"Thence to Jerusalem and Bethany.
Here from a chosen spot on Olivet
Jesus, His hands uplifted as He blessed us,
Rose heavenward, but He blessed us still in rising,
Until a cloud enwrapt Him from our sight."
The upward look of Mary saying this,
Her fixéd, eager, upward-yearning look,
Failed, and her face grew white as if the blood
Were shamed to stain that heavenly purity.
All saw the change she suffered, and were awed.
Mary's voice faltered, but she brokenly
Went on in utterance such as if she spoke
Out of another world just reached from this:
"That cloud—I seem to see it now again—
Or something swims between to dim my sight.
Those angels said that He would yet return
So as we saw Him then ascend to heaven—
Is He now come? I hear as if a voice,
His, His, the same that in the garden spake
To me calling my name, 'Mary!' It says
Now, 'Hither, Mary!' Yea, Lord Jesus, I
Know Thee, and come. At last! At last! Farewell!"
Mary such words uttered with failing breath,
Her eyes withdrawn from vision of things here.
Her body—which in gentle rest reclined
On her kinswoman Ruth supporting her
When her strength failed—she left, winging her way
Hence, as the lark soars from his groundling nest
Into the morning sky to meet the sun.
With a communicated quietude
Of spirit—which into their gesture passed
Making it seem habitual, no surprise,
Scarce sorrow, hinted, perturbation none,
But reverence and love ineffable—
Not speaking, Ruth and Rachel decently
Composed the body to a look of rest
In sleep on the sweet earth, the stainless sky
Bending in benediction over her
And the bright sun just risen touching the face
To an auroral beauty with his beams.
"She has gone hence," Paul said, "to be with Christ,
Which is far better. See the peace expressed
In the unmoving hands on the stilled heart,
The form relapsed oblivious on the ground,
And the face fixed in transport of repose!
Surpassing beauty! But corruptible;
Faint image of the beauty which shall be
When this seed planted springs in heavenly bloom
And mortal takes on immortality!
Think when we sow this beauty in the dust,
That which we sow is earthly though so fair;
But that will be celestial which shall hence
In the bright resurrection season spring.
"Ye know that when the husbandman entrusts
His seed-grain to the soil he does not sow
That body which shall be, but kernels bare
To which God gives a body as He will;
From the wheat sown there springs a blade of green
Unlike the wheat and far more beautiful.
So is the resurrection that awaits
Mary, our sister; this corruptible
Will put on incorruption in that day,
And Christ will fashion it anew more fair,
After the body of His glory changed!
"Ye do not ask, but some have doubting asked,
'How are the dead raised up, and in what form
Of body do they come?' Not surely such
As they within the tomb were laid away.
There sleeps a natural body in the dust;
There wakes a spiritual body purified
From every imperfection of the flesh.
Whatever glorious beauty here was worn
Is worn a changed more glorious beauty there.
"His proper glory to the sun belongs,
And the moon has her glory, and the stars
Each in his own peculiar glory shines:
The body of the resurrection so
Has its enduements proper to itself,
Capacities, adjustments, attributes,
Other than we know here—though shadowed forth
Obscurely in the body that the Lord
After His resurrection wore—such high
Transfigurations of the faculties
Belonging to the body of this flesh
As man's imagination cannot dream!
"O clay, that late seemed Mary!"—and therewith
The tears that would not longer be stayed back
Burst from Paul's eyes and fell a sunlit shower,
While all the rest beholding wept with Paul—
"Form, for her sake, our well-belovéd, dear,
Must we then leave thee in the dust of earth?
But not as thus we leave thee wilt thou rise!
Thou in corruption wilt lie waiting here,
But thou shalt rise, to incorruption changed;
Thou wilt sleep darkling underneath the clod,
But thence in glory shalt thou waking burst;
In weakness buried, thou shalt rise in power.
Mary the image of the earthy bore,
She shall the image of the heavenly bear:
Comfort yourselves, belovéd, with such hope."
Paul these triumphal words of prophecy
Uttered with streaming tears that testified
The sorrow in him at the heart of joy;
And they all wept with Paul, in fellowship
Of pathos at sweet strife with glorying hope.