At windows of a summer room,
To feign the shadow of the trees.
And as I wrought, while all above
And all around was fragrant air,
In the sick burthen of my love
It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there
Beat like a heart among the leaves.
O heart that never beats nor heaves,
In that one darkness lying still,
What now to thee my love's great will
Or the fine web the sunshine weaves?
For now doth daylight disavow
Those days-nought left to see or hear.
Only in solemn whispers now
At night-time these things reach mine ear;
When the leaf-shadows at a breath
Shrink in the road, and all the heath,
Forest and water, far and wide,
In limpid starlight glorified,
Lie like the mystery of death.
Last night at last I could have slept,
And yet delayed my sleep till dawn,
Still wandering. Then it was I wept:
For unawares I came upon
Those glades where once she walked with me:
And as I stood there suddenly,
All wan with traversing the night,
Upon the desolate verge of light
Yearned loud the iron-bosomed sea.
Even so, where Heaven holds breath and hears The beating heart of Love's own breast,Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.
Where round the secret of all spheres
All angels lay their wings to rest,-
How shall my soul stand rapt and awed,
When, by the new birth borne abroad.
Throughout the music of the suns,
It enters in her soul at once
And knows the silence there for God!
Here with her face doth memory sit
Meanwhile, and wait the day's decline,
Till other eyes shall look from it,
Eyes of the spirit's Palestine,
Even than the old gaze tenderer:
While hopes and aims long lost with her
Stand round her image side by side,
Like tombs of pilgrims that have died
About the Holy Sepulchre.
A VE.
Gedichtet "very little later than The Bl. D." (Ebd.).]
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 born to God,
Mother of Christ from stall to rood,
And wife unto the Holy Ghost:—
Oh when our need is uttermost,
Think that to such as death may strike
Thou once wert sister sisterlike!
Thou headstone of humanity,
Groundstone of the great Mystery,
Fashioned like us, yet more than we!
Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath. Warmed the long days in Nazareth,) That eve thou didst go forth to give Thy flowers some drink that they might live One faint night more amid the sands? Far off the trees were as pale wands Against the fervid sky: the sea Sighed further off eternally As human sorrow sighs in sleep. Then suddenly the awe grew deep, As of a day to which all days Were footsteps in God's secret ways: Until a folding sense, like prayer, Which is, as God is, everywhere, Gathered about thee; and a voice Spake to thee without any noise, Being of the silence:-"Hail," it said, "Thou that art highly favourèd; The Lord is with thee here and now; Blessed among all women thou."
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
Till on some day forecast in Heaven
His feet passed through thy door to press
Upon His Father's business?-
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
Thy senses like the birth of light,
When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
Or washed thy garments in the stream;
To whose white bed had come the dream
That He was thine and thou wast His
Who feeds among the field-lilies.
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 Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor; And, finding the fixed terms endure 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, Well heeding, haply would be moved To ask thy blessing in His name; And that one thought in both, the same Though silent, then would clasp ye round To weep together,―tears long bound, Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow. Yet, "Surely I come quickly,"-so
He said, from life and death gone home.
Amen: even so, Lord Jesus, come!
But oh! what human tongue can speak
That day when Michael came to break
From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
Its covenant with Gabriel
Endured at length unto the end?
What human thought can apprehend
That mystery of motherhood
When thy Beloved at length renew'd
The sweet communion severèd,-
His left hand underneath thine head
And His right hand embracing thee?—
Lo! He was thine, and this is He!
Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
That lets me see her standing up
Where the light of the Throne is bright?
Unto the left, unto the right,
The cherubim, succinct, conjoint,
Float inward to a golden point,
And from between the seraphim
The glory issues for a hymn.
O Mary Mother, be not loth
To listen,-thou whom the stars clothe,
Who seest and mayst not be seen!
Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
Into our shadow bend thy face,
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary Virgin, full of grace!
THE SEA-LIMITS.
[Zuerst gedruckt u. d. T. "From the Cliffs: Noon" in "The Germ" 1850.] CONSIDER the sea's listless chime:
Time's self it is, made audible,
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