Mater Divinae Gratiae.
XVIII.
"They have no wine." The tender guest
Was grieved their feast should lack for aught.
He seemed to slight her mute request:
Not less the grace she wished He wrought.
O great in Love! O full of Grace!
That winds in thee, a river broad,
From Christ, with heaven-reflecting face,
Gladdening the City of thy God:—
Be this thy gift: that man henceforth
No more should creep through life content
(Draining the springs impure of earth)
With life's material element.
Let sacraments to sense succeed:
Let nought be winning, nought be good
Which fails of Him to speak, and bleed
Once more with His all-cleansing blood!
Mater Divinae Gratiae.
XIX.
The gifts a mother showers each day
Upon her softly-clamorous brood:
The gifts they value but for play,—
The graver gifts of clothes and food,—
Whence come they but from him who sows
With harder hand, and reaps, the soil;
The merit of his labouring brows,
The guerdon of his manly toil?
From Him the Grace: through her it stands
Adjusted, meted, and applied;
And ever, passing through her hands,
Enriched it seems, and beautified.
Love's mirror doubles Love's caress:
Love's echo to Love's voice is true:—
Their Sire the children love not less
Because they clasp a Mother too.
XX.
When April's sudden sunset cold
Through boughs half-clothed with watery sheen
Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold,
And bathes a world half gold half green,
Then shakes the illuminated air
With din of birds; the vales far down
Grow phosphorescent here and there;
Forth flash the turrets of the town;
Along the sky thin vapours scud;
Bright zephyrs curl the choral main;
The wild ebullience of the blood
Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain:
Yet in that music discords mix;
The unbalanced lights like meteors play;
And, tired of splendours that perplex,
The dazzled spirit sighs for May.
XXI.
As children when, with heavy tread,
Men sad of face, unseen before,
Have borne away their mother dead—
So stand the nations thine no more.
From room to room those children roam,
Heart-stricken by the unwonted black:
Their house no longer seems their home:
They search; yet know not what they lack.
Years pass: Self-Will and Passion strike
Their roots more deeply day by day;
Old servants weep; and "how unlike"
Is all the tender neighbours say.
And yet at moments, like a dream,
A mother's image o'er them flits:
Like her's their eyes a moment beam;
The voice grows soft; the brow unknits.
Such, Mary, are the realms once thine,
That know no more thy golden reign.
Hold forth from heaven thy Babe divine!
O make thine orphans thine again!