Oh, softness on the nostrils, where they strained
After their airy lusts till they attained;
Now, by the Cross of balm so softly reined,
They wait to breathe for breath
The vigour of their God, as a shell saith,
Left on the beach, “The brine will wake my death.”
The lips receive no coal of fire
To urge their fervent crying should not tire;
A tender Cross gives check to such desire,
And bids them wait their song,
Till they are far from peril and among
The consonant and ever-praising throng.
The hands, the feet ... O Jesus, all
Marked with Thy Cross, but as a dream may fall
In mercy on a mind great woes appal—
A healing shade,
A priestly grace, so soft the Cross is made,
Embracing, by the nails we are not frayed.
Crosses as flowers on every sense
Fall, rest on them in heavenly suspense;
And then we know the holy, the immense
Delight of what shall be.
When, sanctified and calm for joyance, we
Shall have of God our bodies deathlessly.
AFTER ANOINTING
JOY of the senses, joy of all
And each of them, as fall
The Holy Oils!... O senses, ye would dance,
Would circle what ye cannot see,
Nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch,
Yet ye receive of your felicity,
Till ye would reel and dance;
The joy apparent from your bliss being such
That, in a fivefold garland knit,
Softly ye would circle it.
Joy ripples through each covered lid;
Nor are the ears forbid
Sounds as of honeycomb, so sweet is Heaven
Afar, such sweet, such haunting sound!
O nostrils, myrtle ye shall love!
The lips taste fully, as if God were found.
Swift, under peace, toward Heaven
The hands, the feet, so still, like still lakes move,
Delighted Powers of Sense, ye dance,
Woven in such a lovely chance!
VIATICUM
O HEART, that burns within,
Illuminated, hot!
O feet, that tread the road
As if they trod it not—
So lifted and so winged
By rare companionship!
No matter tho’ the road
Doth unto shadow dip;
The meaning of the night
My ears, attentive, hail.
The mighty silence brings
Music no nightingale
Hath warbled from its fount;
Music of holy things
Made clear as song can make,
With marvellous utterings:
The Past become a joy
Of instant clarity,
As the deep evening fills
With converse brimmingly.
O nightingale, hold back
Your wildest song’s discant;
You cannot make my heart
With such devotion pant
As He who steps along
Beside me in the shade,
Down the steep valley-road,
The enveloping, dark glade!
Hush, O dim nightingale!...
Is it my God whose Feet
Wing mine to travel on;
Whose voice in current sweet
Shows how divine the thought
And purpose is of all
That hath been and shall be,
And shall to me befall?
Stay, nightingale! Behold!
This Wayfarer, with strange,
Wild Voice that rouses gloom
Thy voice could never range,
Hath broken Bread with me!
No resinous, balmed shrine
Glows from its core as I,
When I behold His sign,
And touch His offering Hand.
O holiest journey, sped
With Him who died for me,
Who breaking with me Bread,
Is known to me as Life,
Is felt by me as Fire;
Who is my Way and all
My wayfaring’s Desire!