MATER SALVATORIS.
O heart with his in just accord!
O soul his echo, tone for tone!
O spirit that heard, and kept his word!
O countenance moulded like his own!
Behold, she seemed on earth to dwell;
But, hid in light, alone she sat
Beneath the throne ineffable,
Chanting her clear magnificat.
Fed from the boundless heart of God,
The Joy within her rose more high.
And all her being overflowed,
Until the awful hour was nigh.
Then, then there crept her spirit o'er
The shadow of that pain world-wide,
Whereof her Son the substance bore;—
Him offering, half in him she died.
Standing like that strange moon, whereon
The mask of earth lies dim and dead,
An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,
Yet girdled with a luminous thread.
For originality, and perfect expression of an idea by an image, we know of nothing better in all our range of poetry than those two similes. That last is especially wonderful for its reconditeness. Who would ever think of an annular eclipse of the moon as an illustration of religion? And yet how marvellously well it does illustrate! The first verse of the poem is very poor and strained in its rhythm, and the second not much better in its mysticism, which is rather adapted to the enthusiasm of the middle ages; but the end counterbalances all.
Having thus digressed to the Blessed Virgin, we go on to note in how many lights these poems display her. The idea of her they present is, to an ordinary idea, as the flashing, many-faceted jewel to the rough gem of the mines. Here, for example, the whole poetry of motherhood is pressed into her service in a few dense lines:
O Mother-Maid! to none save thee
Belongs in full a parent's name:
So faithful thy virginity,
Thy motherhood so pure from blame!
All other parents, what are they?
Thy types. In them thou stood'st rehearsed,
(As they in bird, and bud, and spray).
Thine Antitype? The Eternal First!
Prime Parent He: and next Him thou!
Overshadowed by the Father's Might,
Thy 'Fiat' was thy bridal vow;
Thine offspring He, the "Light of Light."
Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art,
O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:—
She shaped Thee in her virgin heart,
Thy Mother and Thy Father both!
Let us pass on from this, without breaking the continuity, to
CONSERVABAT IN CORDE.
As every change of April sky
Is imaged in a placid brook,
Her meditative memory
Mirrored His every deed and look.
As suns through summer ether rolled
Mature each growth the spring has wrought,
So Love's strong day-star turned to gold
Her harvests of quiescent thought.
Her soul was as a vase, and shone
Translucent to an inner ray;
Her Maker's finger wrote thereon
A mystic Bible new each day.
Deep Heart! In all His sevenfold might
The Paraclete with thee abode;
And, sacramented there in light,
Bore witness of the things of God.
The last verse has a flaw rare in these volumes—a mixture of metaphors. In the first two lines, "heart" is strongly personified, and clearly represents Mary herself. In the third with no intimation whatever, and without a break in the construction of the sentence, the same heart is become a place, and is indicated by "there." We cannot imagine how the author, with his susceptible taste, read it over in the proof-sheets without feeling the jar of the phrases.
So much for the loving side of Mary's character. In depicting her suffering, the poet has even excelled this. The first broad stroke of his picture is
MATER DOLOROSA
She stood: she sank not. Slowly fell
Adown the Cross the atoning blood.
In agony ineffable
She offered still His own to God.
No pang of His her bosom spared;
She felt in Him its several power.
But she in heart His Priesthood shared:
She offered Sacrifice that hour. . . .