Behold,
O clustered grapes,
His garment rolled,
And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!
See, there is blood
Now on His garment, vest and hood;
For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,
And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,
Though there is none to play
The Vintage-lay.
The Word
Of God, His name ...
But nothing heard
Save beat of His lone feet forever stirred
To tread the press—;
None with Him in His loneliness;
No treader with Him in the spume, no man.
. . . . .
O task
Of sacrifice,
That we may bask
In clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!
O Treader lone,
How pitiful Thy shadow thrown
Athwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!
O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wade
Among the berries, dark and wet,
Thee we forget!
THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Lo, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;
Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—;
“Father, the Paraclete is sent,
Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.
Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—;I must die:
Sure as a star within the firmament
Must be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,
My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”
Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....
His Son is back among us, with His own,
And craving at our hands an altar-stone.
Thereon, a victim, meek He takes His place;
And while to offer Him His priests make bold,
He looketh upward to His Father’s face.
THE HOMAGE OF DEATH
How willingly
I yield to Thee
This very dust!
My body—;that was not enough!
Fair was it as a silken stuff,
Or as a spice, or gold,
Fair to behold!
Beloved, I give Thee all
This Adam’s Fall,
This my desert—;
Thy Father would not let Thee see
Corruption, but I give it Thee.
Behold me thus abhorred,
My penance, Lord!
A handful in Thy Hand,
As if of fair, white sand,
Thou wroughtest me;
Clean was I for a little while....
This dust is of another style;
Its fumes, most vile of sin
To stink begin.