EXULTENT SION FILIÆ.
"Who is this that cometh from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning on the arm of her Beloved?"
Canticles viii. 5.
Who is this from the wilderness coming,
From the desert so arid and bare,
On her own most Beloved One leaning—
Who is this so chaste and so fair?
Yes, out of a wilderness coming,
A desert of darkness and sin;
Lo! the Bridegroom, the promised, the glorious,
Lo! a Queen who is holy within!
See! her veil is thrown back from her features,
Arrayed in the lustre of light,
Like silver clean washed from the dross of the mine,
Like a lily she dawns on the sight—
Like a lily whose fair leaves encompass her stalk,
With an odor so piercing and sweet,
That the world, overpowered, feels ashamed of its pride,
And vanquished kneels down at her feet.
In the desert had tarried the Bridegroom of old
Forty days, forty nights, in his love,
Alone, while she who was dearest to him
In grief like a silver-winged dove,
Hid away in the deep, secret clefts of the rock,
Wailed his absence, and brooded so long,
And pined for his countenance, pined for his voice
To answer again to her song—
"Now winter is past, the rain over and gone;"
The flowers, too, have their banners unfurled,
While she waits for his promise; she knows he will come;
And he comes—the Light of the world!
To lead back each wandering sheep to his fold,
Who had waited so long in the porch;
To bring back to the dim world his darling, his rose,
His bride in her beauty, the church;
To open her gates that all may go in,
Not a wanderer left out in the cold,
The supper awaiting, the King's marriage feast,
With its Host and its chalice of gold.
Sophia May Eckley.