A May Carol.
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, and naught replied.
For mutual sympathies we live:
The outraged heart forgives, but dies:
To her, that wound was sanative,
For life to her was sacrifice.
At us no random shaft is thrown
When charged with crimes by us unwrought;
For sins unchallenged, sins unknown,
Too oft have stained us—act and thought.
In past or present she could find
No sin to weep for; yet, no less,
Deeplier that hour the 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 overbuilt by grace,
Nature might vanish, like some isle
In great towers lost—the buried base
Of some surpassing fortress pile.
Aubrey De Vere.