The liquid floor of heaven bore him up
With unseen arms, as in his feathery flight
He floated down toward the infinite night;
And each way downward, on the left and right,
He saw each moon of heaven like a cup
Of liquid, misty fire that shone afar
From sentinel towers of heaven’s battlements;
But onward, winged by love’s desire intense,
And sank, space-swallowed, into the immense,
While with him ever widened heaven’s bar.
’Tis ages now long-gone since he went out,
Christ-urged, love-driven, across the jasper walls;
But hellward still he ever floats and falls,
And ever nearer come those anguished calls;
And far behind he hears a glorious shout.
The Mother [1]
I
It was April, blossoming spring,
They buried me, when the birds did sing;
Earth, in clammy wedging earth,
They banked my bed with a black, damp girth.
Under the damp and under the mould,
I kenned my breasts were clammy and cold.