Adolescentulae amaverunt te nimis.
VIII.
"Behold! the wintry rains are past;
The airs of midnight hurt no more:
The young maids love thee. Come at last:
Thou lingerest at the garden-door.
"Blow over all the garden; blow,
Thou wind that breathest of the south,
Through all the alleys winding low,
With dewy wing and honeyed mouth.
"But wheresoever thou wanderest, shape
Thy music ever to one Name:—
Thou too, clear stream, to cave and cape
Be sure thou whisper of the same.
"By every isle and bower of musk
Thy crystal clasps, as on it curls,
We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk;
We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls."
The stream obeyed. That Name he bore
Far out above the moon-lit tide.
The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'er
The unforgetting pines; and died.
Mater Christi.
IX.
Daily beneath His mother's eyes
Her Lamb matured His lowliness:
Twas hers the lovely Sacrifice
With fillet and with flower to dress.
Beside His little cross He knelt;
With human-heavenly lips He prayed:
His Will within her will she felt;
And yet His Will her will obeyed.
Gethsemané! when day is done
Thy flowers with falling dews are wet:
Her tears fell never; for the sun
Those tears that brightened never set.
The house was silent as that shrine
The priest but entered once a year.
There shone His emblem. Light Divine!
Thy presence and Thy power was here!
Mater Christi.
X.
He willed to lack; He willed to bear;
He willed by suffering to be schooled;
He willed the chains of flesh to wear:
Yet from her arms the worlds He ruled.
As tapers 'mid the noontide glow
With merged yet separate radiance burn,
With human taste and touch, even so,
The things He knew He willed to learn.
He sat beside the lowly door:
His homeless eyes appeared to trace
In evening skies remembered lore,
And shadows of His Father's face.
One only knew Him. She alone
Who nightly to His cradle crept,
And lying like the moonbeam prone,
Worshipped her Maker as He slept.