking just a glimmer or blue rift
For the dark earth that mocked my stumbling tread,
In those great heavens of gray, dumb overhead.
I had no knowledge but a child-like love,
That simply prayed and stretched dim hands above,
Against the veil that blurred God's miracle,
To the Unknown and the Unknowable;

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I had no treasure, but a little trust
Which trembled upward like a flame, from dust
And masquerades of mist and the deep dense
Phantasmagoria of fallacious sense,
As to its native skies; I had no guide,
But my own shadow walking at my side;
I had no hope, that might a moment save,
But the dear refuge of no distant grave;
I had no Christ, of whom with hopeless tears
I sought a vision through unverdant years
So mute and dreadful, harvesting but loss,
Where all was care, and every thought a cross,
That married me to woe's unuttered wail,
And each desire a thorn, each step a nail.
But yet I could not live without my Lord,
And though the pathway to Him were a sword
Which I must walk alone, one awful edge
Of cold keen suffering, or some toppling ledge
By precipices pale, still would I dare
To go or climb if none therein had share
With me. I asked the ruddy rolling sphere,
And its response came back, “He is not here.”
I asked the ocean, where I kept vain tryst,
And stormy waiting for the Blessed Christ,
If in those purple palaces His lot
Was cast, and it replied, “I know Him not.”
I asked the eagle on his royal path
A flying bolt of ruin and of wrath,
Free of the earth and water and the air
In solitary silence fierce and fair,
Whose eyes were all ablaze with battle sheen;
But still the answer was, “I have not seen
In halls of space a Master and the joy
Of thy redemption—I, like death, destroy.”
I asked the roses reddening in the sun,
And laughing at the beauty scarce begun
By right Divine, that had save grace no choice;
And they replied, “We have not heard His voice.”
I asked the pilgrim of the world, the wind,
Which breathes of Arctic frost and flowers of Ind,

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And makes the earth with song and perfume sweet,
But finds no place to rest its romping feet;
Which whispered, “Though my travellings are much,
I have not felt the impress of His touch.”

I sought Him in the churches, where the spot
Of carnal ease had fallen, and found Him not—
My Beautiful, my Love, my King, my Life;
I found but foolish babblement and strife
Of consentaneous folly and wild screeds,
And in mock thunder dead or dying creeds.
The wardens of the word and oracles
Spake in cheap wit or vulgar parables,
And charmed their hearers with mere tinkling chimes,
But had no trumpet message for the times
To stir dry bones that rotted in their shame,
And bid souls live and set the world aflame.
While I consumed with struggling need and stress
Would offer Him in utter brokenness
My heart, myself, my all, to keep Him in,
But knew not where for the besetting sin
I might attain a strength to help me stand—
The healing balm of His besetting Hand.
I sought Him in the Senate, where the law
Flowed from its ancient fountain head of awe
In justice, and most reverend right and use
With fertilising streams of power profuse,
Watered the nations as they came to drink,
And shed new life on nations prone to sink
Foredoomed and pass; I saw with fair intents
The mighty mother of all parliaments,
Dispensing measures broadcast through the land,
With equal aim and catholic command,
Builded on base of precedent and rock;
I saw with wonder, from the undying stock
New constitutions bud in festival
Of fervid youth and force magnifical,
A grander growth; I saw the wide earth mount
To vaster summits, from that one great fount

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Revived; but, ah, I did not see my Lord,
Who gave those charters all their sweet accord
And liberties their latitude. I sought
Again in the calm cloistered world of thought,
Where pale and pensive students with the stamp
Of high imperial learning trimmed the lamp
That lit the ages, and led countries on
From unhewn stone to stately Parthenon,
And pillared books with bards' tremendous line
Compact of fire and tears and white moonshine,
And marble might of loveliness, and stairs
Of mist and silence blown about with airs,
Like incense out of columned courts—the lore
Spreading as waves, that sap an iron shore,
And never can be spent. I noted how
The kindling eye and broad contagious brow
Caught every gleam of Truth and flashed it forth,
As the Aurora flaming in the north,
From heart to heart and made serener skies
And other earths with fresh philosophies,
The old writ larger; and I noted still
The passion of the consecrated will,
Vowed as a Vestal to the holy Truth
And thence repairing evermore its youth,
A-burning in the frail devoted form
That could not veil the fire's translucent storm,
As some sweet altar in a shadowed shrine
Dreadful with hidden majesty Divine,
With all around it solemnly illumed,
And all within it bright and unconsumed;
But Him I noted not, who is the Light
Of every world that but reflects His sight.
I sought Him in the market-place, where greed
Pastured on helpless ignorance or need,
Outbidding and outbawling poor men's pains,
And with its muck-rake heaped the loathsome gains
That were stark losses, preying on the weak
Who starved and struggled nor had voice to speak.
I marked the sweater gorged with blood and fat
With tears of orphans, and the plutocrat—

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The monster deaf and blind as death and cold,
A brute machine for coining cursed gold
From lives of murdered men and women—filled
With plunder, but not satisfied, not stilled;
I marked the fraud in fashion, honoured, crowned,
When unexposed and lofty, though it drowned
Its myriads in a sea of damned despair,
And unimagined ruin past repair;
I marked the triumph of the chartered knaves
Whose gilded progress lay o'er open graves
Grim, and the lady's dress of purple proud,
And precious which had been a sister's shroud;
But Him I found not anywhere in all.
I sought Him in the stable, at the stall,
Where once He laid His little Baby Head,
Though with the terrors of the Godhood spread
About it still; but O, He was not there,
Whose virtue yet I knew ranged everywhere
Pervading and compelling with kind power
The rolling planet and the radiant flower
In fragrance and in light; I met Him not,
The Chief among ten thousand, with no spot
Or shadow of a stain upon His dress
Of unconjecturable holiness;
I felt His Beauty, but I could not touch
The uttermost sweet hem I sought so much
With care and prayer. No vestige of His tread
Among the brutes for whom His Blood was shed,
His covenanted creatures; but the strife
Of bastard science, and the crimson knife
That carved its fatal conquests on the flesh
Of hopeless bleeding lives, and carved afresh
Its hideous blots and blunders, to apply
The shame of some poor shambling theory
And pluck from nameless horrors what might suit
Or riot on the old forbidden fruit,
With services of ghastly hecatombs
Offered to Moloch in grim catacombs.
I sought Him in the teardrop's costly gem,
The red light lingering on the fir tree stem,

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The cry of hunted anguish low and long,
The wood dove crooning its wild evensong,
In windy ways of sea, in man and beast,
At gloomy fast and at the glittering feast,
In pomp and pageant and the funeral,
Through mocking loves and hates majestical;
But though I wandered far, and kept a tryst
With death itself, I could not see the Christ.

I sought Him humbly with heart-broken pleas
By the soft murmur of untravelled seas,
And over mountains and gray desert sands
Where rocks arose and stretched forbidding hands
Like skeletons; I asked the land and sky,
But vainly—till I came to Calvary,
By bitter roads that led through doors of loss,
Where hung the shadow of a shameful Cross
Betwixt the heaven and earth, and on it still
The Sacrifice of Love and subject Will,
Lashed by strange winds that seemed at angry strife,
He whose perpetual death is all our Life,
For whom remained no less or diverse plan,
The dying God and the undying Man
In unimaginable sorrow bent,
But more than Conqueror now and most content,
Within that awful darkness which is Light
To us, and every universe of night
With robes of suffering woe and sin enwrapt
In systems undiscovered and unmapt;
The service of the Priest who offers up
Himself, and drinks alone the dreadful cup
Of anguish and fierce overflowing wine
In innocence of human joy divine;
Who saveth others from the yawning grave,
Eternity's black mouth, but cannot save
Himself and will not, though by tortures tried—
My Beautiful, the Ever-Crucified.
I found Him, where I left Him long ago,
Nailed to the Cross which is our guide below

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And beacon lamp and refuge from the storm,
While His great Passion shook the gentle Form
That yet embraced and chose with loving breath
The agony of endless living Death.

There I renewed my vows at wells of Truth
And washed in waters of immortal youth,
When through the gateway of the grave I went
And passed to Life and that august ascent
Of resurrection and the holy ground,
And dropt behind me every chain and bound.
But then my eyes were opened, and I saw
That solemn spectacle of bliss and awe,
Christ on the Cross in every lot and land,
The wounded Side, the pierced outspreading Hand
In benediction that could only thus
At this stupendous price be bought for us,
But by the Blood of God who cannot err—
Most willing and most sinless Sufferer.
And every milestone marked by love and loss,
Which led to Him was just the Sacred Cross;
There was no other signpost through the dark,
Save this one witness of our Hierarch.
I saw it in the sunshine of the throne,
For there He hung uncared-for and alone,
While all the cruel splendour babbled by
And left The King in stark extremity
Of solitary shame. I saw it low
Among the masses and the muddy flow
Of wrangling hates and meannesses, that crept
From crime to crime and gorged the flesh and slept,
And woke to strive and gorge again and sin—
There stood the Cross, and He to all akin,
However sunk and fouled in moral mire
His brothers—there rose up the blood-red spire,
The fountainhead of life and every good,
The strength of man, the dew of maidenhood,
Unseen, unhonoured and unsought, unknown,
But still the central fact unoverthrown

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And everlasting. By the crookèd gait,
By him who dwelleth in the street called Straight
And steps right onward to the duty nigh,
Betwixt the heaving bosom and the sigh
And dying men and dead, within the feast,
Above the science butcher and the beast
Mangled and murdered for a passing play,
While angels weep and fiends hold holiday,
I saw the vision of Divine distress,
The Cross of Christ, the dread great Loveliness
For ever crucified, for ever sweet,
White hands of blessing rent and riven white feet;
I found in every home the bitter cry,
In every heart a hidden Calvary.

MY STAFF.

“Thy Rod and Thy Staff, they comfort me.”

I begged the Master for a staff,
To stay a pilgrim poor
And scatter perils like the chaff
Upon the threshing-floor;
Whereon I might securely lean
And walk the narrow way,
Unsoiled in circuits all unclean
Where vice keeps holiday;
A strong assurance for endurance
In burdens on me laid,
A constant token of unbroken
Communion and His aid.

I asked not for a sceptre's gold,
The bauble of a king,
But something sweetened by His hold
Where safely I could cling;
That would not fail in utmost need
At the first angry gust,
And snapping like a bruisèd reed
Betray my settled trust;

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That wore no traces of the graces
From dying art or earth,
Nor was a witness to unfitness
Foredoomed at very birth.

The Master listened to my cry,
And freely gave the staff
That stayed me in extremity,
And scattered fears like chaff;
It was not what I had desired
Though better than I sought,
Yet past the summits I aspired
To reach my footsteps brought;
Because its fashion was the Passion
Whereby He also trod,
The blessèd sifting and uplifting
Of suffering and the Rod.

And thus the sorrow on me bound
In sickness and through loss,
By faith a comforter was found—
I leaned upon my cross;
The prop, which I with idle quest
Pursued to help me stand
And yield the refuge and the rest,
Itself was in my hand;
And now for ever each endeavour
Is beautiful and free,
I bear no straining load or paining—
The cross, it carries me.

OVER THE RED LEAVES.

In the sad season whose torches had kindled the woodlands and shades
Rolling their splendour through porches of quiet and dim colonnades,
Under the breast of the pigeon and over the red leaves of fire
Came to me like a religion the light of a holy desire,

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Came in the sunset and glamour of colour and ravishing balm
When all the world and its clamour were lost in an infinite calm;
Pulse of a passionate craving for something above and yet nigh
Bred between resting and slaving, born between love and the sigh,
Marked by the sweep of the swallow dividing the air for its food,
Felt in the hush of the hollow and breathed in a maidenly mood.
Ever one beautiful yearning for what I still longed to achieve
Taught not by books and the learning of wisdom that did but deceive,
Quest for a virginal era of peace where no trumpet was blown,
Chase of a hopeless chimera and graces unheard and unknown—
Ever that impulse had haunted my seeking by night and by day
Stemmed not by mockers who taunted me, starved not by death or decay,
Leading me on with a vision that yet I interpreted not
Right in the teeth of derision and enmity and hatred and plot,
Full of unspeakable sorrow and big with unquenchable joy
Bridging to-day and to-morrow and time as if only a toy;
Strong as necessity calling me, through the vain babble of earth
Surging in billows, and falling as lightly as dew upon dearth;
Calm with an iron compulsion that drew me from baubles of gain
Back by a bitter revulsion to penance and exquisite pain,
Forward like destiny lifting me over impassable bars
Idly erected and rifting the fogs and unveiling the stars;

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Yet it was gentle and lowly, and softer than infancy sleep,
Breathing an atmosphere holy and rounded by silences deep,
Stealing like snowflakes that stilly descend from its winterly womb,
Out of All-Space when the shrilly fierce blasts are at rest in their tomb.
Thirsting, unsatisfied hunger that raised me to dizzy ascents,
Thought re-creating me younger than children, divine discontents,
Weariness, doubtings importunate, touched with a beautiful fear,
Moments of error unfortunate, smiles blotted out with a tear,
Terrible dumbness and flashes of speech, the disconsolate voice
Mourning above its gray ashes and mocked by the crimes that rejoice,
Sudden recoils from the awful great plunge into deeps of the dark,
Trifling with treasures unlawful and ladders of song with the lark,
Emptiness aching and lonely, the populous roar of the mart,
Failure when failure was only the tenant that stifled the heart;
These were the feelings and fancies that lashed me with pitiless thong
Over my ruined romances by profitless marchings along,
Through the great pillars of broken white temples that scaled the blue sky
Rich with a promise unspoken and poets' unsyllabled cry,
Whither I knew not by windings of desert and mountain and moor
Tricked by the turns and the findings that never yet opened one door;
Seeking I knew not what haven in regions unguessed and unmapt,

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Though on my heart was engraven a hope with which earth seemed enwrapt,
Through all the dead and the living and through all the ominous air
Sapping the whole with misgiving and counsels of gloom and despair.
Thus did I suffer and travel the worlds of the wandering thought
Helpless, and could not unravel the riddle the centuries wrought,
Till in the autumn and setting of suns that had guided me wrong,
Came with a kindly forgetting of each old enchantment and song
Under the breast of the pigeon and over the red leaves of fire—
Came to me like a religion the light of a holy desire,
Out of All-Time into vision and glory that suddenly brake
Sweet with a solemn decision and bade my dark besom awake.
Not in vain pomps that bedizen the fool for his soul and its loss
Clear on the golden horizon was painted in scarlet a Cross,
Written in blood and the letters put forth at an infinite grief
Paid for the loosing of fetters demanding that awful relief.
Then like a mist of black draping my doubts in a moment were gone,
Truth in its masterful shaping before me no mystery shone
Beaconing home, and my error which sent me in search of the Crown
Dwindled away with the terror that long held its prisoner down.
Now in each horrible stigma and study of passion and pain
All undeserved the enigma and trouble of life became plain,

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Now I beheld as in lightning and blazoned with beautiful tears
Broadening for ever and brightening the secret of sorrowing years.
Not to the Cross is the journey of pilgrims who seek for the Crown
Ready to strive in the tourney with evil and win them renown;
Nay, but the Cross is the starting of faith when it steps to the fight,
Bucklered and brave at the parting of ways in the shadow or light
Upward or down, and the mortal who fain would be victor and son,
Enters alone by the portal which oped for the Crucified One,
Hanging himself and his burden of sin with which sorely he ails
Only to find the fair guerdon at last on the jewelling nails.