And I fear Thee worse than death,
As we fear Love’s breath:
Thou art as a tiger round a camp;
And I kindle, terrified, my lamp,
Since I cannot fly,
But to hold Thee distant, lest I die.
Thou art God, and in the mesh,
Close to me, of flesh;
And we love and we have been in range
Of wild secrecies of interchange:
Could I bear Thee near
I should be humble to Thee—but I fear!
FROM THE HIGHWAY
KING of Kings, Thou comest down the street
To my door ...
As from ankles of the heavenly feet
Of wild angels, tinkling pedals sweet,
And sweet bells;
As if water-carriers from bright wells
Jangled freshets to a dewless land,
Thou art called upon the air,
As Thou mountest to me, stair by stair:
In my presence Thou dost stand,
And Thou comest to me on my bed....
Lord, I live and am not dead!
I should be dead—
I, a sinner! And Thou comest swift....
Woe, to wake such love to roam about,
Wandering the street to find me out,
Bringing wholesome balm for gift,
As, in contrariety,
Come to Magdalen, not she,
O Pure, to Thee!
“THAT HE SHOULD TASTE DEATH FOR EVERY MAN”
IN all things Thou art like us and content,
Bowing, receiv’st Thy sacrament.
What is it?—that Thou kneelest meek?
And what the gift that Thou dost seek
Beside us at Thy altars? Hour by hour,
What is it lays up in Thee holy power?
Christ, if Thou comest suppliant
It is to Death, the Celebrant!
Death gives the wafer of his dust;
The ashes of his harvest thrust
Upon Thy tongue Thou tastest, then
Dost swallow for the sake of men.
O Brightness of the Heavens, to save
Thy creatures Thou dost eat the grave!
Our Sacrament—oh, generous!—of wheat,
The dust that out of corn we eat,
Whiteness of Life’s fair grain! O Christ,
No grinding of the cornfield had sufficed
To lay upon our tongues Thy holy Bread,
Unless Thou hadst Thyself so harshly fed
With grindings of the bone of death, the grit
That once was beauty and the form of it;
Once welcome, now so sharp to taste;
Once featured, now the dregs of waste;
Of hope once filled, now lacking aught
Of treasure to be sold or bought—
Dust of our substance Thou each day
Dost taste of in its fated clay....
O soul, take thought! It is thy God
That to His lips presses this choking sod!
NIMIS HONORATI SUNT
“Cast not your pearls down before swine!”
The words are Thine!—
Listen, cast not
The treasure of a white sea-grot,
An uncontaminate, round loveliness,
A pearl of ocean-waters fathomless,
A secret of exceeding, cherished light,
A dream withdrawn from evening infinite,
A beauty God gave silence to—cast not
This wealth from treasury of Indian seas,
Or Persian fisheries,
Down in the miry dens that clot
The feet of swine, who trample, hide and blot.
To us Thy words!... But, see,
In Thy idolatry
Of us, all thought
Of counsel fails and falls to nought!
Pearl of Great Price, within the monstrance set,
Why wilt Thou for Thyself Thy charge forget?
O Love, from deeps before the world began,
O Sheltered of God’s Bosom, why for man
Wilt Thou so madly in the slough be cast,
Concealed ’mid tramplings and disgrace of swine?
O Host, O White, Benign!
Why spend in rage of love at last
Thy wisdom all eternity amassed?