The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Some Presence veiled in fields and groves
That mingles rapture with remorse,
Some buried joy beside us moves,
And thrills the soul with such discourse

As they, perchance, that wondering pair
Who to Emmaus bent their way,
Hearing, heard not. Like them our prayer
We make:—‘The night is near us . . Stay!’

With Paschal chants the churches ring;
Their echoes strike along the tombs;
The birds their Hallelujahs sing;
Each flower with nature's incense fumes.

Our long-lost Eden seems restored—
As on we move with tearful eyes
We feel through all the illumined sward
Some upward-working Paradise.

II.

Upon Thy Face, O God, Thy world
Looks ever up in love and awe;
Thy stars in circles onward hurled
Sustain the steadying yoke of Law.

In alternating antiphons
Stream sings to stream and sea to sea;
And moons that set and sinking suns
Obeisance make, O God, to Thee.

The swallow, winter's rage o'erblown,
Again on warm Spring breezes borne
Revisiteth her haunts well-known;
The lark is faithful to the morn.

The whirlwind, missioned with its wings
To drown the fleet or fell the tower,
Obeys Thee as the bird that sings
Her love-chant in a fleeting shower.

Amid an ordered universe
Man's spirit only dares rebel:—
With light, O God, its darkness pierce!
With love its raging chaos quell!

III.

All but unutterable Name!
Adorable, yet awful, sound!
Thee can the sinful nations frame
Save with their foreheads to the ground?

Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire!
To see Thy Countenance were to die:
Yet how beyond the bound retire
Of Thy serene immensity?

Thou mov'st beside us, if the spot
We change, a noteless, wandering tribe:
The planets of our Life and Thought
In Thee their little arcs describe.

In the dead calm, at cool of day,
We hear Thy voice, and turn, and flee:
Thy love outstrips us on our way:
From Thee, O God, we fly—to Thee.

IV.

How came there Sin to world so fair,
Where all things seem to bask in God,
Where breathes His Love in every air,
His life ascends from every sod?

O happy birds and happy bees,
And flowers that flash through matin gems!
O happy trees, and happier breeze
That sweep'st their dewy diadems!

Why are not all things good and bright?
Why are not all men kind and true?
O World so beauteous, wise, and right,
Your Maker is our Maker too!

V. SANCTA MARIA.

Mary! To thee the humble cry.
What seek they? Gifts to pride unknown.
They seek thy help—to pass thee by:—
They murmur, ‘Show us but thy Son.’

The childlike heart shall enter in:
The virgin soul its God shall see:
Mother, and maiden pure from sin,
Be thou the guide: the Way is He.

The mystery high of God made Man
Through thee to man is easier made:
Pronounce the consonant who can
Without the softer vowel's aid!

VI. FEST. NATIVITATIS B. V. M.

When thou wert born the murmuring world
Rolled on, nor dreamed of things to be,
From joy to sorrow madly whirled,
Despair disguised in revelry.

A princess thou of David's line;
The mother of the Prince of Peace,
That hour no royal pomps were thine:
The earth alone her boon increase

Before thee poured. September rolled
Down all the vine-clad Syrian slopes
Her robes of purple and of gold;
And birds sang loud from olive tops.

Perhaps old foes, they knew not why,
Relented. From a fount long sealed
Tears rose, perhaps, to Pity's eye:
Love-harvests crowned the barren field.

The respirations of the year,
At least, grew soft. O'er valleys wide
Pine-roughened crags again shone clear;
And the great Temple, far descried,

To watchers, watching long in vain,
To patriots grey, in bondage nursed,
Flashed back their hope—‘The Second Fane
In glory shall surpass the First!’

VII. AB ANGELO SALUTATA.

That angel's voice is in her ear!
Ah, not alone by Mary heard!
Like light it cleaves that region drear
Where never sang the matin bird!

It thrills the expectant Hades! They,
The pair that once through Eden ranged,
Amid their penal shadows grey
Stand up and smile, this hour avenged!

They see their queenly daughter grasp
The Fruit of Life, her bridal dower:
They see its boughs rush up, and clasp
The sleeping earth with starry bower.

Once more they tread that Eden bound:
Far up—all round—at last, at last
They see God's mountain city-crowned;
In every fount they see it glassed.

Why saw they not, the hour they fell,
Those hills, that City ‘like a Bride’?
Then too it girt that garden dell,
Predestined Heaven though undescried!

VIII. NIHIL RESPONDIT.

She hid her face from Joseph's blame
The Spirit's glory-shrouded Bride:
The sword comes next; but first the shame:
Meekly she bore it; nought replied.

In mutual sympathies we live:
The insulted heart forgives, but dies:
To her that wound was sanative
For life to her was sacrifice.

At us no barbless shaft is thrown
When charged with deeds by us unwrought;
For sins unchallenged, sins unknown,
Worse sins have stained us, act, or thought.

Her humbleness no sin could find
To weep for: yet, that hour, no less
Deeplier the habitual sense was shrined
In her of her own nothingness.

That hour foundations deeper yet
God sank in her; that so more high
Her greatness, spire and parapet,
Might rise and nearer to the sky;

That, wholly over-built by grace,
Nature might vanish, like some isle
In great towers lost—the buried base
Of some surpassing fortress pile.

IX. ST. JOSEPH'S DOUBT.

‘The Angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream.’

'Twas not her tear his doubt subdued;
No word of hers announced her Christ:
By him in dream that angel stood
With warning hand. A dream sufficed.

Where faith is strong, though light be dim,
How faint a beam reveals how much!
The Hand that made the worlds on him
Descended with a feather's touch.

‘Blessèd for ever who believed:’—
Like Her, through faith his crown he won:
His heart the Babe divine conceived;
His heart was sire of Mary's Son.

Hail, Image of the Father's Might!
The Heavenly Father's human shade!
Hail, silent King whose yoke was light!
Hail, Foster-sire whom Christ obeyed!

Hail, Warder of God's Church beneath,
Thy vigil keeping at her door
Year after year at Nazareth!
So guard, so guide it evermore!

X. FEST. VISITATIONIS.

The hilly region crossed with haste,
Its last dark ridge discerned no more,
Bright as the bow that spans a waste
She stood beside her Cousin's door;

And spake:—that greeting came from God!
Filled with the Spirit from on high
Sublime the aged Mother stood,
And cried aloud in prophecy,

‘Soon as thy voice had touched mine ears
The child in childless age conceived,
Leaped up for joy! Throughout all years
Blessed the Woman who believed.’

Type of Electing Love! 'tis thine
To sound God's greeting from the skies!
Thou speak'st, and Faith, a babe divine,
Leaps up thy Babe to recognise.

Within true hearts the second birth
Exults, though blind as yet and dumb.
The child of Grace his hands puts forth,
And prophesies of things to come.

XI. AMOR INNOCENTIUM.

Ascending from the convent-grates,
The children mount the woodland vale.
'Tis May-Day Eve; and Hesper waits
To light them, while the western gale

Blows softly on their bannered line:
And, lo! down all the mountain stairs
The shepherd children come to join
The convent children at their prayers.

They meet before Our Lady's fane:
On yonder central rock it stands,
Uplifting, ne'er invoked in vain,
That Cross which blesses all the lands.

Before the porch the flowers are flung;
The lamp hangs glittering 'neath the Rood;
The ‘Maris Stella’ hymn is sung;
Their chant each morn to be renewed.

Ah! if a secular muse might dare,
Far off, the children's song to catch;
To echo back, or burthen bear!—
As fitly might she hope to match

The throstle's note as theirs, 'tis true:
Yet, now and then, that borrowed tone,
Like sunbeams flashed on pine or yew
Might shoot a sweetness through her own!

XII. FEST. NATIVITATIS.

Primeval night had repossessed
Her empire in the fields of space;
Calm lay the kine on earth's dark breast;
The earth lay calm in heaven's embrace.

That hour, where shepherds kept their flocks,
From God a glory sudden fell:
The splendour smote the trees and rocks,
And lay, like dew, along the dell.

God's Angel close beside them stood:
‘Fear nought,’ that Angel said, and then,
‘Behold, I bring you tidings good:
The Saviour Christ is born to men.’

And straightway round him myriads sang
Again that anthem, and again,
Till all the hollow valley rang,
‘Glory to God, and peace to men.’

Thus in the violet-scented grove,
The May breeze murmuring softly by them,
The children sang. Who Mary love
The long year through have Christmas nigh them!

XIII. PROTEVANGELION.

When from their lurking place the Voice
Of God dragged forth that Fallen Pair
Still seemed the garden to rejoice,
The sinless Eden still was fair.

They, they alone, whose light of grace
But late made Paradise look dim
Stood now, a blot upon its face,
Before their God, nor gazed on Him.

They glanced not up; or they had seen
In that severe, death-dooming eye
Unutterable depths serene
Of sadly-piercing sympathy.

Not them alone that Eye beheld,
But, by their side, that other Twain
In whom the race whose doom was knelled
Once more should rise; once more should reign.

It saw that Infant crowned with blood—
And her from whose predestined breast
That Infant ruled the worlds. She stood
Her foot upon the serpent's crest!

Voice of primeval prophecy!
Of all the Gospels head and heart!
With Him, her Son and Saviour, she
Possessed, that hour, in thee a part!

XIV. DEI GENITRIX.

I see Him: on thy lap He lies
'Mid that Judæan stable's gloom:
O sweet, O awful Sacrifice!
He smiles in sleep, yet knows the doom.

Thou gav'st Him life! But was not this
That Life which knows no parting breath!
Unmeasured Life? unwaning Bliss?
Dread Priestess, lo! thou gav'st Him death!

Beneath the Tree thy Mother stood;
Beneath the Cross thou too shalt stand:—
O Tree of Life! O bleeding Rood!
Thy shadow stretches far its hand.

That God who made the sun and moon
In swaddling bands lies dumb and bound—
Love's Captive! darker prison soon
Awaits Thee in the garden ground.

He wakens. Paradise looks forth
Beyond the portals of the grave.
Life, life thou gavest! life to Earth,
Not Him! Thine Infant dies to save.

XV. ADOLESCENTULÆ AMAVERUNT TE NIMIS.

‘Behold! the wintry rains are past;
The airs of midnight hurt no more:
The young maids love thee. Come at last!
Thou lingerest at the garden-door.

`Blow over all the garden; blow,
Thou wind that breathest of the south
Through all the alleys winding low
With dewy wing and honeyed mouth!

‘But wheresoe'er thou wanderest, shape
Thy music ever to one Name:
Thou too, clear stream, to cave and cape
Be sure thou whisper of the same.

‘By every isle and bower of musk
Thy crystal clasps as on it curls
We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk;
We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls.’

The stream obeyed. That Name he bore
Far out above the moon-lit tide:
The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'er
The unforgetting Pine; and died.

XVI.

The infant year with infant freak
Intent to dazzle and surprise,
Played with us long at hide and seek,
Turned on us now, now veiled her eyes.

Between the pines for ever green
And boughs by April half attired
She glanced; then sang, once more unseen,
‘The unbeheld is more desired.’

With footsteps vague, and hard to trace,
She crept from whitening bower to bower;
Now bent from heaven her golden face
Now veiled her radiance in a shower.

Like genial hopes and thoughts devout
That touch some sceptic soul forlorn,
And herald clearer faith, and rout
The night, and antedate the morn,

Her gifts. But thou, all-beauteous May,
Art come at last. O! with thee bring
Hearts pure as thine with thee to play,
And own the consummated spring.

To hands by deeds unblest defiled
In vain the whiteness of thy thorn!
Proud souls, where lurks no more the child.
For them thy violet is unborn!

For breasts that know nor joy nor hope
Thy songstress sings an idle strain:
Thy golden-domed laburnums drop
O'er loveless hearts their bowers in vain.

XVII. FEST. EPIPHANIÆ.

A veil is on the face of Truth:
She prophesies behind a cloud;
She ministers in robes of ruth
Nocturnal rites and disallowed.

Eleusis hints, but dares not speak;
The Orphic minstrelsies are dumb;
Lost are the Sibyl's books, and weak
Earth's olden faith in Him to come.

But ah, but ah, that Orient Star!
On straw-roofed shed and large-eyed kine
It flashes, guiding from afar
The Magians' long-linked camel-line!

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh they bring—
Love, Worship, Life severe and hard:
Their symbol gifts the Infant King
Accepts; and Truth is their reward.

Rejoice, O Sion, for thy night
Is past: the Lord, thy Light, is born:
The Gentiles shall behold thy light;
The kings walk forward in thy morn.

XVIII. FEST. EPIPHANIÆ.

They leave the land of gems and gold,
The shining portals of the East;
For Him, ‘the Woman's Seed’ foretold,
They leave the revel and the feast.

To earth their sceptres they have cast
And crowns by Kings ancestral worn;
They track the lonely Syrian waste;
They kneel before the Babe new-born.

O happy eyes that saw Him first!
O happy lips that kissed His feet!
Earth slakes at last her ancient thirst;
With Eden's joy her pulses beat.

True Kings are those who thus forsake
Their kingdoms for the Eternal King—
Serpent! her foot is on thy neck!
Herod! thou writh'st, but canst not sting!

He, He is King, and He alone,
Who lifts that Infant hand to bless;
Who makes His Mother's knee His Throne,
Yet rules the starry wilderness.

XIX. MATER DEI.

How many a lonely hermit-maid
Hath brightened like a dawn-touched isle
When, on her breast in vision laid,
That Babe hath lit her with His smile!

How many an agèd Saint hath felt,
So graced, a second spring renew
Her wintry breast; with Anna knelt
And trembled like the matin dew!

How oft th' unbending monk, no thrall
In youth of mortal smiles or tears,
Hath felt that Infant's touch through all
The armour of his hundred years!

But Mary's was no transient bliss;
Nor hers a vision's phantom gleam:
The hourly need, the voice, the kiss—
That Child was hers! 'twas not a dream!

At morning hers, and when the sheen
Of moonrise crept the cliffs along;
In silence hers, and hers between
The pulses of the night-bird's song.

And as the Child, the love. Its growth
Was, hour by hour, a growth in grace:
That Child was God; and love for both
Advanced perforce with equal pace.

XX. GAUDIUM ANGELORUM.

‘He looked on her humility’—
Ah humbler thrice that breast was made
When Jesus watched His mother's eye,
When God each God-born wish obeyed!

In her with seraph seraph strove
And each the other's purpose crost:
And now 'twas Reverence, now 'twas Love
The peaceful strife that won or lost.

Now to that Infant she extends
Those hands that mutely say ‘mine own!’
Now shrinks abashed, or swerves and bends
As bends a willow backward blown.

And ofttimes, like a roseleaf caught
By eddying airs from fairy land,
The kiss a sleeping brow that sought
Descends upon the unsceptred hand!

O tenderest awe whose sweet excess
Had ended in a fond despair
Had not the all-pitying helplessness
Constrained the boldness of her care!

O holiest strife! The angelic hosts
That watched it hid their dazzled eyes,
And lingered from the heavenly coasts
To bless that heavenlier Paradise!

XXI. LEGENDA.

O wearied Souls, by earth beguiled,
Round whom the world's enthralments close
Look back on her, that three-years' child,
Who first the life conventual chose!

A nun-like veil was o'er her thrown,
Her locks by fillet-bands made fast,
Swiftly she climbed the steps of stone;
Into the Temple swiftly passed.

Not once she paused her breath to take;
Not once cast back a homeward look:
As longs the hart his thirst to slake
When noontide rages, in the brook,

So longed that child to live for God;
So pined from earth's enthralments free,
To bathe her wholly in the flood
Of God's abysmal purity!

Anna and Joachim from far
Their eyes on that white vision raised;
And when, like caverned foam, or star
Cloud-hid, she vanished, still they gazed.

XXII. FEST. PRESENTATIONIS.

Twelve years had passed, and, still a child
In brightness of the unblemished face,
Once more she scaled those steps, and smiled
On Him who slept in her embrace.

As in she passed there fell a calm
On all: each bosom slowly rose
Like the long branches of the palm
When under them the south wind blows:

The scribe forgot his wordy lore;
The chanted psalm was heard far off;
Hushed was the clash of golden ore;
And hushed the Sadducean scoff.

Type of the Church, the gift was thine!
'Twas thine to offer first, that hour,
Thy Son—the Sacrifice Divine,
The Church's everlasting dower!

Great Priestess! round that aureoled brow
Which cloud or shadow ne'er had crossed,
Began there not thenceforth to grow
A milder dawn of Pentecost?

XXIII. THE FIRST DOLOUR.

(Gladio Transfixa.)

To be the mother of her Lord—
What means it? This; a bleeding heart!
The pang that woke at Simeon's word
Worked inward, never to depart.

The dreadful might of Sin she knew
As Innocence alone can know:
O'er her its deadliest gloom it threw
As shades lie darkest on the snow.

Yet o'er her Sorrow's depth no storm
Of earth's rebellious passion rolled:
So sleeps some lake no gusts deform
High on the dark hills' craggy fold.

In that still glass the unmeasured cliff,
With all its scars and clouds is shown:
And, mellowed in that mother's grief,
At times, O Christ, we catch Thine own!

XXIV.

The golden rains are dashed against
Those verdant walls of lime and beech
Wherewith our happy vale is fenced
Against the north; yet cannot reach

The stems that lift yon leafy crest
High up above their dripping screen:
The chestnut fans are downward pressed
On banks of bluebell hid in green.

White vapours float along the glen
Or rise from every sunny brake;
A pause amid the gusts—again
The warm shower sings across the lake.

Sing on, all-cordial showers, and bathe
The deepest root of loftiest pine!
The cowslip dim, the ‘primrose rathe’
Refresh; and drench in nectarous wine

Yon fruit-tree copse, all blossomed o'er
With forest-foam and crimsoned snow—
Behold! above it bursts once more
The world-embracing, heavenly bow!

XXV. LEGENDA.

As, flying Herod, southward went
That Child and Mother, unamazed,
Into Egyptian banishment,
The weeders left their work, and gazed.

That bright One spake to them, and said,
‘When Herod's messengers demand,
Passed not that Infant, Herod's dread,—
Passed not that Infant through your land?

‘Then shall ye answer make, and say,
Behold, since first the corn was green
No little Infant passed this way;
No little Infant we have seen.’

Earth heard; nor missed the Maid's intent—
As on the Flower of Eden passed
With Eden swiftness up she sent
A sun-browned harvest ripening fast.

By simplest words and sinless wheat
The messengers rode back beguiled;
And by that truthfullest deceit
Which saved the little new-born Child!

XXVI. THE SECOND DOLOUR.

(Cum Filio Profuga.)

The fruitful River slides along;
The Conqueror's City glitters nigh;
The Palm-groves ring with dance and song;
Earth trembles, crimsoned from the sky.

Far down the sunset, lonely stands
Some temple of a bygone age
Slow-settling into sea-like sands,
Long served with prayer and pilgrimage.

Here ruled the Shepherd-Kings, and they
That race from Sun and Moon which drew
The unending lines of Priestly sway:
Here Alexander's standard flew.

Here last the great Cæsarian star
Through Egypt's sunset flashed its beam
While pealed the Roman trump afar,
And Earth's first Empire like a dream

Dissolved. But who are they—the Three
That pierce thus late yon desert wide?
The Babe is on His Mother's knee;
Low-bent an old Man walks beside.

What say'st thou, Egypt? ‘Let them come!
Of such as little note I keep
As of the least of flies that hum
Above my deserts, or my deep!’

XXVII. SAINT JOSEPH.

True Prince of David's line! thy chair
Is set on every poor man's floor:
Labour through thee a crown doth wear
More rich than kingly crowns of yore!

True Confessor! thine every deed,
While error ruled the world, or night
Confessed aright the Christian creed,
The Christian warfare waged aright.

Teach us, like thee, our heart to raise,
In toil not ease contemplatist;
Like thee, o'er lowly tasks to gaze
On her whose eyes are still on Christ.

O teach us, thou whose ebbing breath
Was watched by Mary and her Son,
To welcome age, await in death
True life's true garland, justly won.

XXVIII. ‘JOSEPH, HER HUSBAND.’

Gladsome and pure was Eden's bower—
Saint Joseph's house was holier far,
More rich in Love's auguster dower,
More amply lit by Wisdom's star.

The Queen of Virgins where he sate
Beside him stood and watched his hand:
His daughter-wife, his angel-mate
Submissive to his least command.

Hail, Patriarch blest and sage! on earth
Thine was the bridal of the skies!
Thy house was heaven: for by its hearth
Thy God reposed in mortal guise.

Hail! life most sweet in life's decline!
Hail death, than life more bright, more blest!
The hands of Mary clasping thine,
Thy head upon the Saviour's breast!

XXIX. SAINT JOSEPH'S PATRONAGE.

(‘Constituit eum dominum domus suæ.’ The Household Saints.)

The Apostle's life, the Martyr's death,
The all-conquering Word, all-wondrous Sign,
Have greatness sense-discerned. By faith,
And Faith's strong Love, we reach to thine.

Through lower heavens those others run,
Fair planets kenned by feebler eyes:
Thy loftier light is later won,
Serener gleam from lonelier skies.

Thou stand'st within: they move without:
More near the God-Man was thy place:
It was: it is: we cannot doubt
That as thy greatness was thy grace.

No priestly tiar, no prophet rod
Were thine: with them thou art who zone
The altar of Incarnate God,
Who throng the white steps of the Throne.

There Anna rests, and Joachim
That Great One's Parents; at their side
Elizabeth, not far from Him
Her Baptist Son for Right who died.

A hierarchy apart they sit,
A Royal House benign yet dread,
In Godhead veiled, by Godhead lit—
There highest shines thy silver head.

XXX. MATER CHRISTI.

Daily beneath His mother's eyes
Her Lamb matured His lowliness;
'Twas hers the lovely Sacrifice
With fillet and with flower to dress.

Beside that mother's knee He knelt;
With heavenly-human lips He prayed:
His Will within her will she felt;
And yet His Will her will obeyed.

Gethsemané! when day is done
Thy flowers with falling dews are wet:
Her tears fell never; for the sun
Those tears that brightened never set.

The house was silent as that shrine
The priest but entered once a year:
There shone His emblem. Light Divine!
Thy presence and Thy power were here!

XXXI. MATER CHRISTI.

He willed to lack; He willed to bear;
He willed by suffering to be schooled;
He willed the chains of flesh to wear;
Yet from her arms the worlds He ruled.

As tapers 'mid the noontide glow
With merged yet separate radiance burn,
With human taste and touch even so
The things He knew He willed to learn.

He sat beside the lowly door:
His homeless eyes appeared to trace
In evening skies remembered lore
And shadows of His Father's face.

One only knew Him. She alone
Who nightly to His cradle crept
And, lying like the moonbeam prone,
Worshipped her Maker as He slept.

XXXII. MATER CREATORIS.

Bud forth a Saviour, Earth! fulfil
Thy first of functions, ever new!
Balm-dropping heaven, for aye distil
Thy grace like manna or like dew!

‘To us, this day, a Child is born.’
Heaven knows not mere historic facts—
Celestial mysteries night and morn
Live on in ever-present Acts.

Calvary's dread Victim in the skies
On God's great altar rests even now:
The Pentecostal glory lies
For ever round the Church's brow.

From Son and Father, He, the Lord
Of Love and Life, proceeds alway:
Upon the first Creative Word
Creation, trembling, hangs for aye.

Nor less ineffably renewed
Than when on earth the tie began,
Is that mysterious Motherhood
Which re-creates the worlds and man.

XXXIII. MATER SALVATORIS.

O Heart with His in just accord!
O Soul His echo, tone for tone!
O Spirit that heard and kept His word!
O Countenance moulded like His Own!

Behold, she seemed on Earth to dwell;
But hid in light she ever sat
Beneath the Throne ineffable
Chanting her clear Magnificat.

Fed from the boundless heart of God
The joy within her rose more high
And all her being overflowed,
Until that Hour decreed drew nigh.

That hour, there crept her spirit o'er
The shadow of that pain world-wide
Whereof her Son the substance bore—
Him offering, half in Him she died;

Standing, like that strange Moon whereon
The mask of Earth lies dim and dead,
An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,
Yet girdled with a luminous thread.

XXXIV. HER FOUNDATIONS ARE ON THE HOLY HILLS.

Her Child, her God, in Nature's right
She loved: we love Him but by Grace:
Behold! our Virtue's proudest height
Is lower than her Virtue's base!

Alone by holy Nature taught
All lesser mothers love their own:
Her love was Nature's love, heaven-caught,
And lightning-lifted to the Throne.

Her God! alone through worship she
Proportioned love for Him could prove!
Her God, and yet her Offspring! He
Both loved her, and was bound to love!

XXXV. MATER ADMIRABILIS.

O Mother-maid! to none save thee
Belongs in full a Parent's name;
So fruitful thy Virginity,
Thy Motherhood so pure from blame!

All other parents, what are they?
Thy types! In them thou stood'st rehearsed
As they in bird, and bud, and spray.
Thine Antitype? The Eternal First!

Prime Parent He: and next Him thou!
O'ershadowed by the Father's Might
Thy ‘Fiat’ was thy bridal vow:
Thine offspring He, the ‘Light from Light.’

Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art
O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:
Alone, she shaped Thee in her heart—
Thy Mother and Thy Father both.

XXXVI. MATER AMABILIS.

Mother of Love! Thy love to Him
Cherub and Seraph can but guess:
A mother sees its image dim
In her own breathless tenderness.

That infant touch none else could feel
Vibrates like light through all her sense:
Far off she hears his cry: her zeal
With lions fights in his defence.

Unmarked his youth goes by: his hair
Still smooths she down, still strokes apart;
The first white thread that meets her there
Glides like a dagger through her heart.

Men praise him: on her matron cheek
There dawns once more a maiden red:
Of war, of battle-fields they speak:
She sees once more his father dead.

In sickness—half in sleep—she hears
His foot, ere yet that foot is nigh:
Wakes with a smile; and scarcely fears
If he but clasp her hand, to die.

XXXVII. THE THIRD DOLOUR.

(Filium quærens.)

Three days she seeks her Child in vain:
He who vouchsafed that holy woe
And makes the gates of glory pain
He, He alone its depth can know.

She wears the garment He must wear;
She tastes His chalice! From a Cross
Unseen she cries, ‘Where art Thou, where?
Why hast Thou me forsaken thus?’

With feebler hand she touches first
That sharpest thorn in all His Crown,
Worse than the Nails, the Reed, the Thirst,
Seeming Desertion's icy frown!

O Saviour! we, the weak, the blind
We lose Thee, snared in Pleasure's bound:
Teach us once more Thy Face to find
Where only Thou art truly found,

In Thy true Church, its Faith, its Love
Its anthemed Rites or Penance mute
And that Interior Life whereof
Eternal Life is flower and fruit.

XXXVIII. MATER FILII.

Others, the hours of youth gone by,
A mother's hearth and home forsake;
And, with the need, the filial tie
Relaxes, though it does not break.

But Thou wert born to be a Son—
God's Son in heaven, Thy will was this,
To pass the chain of Sonship on
And bind in one whatever is.

Thou cam'st the Son of Man to be,
That so Thy brethren too might bear
Adoptive Sonship, and with Thee
Thy Sire's eternal kingdom share.

Transcendently the Son Thou art:
In this mysterious bond entwine,
As in a single, two-celled heart,
Thy natures, human and divine.

XXXIX.

When April's sudden sunset cold
Through half-clothed boughs with watery sheen
Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold
And bathes a world half gold half green

Then shakes the illuminated air
With din of birds; the vales far down
Grow phosphorescent here and there;
Forth flash the turrets of the town;

Along the sky thin vapours scud;
Bright zephyrs curl the choral main;
The wild ebullience of the blood
Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain:

Yet in that music discords mix;
The unbalanced lights like meteors play;
And, tired of splendours that perplex,
The dazzled spirit sighs for May.

XL.

Not yet, not yet! the Season sings
Not of fruition yet but hope;
Still holds aloft, like balanced wings
Her scales, and lets not either drop.

The white ash, last year's skeleton,
Still glares uncheered by leaf or shoot
'Gainst azure heavens, and joy hath none
In that pure primrose at her foot.

Yet Nature's virginal suspense
Is not forgetfulness nor sloth:
Where'er we wander soul and sense
Discern a blindly working growth.

Her throne once more the daisy takes
That white star of our dusky earth;
And the sky-cloistered lark down-shakes
Her passion of seraphic mirth.

'Twixt barren hills and clear cold skies
She weaves, ascending high and higher,
Songs florid as those traceries
Which won their name of old from fire.

Sing! thou that need'st no ardent clime
To sun the sweetness from thy breast
And teach us those delights sublime
Wherein ascetic spirits rest!

XLI.

The moon, ascending o'er a mass
Of tangled yew and sable pine,
What sees she in yon watery glass?
A tearful countenance divine.

Far down, the winding hills between,
A sea of vapour bends for miles,
Unmoving. Here and there dim-seen
The knolls above it rise like isles.

The tall rock glimmers spectre-white;
The cedar in its sleep is stirred;
At times the bat divides the night;
At times the far-off flood is heard.

Above, that shining blue!—below,
That shining mist! Oh, not more pure
Midwinter's landscape, robed in snow
And fringed with frosty garniture!

The fragrance of the advancing year
Alone assures us it is May.
Make answer! in the heavenlier sphere
Must all of earth have passed away?

XLII. NAZARETH.

Before the Saviour's eyes unscaled
The Beatific Vision stood—
If God from her that splendour veiled
A while, in Him she gazed on God.

The Eternal Spirit o'er them hung:
The Eternal Father moved beside:
With hands forth-held the Angelic throng
Worshipped their Maker far descried.

Yet neither He who said of yore
‘Let there be light’—and all was day—
Nor she that, still a creature, wore,
Creation's crown, and wears for aye,

To casual gazers wondrous seemed:
The wanderer sat beside their door,
Partook their broken bread, and deemed
The donors kindly; nothing more.

In Eden thus that primal Pair
Ere sin had marred their first estate
Sate side by side in silent prayer,
Their earliest sunset fronting, sate;

And now the lion now the pard
Piercing the Cassia bower drew nigh;
Fixed on the twain a mute regard,
Half pleased, half vacant; then passed by.

XLIII. FŒDERIS ARCA.

From end to end, O God, Thy Will
With swift yet ordered might doth reach:
Thy purposes their scope fulfil
In sequence, resting each on each.

In Thee is nothing sudden; nought
From harmony and law that swerves:
The orbits of Thine act and thought
In soft gradation wind their curves.

O then with what a gradual care
Must Thou have shaped that Ark and Shrine
Ordained the Eternal Word to bear,
That Garden of Thy mystic Vine!

How white a gift within her breast
Lay stored, for Him a couch to strew!
How vast a virtue lined His nest!
How many a grace beside Him grew!

Of love on love what sweet excess!
How deep a faith! a hope how high!—
Mary! on earth of thee we guess;
But we shall see thee when we die.

XLIV. SPIRITUS SPONSA.

As though, fast-borne the hills along,
At dawn some shepherd girl or boy
Should wrestle with the lark in song
And, shaft for shaft, retort his joy,

So walked, the hills of Truth above,
The Bride Elect, the sinless Maid;
So, challenged by the all-heavenly Love
The all-heavenly Lover's voice repaid.

From zenith heights incessant fell
On her His Grace like sunny rain:
Unvanquished and invincible
Her heart repaid that golden grain.

Perchance, in many an instant gleam
She caught, unscorched and unabashed,
That vision of the Face supreme
Which on her first-born spirit flashed!

Diseased are we: the infectious fire
Corrupts our life-blood from our birth:
She, she was like the unfallen Sire,
Compacted out of virgin earth.

In God she lived: His world she trod:
Saw Him and His; saw nought beside—
He only lives who lives in God:
That hour when Adam fell, he died.

XLV. ORANTE.

She mused upon the Saints of old;
Rock-like, on rock she stood, foot-bare:
On Him she mused, that Child foretold;
To Him she held her hands in prayer,

Unwavering hands that, drawing fires
Of grace from heaven, our earth endowed
With heavenly breath like mountain spires
That suck the lightning from the cloud.

No moment passed without its crown;
And each new grace was used so well
It dragged some tenfold talent down,
Some miracle on miracle.

O golden House! O boundless store
Of wealth by heavenly commerce won!
When God Himself could give no more,
He gave thee all; He gave His Son!

XLVI. RESPEXIT HUMILITATEM.

Not all thy Purity, although
The whitest moon that ever lit
The peaks of Lebanonian snow
Shone dusk and dim compared with it;

Not that great Love of thine whose beams
Transcended in their virtuous heat
Those suns that melt the ice-bound streams
And make earth's pulses newly beat;

It was not these that from the sky
Drew down to thee the Eternal Word:
He looked on thy Humility;
He knew thee, ‘Handmaid of thy Lord.’

Let no one claim with thee a part,
Let no one, Mary, name thy name,
While, aping God, upon his heart
Pride sits, a Demon robed in flame.

Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place
Be Sin's avenger self-disgust:
Proud Virtues, doubly die, that Grace
At last may burgeon from your dust!

XLVII. MULIER FORTIS.

Supreme among the things create
God's Image with the downward brow!
Greatness that know'st not thou art great!
Thus great, Humility art thou.

All strength beside is weakness. Might
Belongs to God; and they alone
Self-emptied souls and seeming-slight
Are filled with God, and share His throne.

O Mary! strong wert thou and meek;
Thy meekness gave thee strength divine:
Thyself in nothing didst thou seek;
Therefore thy Maker made Him thine.

Through Pride our parents disobeyed;
Rebellious Sense avenged the wrong:
The Soul, the body's captive made,
No more was fruitful, or was strong.

With barrenness the earth was cursed;
Inviolate she brought forth no more
Her fruits, nor freely as at first:
Thou cam'st, her Eden to restore!

Low breathes the wind upon the string;
The harp, responsive, sounds in turn:
Thus o'er thy Soul the Spirit's wing
Creative passed; and Christ was born.

University of Virginia Library

I. PART I. THE DIVINE CHILDHOOD.

I.

II.