CONTENTS
POEMS OF ADORATION
DESOLATION
WHO comes?...
O Beautiful!
Low thunder thrums,
As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.
The sun runs forth
To stare at Him, who journeys north
From Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayed
In vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.
O beautiful and whole,
In that red stole!
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.
His flesh shows dusk with wine: since He began
He hath not stayed, that forth may pour
The Vineyard’s store.
He treads
The angry grapes ...
Their anger spreads,
And all its brangling passion sheds
In blood. O God,
Thy wrath, Thy wine-press He hath trod—
The fume, the carnage, and the murderous heat!
Yet all is changed by patience of the feet:
The blood sinks down; the vine
Is issued wine.