My clasp is filled, my sight receives
The compass of its power; pain grieves
About each sense but as a languid hum:
And, out of weariness, at length,
My day rejoices in its strength,
My night that innocence of strife is come.
PURGATORY
PERFECTION of my God!—
With hands on the same rod,
With robes that interfold,
One weft together rolled;
With two wings of one Dove
Stretched the royal heads above—
God severs from His Son,
That what is not be won;
Immortal, mortal grow,
God entering manhood know
What was not and shall be
Of cogent Deity.
Perfection of my soul!—
How shall I reach my goal,
Unless I leave His Face,
Who is my dwelling-place,
Unless in exile do
His will a short while through,
To the time’s sharpest rim:
Unless, deprived of Him,
I may achieve Him, lie
His victim, sigh on sigh,
Bearing consummate pain,
Supremely to attain?
FORTITUDO EGENIS
LOVER of Souls, Immaculate,
Mary, by thy Immaculate Conception,
Thy soul and body white for God’s reception,
Beyond the ridg’d snows on the sky;
Beyond the treasure of white beams that lie
Within the golden casket of the sun;
By the excelling franchise of thy state,
Plead for the Holy Souls, O Holiest One!
Till they be cleansed grief hath no date!
Them, through thy spotless grace, embolden
To passion for their God, but once beholden,
Nor ever more beheld till pain
Hath made their souls’ recesses bright from stain.
Plead they may swiftly see Him, nor may shun
The Vision, each achieved immaculate!
Pure from the first, plead for them, Holiest One!
PAX VOBISCUM
To Notre Dame de Boulogne
MY heart is before thee, Queen,
As a mariner at sea—
It vows its sighs that swell to thee,
Sighs as great as against waves may be.
For thou art above the waves,
On their summits thou dost float;
Thy locks of gold along thy throat;
Thou more gold than gold upon thy boat.