IV
Gather, gather
(Drawn by the Father),
To our God who is shown to us so mild,
Borne in our midst, a child!
He is King and with an orb so small:
And not a word will He say,
Nor on the Angels call,
Though we trample Him down on the way.
On the Holy Angels He will not call....
Oh, guard Him with breasts impregnable!
Sept. 25-26, 1908
COLUMBA MEA
“Una est Columba mea, perfecta mea.”
DOVE of the Holy Dove,
His one, His mate—
One art thou, single in thy mortal state
To be the chosen of Love,
His one, white Dove,
For whom He left His place in Trinity,
Letting His pinions fall
Low to the earth, that His great power might be
Around thee, nor appal,
But, soft in singleness of strength, might bring
The glory of the Father and the Son
To thee, the chosen One,
Amid the sounding clash of each vast wing.
His Perfect, thou art made
Immaculate;
For thou with dovelike whiteness must elate
That Heavenly Spouse arrayed,
Beyond all shade,
In whiteness of the Godhead of God’s throne,
That loves in utter white
From Person unto Person, and alone
Had dwelt in His pure light,
Until one day the Holy Dove was sent
To Thee, O Mary, thee, O Dove on earth,
And God the Son had birth
Of thee, Perfection of thy God’s intent.
VIRGO POTENS
YOUNG on the mountains and fresh
As the wind that thrills her hair,
As the dews that lap the flesh
Of her feet from cushions of thyme;
While her feet through the herbage climb,
Growing hardier, sweeter still
On rock-roses and cushions of thyme,
As she springs up the hill!
A goat in its vaultings less lithe,
From rock, to a tuft, to a rock;
As the young of wild-deer blithe,
The young of wild-deer, yet alone:
Strong as an eaglet just flown,
She wanders the white-woven earth,
As the young of wild-deer, yet alone,
In her triumph of mirth.
She will be Mother of God!
Secret He lies in her womb:
And this mountain she hath trod
Was later in strength than is she,
Who before its mass might be
Was chosen to bear her bliss:
Conceived before mountains was she,
Before any abyss.
The might that dwells in her youth
Is song to her heart and soul,
Of joy that, as joy, is truth,
That magnifies, and leaps
With its jubilant glee and sweeps,
O fairest, her breast, her throat,
Her mouth, and magnanimous leaps,
As the mountain-lark’s note!
Across the old hills she springs,
With God’s first dream as her crown:
She scales them swift, for she brings
Elizabeth news of grace.
The charity of her face
Is that of a lovely day,
When the birds are singing news of grace,
And the storms are away.
ANOTHER LEADETH THEE
IN whose hands, O Son of God,
Was Thy earthly Mission held?
Not in Thine, that made earth’s sod,
And the ocean as it welled
From creation to the shore;
Not in Thine, whose fingers’ lore
Checked the tide with golden bars,
Ruled the clouds and dinted stars—
Not in Thine, that made fresh leaves,
And the flourished wheat for sheaves;
Grapes that bubbled from a spring,
Where the nightingale might sing
From the blood of her wild throat;
Not in Thine that struck her note;
Maned the lion and wrought the lamb;
Breathed on clay, “Be as I am!”
And it stood before Thee fair,
Thinking, loving, furnished rare,
Like Thee, so beyond compare....
Not within Thy hands!—Behold,
By a woman’s hand unrolled
All the mystery sublime
Of Thy ableness through Time!
Thou, in precious Boyhood, knew
For Thy Father what to do;
And delayed Thyself to hear
Questions and to answer clear
To the Doctors’ chiming throng,
Thou, admired, wert set among.
Straight Thy Mission was begun,
As the Jewish Rabbis spun
Round Thy fetterless, sweet mind
Problems no one had divined.
But Thy Mother came that way,
Who had sought Thee day by day,
And her crystal voice reproved
Thy new way with Thy beloved.
In Thy wisdom-widened eyes
Throbbed a radiance of surprise:
But, Thy Mother having chidden,
Thou in Nazareth wert hidden;
And Thy Father’s Work begun
Stayed full eighteen years undone,
Till Thou camest on Thine hour,
When Thy Mother loosed Thy power
For Thy Father’s business, said,
In a murmur softly spread,
Rippling to a happy few,
“What He says unto you do!”
As the spring-time to a tree,
Sudden spring she was to Thee,
When her strange appeal began
Thy stayed Mission unto man;
Stayed but by her earlier blame,
When from three days’ woe she came;
Yet renewed when she gave sign
“Son, they have not any wine!”
Holy trust and love! She gave
For Thy sake oblation brave
Of her will, her spotless name:
Thou for her didst boldly tame
God the Word to wait on her;
God’s own Wisdom might not stir
Till her lovely voice decreed.
Thou wouldst have our hearts give heed,
And revere her lovely voice;
Wait upon her secret choice,
Stay her pleasure, as didst Thou,
With a marvel on Thy brow,
And a silence on Thy breath.
We must cherish what she saith;
As she pleadeth we must hope
For our deeds’ accepted scope,
Humble as her Heavenly Son,
Till our liberty be won.
THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS
IN a garden at Bethany,
O Mother, Mother, Mother!
Amid the passion-flowers and olive-leaves—
His Mother—
Yet, behold, how tranquilly
She is sad and grieves,
Though her Son is gone away,
And she knows Passover Day
Will not leave her Lamb, her Child unslain!
He hath spoken to deaf ears,
All save hers, of mortal pain
And of parting, yet she has no tears....
He is gone away
With His chosen few to eat the Pasch,
Leaving in the eyes, she raised to ask,
Mute assurance He would come no more
Back to Bethany, nor Lazarus’ door.
O Mother, Mother, Mother!—
But she keeps so many things apart
In their silence, pondering them by heart;
Always she has pondered in her heart;
And it knows her Son is Son of God....
Silently she gazes where He trod
Down the valley to Jerusalem—
His Mother!
Round her birds are at their parting song
To the light that will not strike them long;
And the flowers are very gold
With the light before whose loss they fold.
Keen the song, as on each wing,
And on each rose and each rose-stem
Full the burnishing.
She hath crossed her hands around her breast,
And it seems her heart is taking rest
With some Mystery her spirit heeds....
Song of Songs the birds now chaunt,
And the lilies vaunt
How among them, white, He feeds,
Who but now hath left her—fair and white
As the lover of the Sunamite.
. . . .
In the city, in an upper room,
As fair Paschal Bread He breaks and gives
Unto men His Body while He lives—
Then seeks out a Garden for His Doom.
HOLY CROSS
MYSTERIOUS sway of mortal blood,
That urges me upon Thy wood!—
O Holy Cross, but I must tell
My love; how all my forces dwell
Upon Thee and around Thee day and night!
I love the Feet upon thy beam,
As a wild lover loves his dream;
My eyes can only fix upon that sight.
O Tree, my arms are strong and sore
To clasp Thee, as when we adore
The body of our dearest in our arms!
Each pang I suffer hath for aim
Thy wood—its comfort is the same—
A taint, an odour from inveterate balms.
My clasp is filled, my sight receives
The compass of its power; pain grieves
About each sense but as a languid hum:
And, out of weariness, at length,
My day rejoices in its strength,
My night that innocence of strife is come.
PURGATORY
PERFECTION of my God!—
With hands on the same rod,
With robes that interfold,
One weft together rolled;
With two wings of one Dove
Stretched the royal heads above—
God severs from His Son,
That what is not be won;
Immortal, mortal grow,
God entering manhood know
What was not and shall be
Of cogent Deity.
Perfection of my soul!—
How shall I reach my goal,
Unless I leave His Face,
Who is my dwelling-place,
Unless in exile do
His will a short while through,
To the time’s sharpest rim:
Unless, deprived of Him,
I may achieve Him, lie
His victim, sigh on sigh,
Bearing consummate pain,
Supremely to attain?
FORTITUDO EGENIS
LOVER of Souls, Immaculate,
Mary, by thy Immaculate Conception,
Thy soul and body white for God’s reception,
Beyond the ridg’d snows on the sky;
Beyond the treasure of white beams that lie
Within the golden casket of the sun;
By the excelling franchise of thy state,
Plead for the Holy Souls, O Holiest One!
Till they be cleansed grief hath no date!
Them, through thy spotless grace, embolden
To passion for their God, but once beholden,
Nor ever more beheld till pain
Hath made their souls’ recesses bright from stain.
Plead they may swiftly see Him, nor may shun
The Vision, each achieved immaculate!
Pure from the first, plead for them, Holiest One!
PAX VOBISCUM
To Notre Dame de Boulogne
MY heart is before thee, Queen,
As a mariner at sea—
It vows its sighs that swell to thee,
Sighs as great as against waves may be.
For thou art above the waves,
On their summits thou dost float;
Thy locks of gold along thy throat;
Thou more gold than gold upon thy boat.
Pomp of thy body, thy Child—
On thy arm, small-crowned and sweet;
Thou, large-crowned! Where billows meet,
Why these crowns, like shocks of golden wheat?
The Prince of Peace He is....
As a mariner at sea,
When waves are high and thronging free,
High my heart entreats thy Son and thee.
PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM
IT is new in the air from the sea and the height,
New as a nest by a sea-bird fashioned....
O Carmel, thy mound the rock-site!...
And roofless our chapel, the home we, impassioned,
Have built for her coming, O Gift from the Sea!
Elijah, our father, descend to thy mountain,
Where once was thy shrine, God created by flame;
Where from a land dry in well as in fountain
Thou did’st keep vigil—as we—till she came,
The Cloud from God’s Bosom, the Grace of His favour,
The sweetness of Rain! O balm, oh, the savour
Of air on the throat! O Desire from the Sea!
Surrounded by roses and lilies of valleys,
Sweeter than myrrh, or than balsam in chalice,
Queen of the East, O Magnificent, bring
The sweetness familiar as rain to man’s cry;
Murmur as rain round our hearts lest we die,
White Cloud of felicity, Voice to our ears!
Girt with vale-lilies and roses a spring-day appears,
But Thou, Queen of Carmel, art Spring.
Surely the last, we are first in our glory:
Splendid out-broke in our desert the story
How flame that fell down on our shrine at the call
Of our father Elijah had fallen down on all.
So Christ is received of us, Carmel receives Him,
The stones and the dust and the sea-winds believe Him:
But after God’s Fire there is hope of God’s Rain.
To us art thou come, O Abundance of Rain!
Thy little, roofless sanctuary, Queen,
Finds us in winds, in sunset or at night,
With stars to help our candles, wild and free
As Pagans by their Virgin of moonlight,
Diana of the Hunters’ rocks: so we
Upon the heights, and in the breeze are seen,
And called the Brothers of thy lovely name,
Blest Mary of Mount Carmel. Asia, cry
Her splendour! Cry to her, O Eastern Kings,
Encompass her! She is our very own,
In mercy manifest to us alone,
Our Cloud of Mercy that from seaward springs,
And crouched Elijah sought for, sigh on sigh.
And for our thanks ... O Eastern Kings, your treasure
In this may serve us, that a pearl may lurk,
Or in your chests there may be jewel-work
That, as she is a Queen, might give her pleasure.
We are her monks, we have no precious things.
Close round her, Kings!
With frankincense and myrrh,
Open a fount for her!
With cloth of gold proclaim her and enthrone!
Afar off we will weep—she is our own.
IN THE BEGINNING
HOW still these two!
Christ with far eyes, John with the fond eyes closed,
And close unto
The breast wherefrom is peace—
No slumber that shall cease,
But charmed safety of a faith as sure
As a mountain’s founding to endure:
And warm as sleep John’s love
For the rapt Face above.
Far-rapt, Christ’s eyes,
In strength, remember His own resting-place,
Where, in this wise,
He, the Eternal Word,
Had kept deep lull unstirred,
Upon the bosom of the Father laid;
And, of that peace divined,
Knew the Eternal mind.
Then the raised Face
Breaks soft and the eyes droop and bend above
The sweet head’s place,
Where from closed eyelids John
Setteth his love upon
God, his Lord, his Thought, his Lover dear:
And, in lapse of silence falling clear,
One heareth only this—
On the sweet head, a kiss.