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Mourned this painful hermitess
Of the lonely wilderness,—
Lowly kneeling, mourned one day,
Did with eyes uplifted pray,
In a trance-like agony
Sunken, when she seemed to see,
From that bright superior coast,
One of its angelic host
Stooping toward her;—awful fear
In his visage did appear,
And his front was bent before
That which in his hand he bore:
Only hands of Angels aught
Lovely as that cross had wrought,
With the image there suspended,
In which Love and Death contended:
And this cross he reached to her,—
This angelic comforter;
And her agony beguiled
With these soothing words and mild:
‘Genoveva, take thou this,
Take it for the boon it is.
Choicest blessing, costliest boon,
That God's treasure-house doth own,
Gift He keepeth for his friends,
And to thee at this time sends.
Hither be thy glances sent,
When thy soul with pangs is rent;
Set on this thine eyes and heart,
When impatient movements start;
This shall as a shield repel
All the fiery darts of hell;
This shall prove a golden key,
Heaven unlocking unto thee.’

Was it vision? was it truth?
Dream, or very waking sooth?
Did a heavenly Messenger,
Did an Angel talk with her?
She hath started from her trance,
Round she flings a timorous glance;
There doth no one now appear
By her side, far off or near:
Yet in rocky niche upright,
Plain before her waking sight,
Lo! a crucifix—it stands
Beauteous, as if angel hands
Had that ivory work divine
Wrought into salvation's sign.
This in summer she alway
Did adorn with flowery may,
Ever decked it as she could
With the wild flowers of the wood;
Nor in barest winter left
Of all ornament bereft,
But with mosses would entwine,
Or with dark unfading pine.
Here her solace found she still
In extremities of ill,
In her Saviour's five wounds laid
All her griefs, her anguish stayed:
Here, when once she did complain,
Uttering words of hasty pain,
‘Jesu, Saviour, what is this?
What have I so much amiss
Wrought, how sinnëd against Thee
More than all, that I should be
For a vile adulteress
Driven into this wilderness,
To this anguish and this shame?’
Seemed it then that accents came
From that cross, and named her name!
‘Genoveva, is it well
At my chastening to rebel?
Are thy sufferings more than mine?
Or had I more guilt than thine?
Yet was I put forth from heaven,
By my Father I was given
To my cross and mortal woe:
Look on Me, and looking, so
Learn to bear thy present ill,
And what thou must suffer still.’
This her Saviour's mild rebuke
To her heart with shame she took,
And no word of discontent,
Whatsoever griefs He sent,
Did she ever speak again,
But her passion and her pain
Did with meekest heart sustain,
Yea, did welcome and approve
For the gifts of highest love.

Then she found how wildest creatures—
How the wild wood's savage natures
At Heaven's bidding could be made
Ministers to yield her aid;
Came the wolf, yet not to harm,
But a shaggy sheepskin warm
In his teeth one day he bore:
This he cast the child before,
In its woolly folds henceforth
Shielded from the bitterest north;
And the beasts to him grew tame,
Round him without fear they came;
Came the gentle creatures near,
Without fierceness, without fear;
As he wandered through the wood,
With their speaking gestures showed
What were harmful herbs and good,—
With the boy made pastime; he
Of the wilderness was free—
Rode upon the wolf, and played
With the swift hare on the glade;
Round his head the birds would flit,
On his hand the birds alit;
And the mother and the child
Of their misery oft beguiled
With melodious descants wild.
And as he to more years grew
Lacked she not some comfort new;
Sweetest words with him she changed,
Whence her heart was oft estranged
From the grief which on it lay,—
Taught him in what words to pray,
How he should ‘Our Father’ say,
And his little hands above
Lift unto a God of love,
Who was watching for them still,
Who, in midst of all their ill,
For the desolate had cared:—
Thus with them long while it fared.