Not within Thy hands!—Behold,
By a woman’s hand unrolled
All the mystery sublime
Of Thy ableness through Time!
Thou, in precious Boyhood, knew
For Thy Father what to do;
And delayed Thyself to hear
Questions and to answer clear
To the Doctors’ chiming throng,
Thou, admired, wert set among.
Straight Thy Mission was begun,
As the Jewish Rabbis spun
Round Thy fetterless, sweet mind
Problems no one had divined.
But Thy Mother came that way,
Who had sought Thee day by day,
And her crystal voice reproved
Thy new way with Thy beloved.
In Thy wisdom-widened eyes
Throbbed a radiance of surprise:
But, Thy Mother having chidden,
Thou in Nazareth wert hidden;
And Thy Father’s Work begun
Stayed full eighteen years undone,
Till Thou camest on Thine hour,
When Thy Mother loosed Thy power
For Thy Father’s business, said,
In a murmur softly spread,
Rippling to a happy few,
“What He says unto you do!”
As the spring-time to a tree,
Sudden spring she was to Thee,
When her strange appeal began
Thy stayed Mission unto man;
Stayed but by her earlier blame,
When from three days’ woe she came;
Yet renewed when she gave sign
“Son, they have not any wine!”
Holy trust and love! She gave
For Thy sake oblation brave
Of her will, her spotless name:
Thou for her didst boldly tame
God the Word to wait on her;
God’s own Wisdom might not stir
Till her lovely voice decreed.
Thou wouldst have our hearts give heed,
And revere her lovely voice;
Wait upon her secret choice,
Stay her pleasure, as didst Thou,
With a marvel on Thy brow,
And a silence on Thy breath.
We must cherish what she saith;
As she pleadeth we must hope
For our deeds’ accepted scope,
Humble as her Heavenly Son,
Till our liberty be won.
THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS
IN a garden at Bethany,
O Mother, Mother, Mother!
Amid the passion-flowers and olive-leaves—
His Mother—
Yet, behold, how tranquilly
She is sad and grieves,
Though her Son is gone away,
And she knows Passover Day
Will not leave her Lamb, her Child unslain!
He hath spoken to deaf ears,
All save hers, of mortal pain
And of parting, yet she has no tears....
He is gone away
With His chosen few to eat the Pasch,
Leaving in the eyes, she raised to ask,
Mute assurance He would come no more
Back to Bethany, nor Lazarus’ door.
O Mother, Mother, Mother!—
But she keeps so many things apart
In their silence, pondering them by heart;
Always she has pondered in her heart;
And it knows her Son is Son of God....
Silently she gazes where He trod
Down the valley to Jerusalem—
His Mother!
Round her birds are at their parting song
To the light that will not strike them long;
And the flowers are very gold
With the light before whose loss they fold.
Keen the song, as on each wing,
And on each rose and each rose-stem
Full the burnishing.
She hath crossed her hands around her breast,
And it seems her heart is taking rest
With some Mystery her spirit heeds....
Song of Songs the birds now chaunt,
And the lilies vaunt
How among them, white, He feeds,
Who but now hath left her—fair and white
As the lover of the Sunamite.
. . . .
In the city, in an upper room,
As fair Paschal Bread He breaks and gives
Unto men His Body while He lives—
Then seeks out a Garden for His Doom.
HOLY CROSS
MYSTERIOUS sway of mortal blood,
That urges me upon Thy wood!—
O Holy Cross, but I must tell
My love; how all my forces dwell
Upon Thee and around Thee day and night!
I love the Feet upon thy beam,
As a wild lover loves his dream;
My eyes can only fix upon that sight.
O Tree, my arms are strong and sore
To clasp Thee, as when we adore
The body of our dearest in our arms!
Each pang I suffer hath for aim
Thy wood—its comfort is the same—
A taint, an odour from inveterate balms.