Sedes Sapientiae.
V.
"Wisdom hath built herself a House,
And hewn her out her pillars seven." [Footnote 4]
Her wine is mixed. Her guests are those
Who share the harvest-home of heaven.
[Footnote 4: Proverbs ix. 1.]
Who guards the gates? The flaming sword
Of Penance. Every way it turns:
But healing from on high is poured
On each that fire seraphic burns.
The fruits upon her table piled
Are gathered from the Tree of Life.
Around are ranged the undefiled,
And those that conquered in the strife.
Who tends the guests? Who smiles away
Sad memories? bids misgiving cease?
A crowned one countenanced like the day—
The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
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VI.
Here, in this paradise of light,
Superfluous were both tree and grass:
Enough to watch the sunbeams smite
Yon white flower sole in the morass.
From his cold nest the skylark springs;
Sings, pauses, sings; shoots up anew;
Attains his topmost height, and sings
Quiescent in his vault of blue.
With eyes half-closed I watch that lake
Flashed from whose plane the sun-sparks fly,
Like souls new-born that shoot and break
From thy deep sea, Eternity!
Ripplings of sunlight from the wave
Ascend the white rock, high and higher;
Soft gurglings fill the satiate cave;
Soft airs amid the reeds expire.
All round the lone and luminous meer
The dark world stretches, far and free:
That skylark's song alone I hear;
That flashing wave alone I see.
O myriad Earth! Where'er thy Word
Makes way indeed into the soul,
An answering echo there is stirred:—
Of thee the part is as the whole.
Fest. B.V.M. de Monte Carmelo.
VII.
Carmel, with Alp and Apennine,
Low whispers in the wind that blows
Beneath the Eastern stars, ere shine
The lights of morning on their snows.
Of thee, Elias, Carmel speaks,
And that white cloud, so small at first,
Thou saw'st approach the mountain peaks
To quench a dying nation's thirst.
On Carmel, like a sheathed sword,
Thy monks abode till Jesus came;
On Carmel then they served their Lord;—
Then Carmel rang with Mary's name.
Blow over all the garden; blow
O'er all the garden of the West,
Balm-breathing Orient! Whisper low
The secret of thy spicy nest.
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"Who from the Desert upward moves
Like cloud of incense onward borne?
Who, moving, rests on Him she loves?
Who mounts from regions of the Morn?
"Behold! The apple-tree beneath—
There where of old thy Mother fell—
I raised thee up. More strong than Death
Is Love;—more strong than Death or Hell." [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5: Cant. viii. 5.]
VIII.
Come from the midnight mountain tops,
The mountains where the panthers play:
Descend; the veil of darkness drops;
Come fair and fairer than the day!
Our hearts are wounded with thine eyes:
They character in words of light
Thereon the mystery of the skies:
The "Name o'er every name" they write.
Come from thy Lebanonian peaks
Whose sacerdotal cedars nod
Above the world, when morning breaks—
The Mountain of the House of God.
The land thou lov'st—well is she!
The ploughers on her back may plough;
But in her vales upgrows the Tree
Of Life, and binds the bleeding brow.