Strange grief would fill each mother-moan,
Wild longing, dim, and sore:
"My child! my child! he is my own,
And yet is mine no more!"
And thou, O Mary, years on years,
From child-birth to the cross,
Wast filled with yearnings, filled with fears,
Keen sense of love and loss.
His childish thoughts outsoared thy reach;
His childish tenderness
Had deeper springs than act or speech
To eye or ear express.
Strange pangs await thee, mother mild!
A sorer travail-pain,
Before the spirit of thy child
Is born in thee again.
And thou wilt still forbode and dread,
And loss be still thy fear,
Till form be gone, and, in its stead,
The very self appear.
For, when thy Son hath reached his goal,
His own obedient choice,
Him thou wilt know within thy soul,
And in his joy rejoice.
2.
Ah, there He stands! With wondering face
Old men surround the boy;
The solemn looks, the awful place,
Restrain the mother's joy.
In sweet reproach her joy is hid;
Her trembling voice is low,
Less like the chiding than the chid:
"How couldst Thou leave us so?"
Ah, mother! will thy heart mistake,
Depressed by rising fear,
The answering words that gently break
The silence of thine ear?