It was, then, during the closing weeks of Henry’s life, and while Michael was suffering that sorrow and great bodily pain, that she wrote Mystic Trees. Yet the poems manifestly bear within them a deep creative joy, and breathe sometimes a holy gaiety of spirit; and it is only at the end of the book, in a tiny section containing four short poems, that the poet allows her anguish of body and mind the relief of expression. For that brief space, so rightly named “A Little While,” the inspiration to “laugh deep” failed, and stark tragedy overwhelmed her.
BELOVED, MY GLORY
Beloved, my glory in thee is not ceased,
Whereas, as thou art waning, forests wane:
Unmoved, as by the victim is the priest,
I pass the world’s great altitudes of pain.
But when the stars are gathered for a feast,
Or shadows threaten on a radiant plain,
Or many golden cornfields wave amain,
Oh then, as one from a filled shuttle weaves,
My spirit grieves.
SHE IS SINGING TO THEE, DOMINE!
She is singing to Thee, Domine!
Dost hear her now?
She is singing to Thee from a burning throat,
And melancholy as the owl’s love-note;
She is singing to Thee from the utmost bough
Of the tree of Golgotha where it is bare,
And the fruit torn from it that fruited there;
She is singing.... Canst Thou stop the strain,
The homage of such pain?
Domine, stoop down to her again!
CAPUT TUUM UT CARMELUS
I watch the arch of her head,
As she turns away from me....
I would I were with the dead,
Drowned with the dead at sea,
All the waves rocking over me!
As St Peter turned and fled
From the Lord, because of sin,
I look on that lovely head;
And its majesty doth win
Grief in my heart as for sin.
Oh, what can Death have to do
With a curve that is drawn so fine,
With a curve that is drawn as true
As the mountain’s crescent line?...
Let me be hid where the dust falls fine!