AVE. MOTHER of the Fair Delight, Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight, Now sitting fourth beside the Three, Thyself a woman-Trinity,— Being a daughter borne to God, Mother of Christ from stall to rood, : And wife unto the Holy Ghost :- Groundstone of the great Mystery, strike Fashioned like us, yet more than we ! Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath Warmed the long days in Nazareth,) Far off the trees were as pale wands Against the fervid sky: the sea As human sorrow sighs in sleep. Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?— Or when He tottered round thy knee Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee ?— And through His boyhood, year by year Eating with Him the Passover, Didst thou discern confusedly That holier sacrament, when He, The bitter cup about to quaff, Should break the bread and eat thereof ?— Or came not yet the knowledge, even Or still was God's high secret kept? Nay, but I think the whisper crept Like growth through childhood. Work and play, Things common to the course of day, Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd; And all through girlhood, something still'd When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night To whose white bed had come the dream O solemn shadow of the end In that wise spirit long contain'd! O awful end! and those unsaid Long years when It was Finished! Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone Left darkness in the house of John,) Between the naked window-bars That spacious vigil of the stars?— For thou, a watcher even as they, Wouldst rise from where throughout the day Of day and night which never brought Sounds of His coming chariot, Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd Those eyes which said, 'How long, O Lord ?' Then that disciple whom He loved, And that one thought in both, the same He said, from life and death gone home. Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come! But oh what human tongue can speak That day when death was sent to break From the tir'd spirit, like a veil, Its covenant with Gabriel Endured at length unto the end? When thy Beloved at length renew'd Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope, That lets me see her standing up Where the light of the Throne is bright? |