. M, ^'::H:•■: • rS)' ;:i;!-i:i:''';'ir.;'' ■ ii' ■ : o 0' ^ " -OO^ v^^" -''-.. % "^. ^r /• ' '^ • ';--~-' f-j> r'/ ,j 5 3 --^- \ '' s "^ . ^ /. ^ ^mH\ % .^^' Z.^^, '■. NJ^ ^ ,.v^^' ".f- ,0 o. %"^i^y \^ ' t^-"^' ^ c^N' .0 O^ ' ^ <^. ^' " ■ '">.^^./^^ 'U ^'^ ^^> ,^^ ,\' v\^ ,^^ '^. >o :-vv \ \ ■s^ ^ ^#\.^.. ^ X^'^.. 0' x^O^ ,d^ .^:^ -'t .^■^- ^' .-^^^ ^. .0 o. V- .0 O. .^-^' ,0o. o-^ - CHIfc. 7 S '06 TO THE VERY REVEREND HEKEY EDWAED MANNING THESE POEMS ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. INTRODUCTION, The wisdom of tlie Cliiircli, wliicli conse- •crates tlie fleeting seasons of Time to tlie in- terests of Eternity, lias dedicated tlie montli of May (the birtliday festival, as it were, of Creation) to Iier wlio was ever destined in tlie Divine Counsels to become the Mother of her Creator. It belongs to her, of conrse, as she is the representative of the Incarnation, and its practical exponent to a world but too apt to forget what it professes to hold. The follow^- ing Poems, written in her honor, are an attempt to set fortli, though but in mere outline, each of them some oub of the great Ideas or essen- tial Principles embodied in that all-embracing Mystery. On a topic so comprehensive, con- verse statements, at one time illustrating the Vlll. INTRODUCTION. highest excellence compatible with mere crea- tnrely existence, at another, the infinite dis- tance between the chief of creatures and the Creator, may seem, at first sight, and to some eyes, contradictory, althongh in reality mutu- ally correlative. On an attentive perusal, however, that harmony which exists among the many portions of a single mastering Truth can hardly fail to appear — and with it the scope and aim of this Poem. "With the meditative, descriptive pieces have been interspersed. They are an attempt to- ward a Christian rendering of external nature. Nature, like Art, needs to be spiritualized, unless it is to remain a fortress in the hands of an adverse Power. The visible world is a passive thing, which ever takes its meaning from something above itself. In Pagan times^ it drew its interpretation from Pantheism ; and to Pantheism — nay, to that Idolatry which is the popular application of Pantheism — it has still a secret though restrained tendency, not betrayed by literature alone. A World with- out Divinity, Matter without Soul, is intolerable INTRODUCTIOK. IX. to the liiiman mind. Yet, on the other' hand, there is much in fallen hnman natnre which shrinks from the snblime thought of a Creator, and rests on that of a sheathed Diyinity dif- fused thronghont the nniverse, its life, not its maker. Mere ])ersonified elements, the "Wood- God and Eiver-JNTymph, captivate the fancy and do not overawe the sonl. For a bias so seductive, no cure is to he fonnd save in au- thentic Christianity, the only practical Theism. The Ajhole truth, on the long rmi, holds its own better than the half trnth; and minds repelled by the thought of a God who stands afar off, and created the nniverse but to aban- don it to general laws, fling themselves at the feet of a God made Man. In other words, the Incarnation is the Complement of Creation. In it is revealed the true nature of that link which binds together the visible and invisible worlds. When the " Word was made Flesh," a bridge was thrown across that gulf w^hich had else for ever separated the Finite from the Infinite. The same high Truth which brings home to us the doctrine of a Creation, conse- X. INTRODUCTION. crates that Creation, reconstituting it into an Eden meet for an nnfallen Adam and an un- fallen Eve ; nay, exalting it into a heavenly Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of the Lamb and of the Bride. If does this, in part, through symbols and associations founded on the all- cleansing Blood and the all-sanctifying Spirit — -symbols and associations the reverse of those in which an Epicurean mythology took delight, and which the very superfieial alone can con- found with such. . This is perhaps the aspect of Religion least above the level of poetry. As to its form, the present work belongs to the class of serial poems, a species of composi- tion happily revived in recent times, as by Wordsworth, in his " Ecclesiastical Sketches," and " Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," by Landor, and, with pre-eminent success, by the author of '^Li Memoriam." It was in common use among our earlier poets, Avho derived it from Petrarch and the Italians. Most often the in- terest of such poems was of a personal sort, as in the serial sonnets of Shakespeare, Spenser, Sidney, Drummond, Daniel, and Drajton ; INTRODUCTION. XI. as well as the "Aurora" of Lord Stirling, and tlie " Astrea" of Sir John Davies. Occa- sionally, it was of a more abstract character. In both cases, alike, advantage was derived from a method of writing which unites an in- definite degree of continnity with a somewhat lawless variety, and which gains in brevity by the omission of connecting bonds. In Herbert's " Temple," Yaughan's " SilexScintillans," and the chief poems of Donne and Crashaw, the unity is bnt that of kindred thoughts, and a common subject, not of a complete design. Habington's " Castara," a noble work too little known, combines a personal with an abstract interest. In it many poems on religions and philosophical subjects are grouped for support round a single centre ; that centre being the sustained homage paid by the poet to one not unworthy, apparently, of his reverence and love. CON'TEE'TS PiKOLOGTJB PAGE . 21 MAY CAROXS. PARTI. Who feels not, when the spring once more Upon thy face, O God, thyworld All but unutterable name Sancta Maria ... Dei Genitrix .... Virgo Virginum . , , Ascending from the convent-grates Adolescentulse amaverunt te nimis Mater Christ! .... Mater Christi Mater Creatoris Mater Salvatoris Mater Dolorosa .... Mater Dolorosa Mater Admlrabilis Mater Amabilis Mater Filii . Mater Divinae Gratiae , 25 27 28 29 30 31 33 35 36 3T 38 39 40 41 43 43 44 45 XIV. CONTENTS. Mater Divinse Gratios When April's sudden sunset cold As children when, with heavy tread Mariae Cliens . Fest. Visitationis Not yet, not yet ! the Season sings Fest. Nativitatis B. V. M. The moon, ascending o'er a mass A dream came to me while the night Fest.-Puriflcationis . Fest. Epiphanite . The sunless day is sweeter yet Legenda PART II. Conservabat in Corde Ascensio Domini Ascensio Domini Elias .... Stronger and steadier every hour . Speculum Justitise Munera . . . . . Predestinata Three worlds there are ; the first of sense Alas ! not only loveliest eyes . Idol atria . . . . Tota Pulchra Stella Matutina . . . . Janua Coeli .... If sense of man's unworthiness . Causa No strse Lsetitise Stella Maris . . . . CONTENTS. XV. . TAGS Blossom for ever, blossoming Eod ! 95 Uuica ...... 96 Magnificat ..... 98 Mystica . . 99 Expectatio ..... 101 Still on the gracious work proceeds . 103 Turris Ebiirnea .... 105 Who doubts that thou art finite ? Who . . im They seek not, or amiss they seek 108 A sudden sun-burst in the woods . 109 Dominica Pentecostes 110 Dominica Pentecostes .... . 112 Turris Davidica .... 114 *' Tu solainteremisti omnes Hsereses" . 115 PART III. In vain thine altars do they heap . . 119 Babylon ..... 120 The golden rains are dashed against . 121 Sedes Sapientise .... 122 Sedes Sapientise .... . 124 Here, in this paradise of light 125 Fest. B. V. M. de Monte Carmelo . m Come from the midnight mountain tops ' 129 Advocata Nostra .... . 130 Thronus Trinitatis .... 131 Cultus Sanctorum , a . . . 132 Fest. S. S. Trinitatis . . . . 134 Where is the crocus now that first . 13G "AdNives" • . . . 1ST Fest. Puritatis ... . 139 Cloud-piercing mountains I Chance and Change 141 XVI. CONTENTS. Fcederis Area Domus Aiirea Respexit Humilitatem Respexit Humilitatem *' Sine Labe originali Concepta" . *' Sine Labe originali Concepta" Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold Corpus Christi Corpus Christi . Pleasant the swarm about the bough . Sing on, wide winds, your anthems vast Cceli enarrant Caro factus est . A woman " clothed with the sun" No ray of all their silken sheen . Epilogue PAGE 143 144 145 14t 149 151 153 154 156 158 159 160 162 164 165 169 HYMNS AND POEM{ Hymn from St. Gertrude . . . . Hymn— The Feast of St. Peter's Chair at Antioch Hymn— The Feast of St. John the Baptist Hymn of Praise to God Hymn— The Feast of St. John the Evangelist Hymn— Translation of the " Stabat Mater'' Hymn on the Divine Humanity of Christ . Maunday Thursday .... An Ancient Legend and its Answer Legenda Aurea .... Impenitence Penance . . . . . 173 176 180 183 187 190 193 196 200 201 CONTENT S . XVlt The Angel of the Way Questionings Trial The kindly Transcience Festnm Maternitatis Mater Christi In hora Mortis The Cavil The Veil The Letter and the Spirit " In Electis meis mitte Kadices'' Aiixilium Christianoruni The First Dolour The Second Dolour . The Third Dolour The Fourth Dolour . . ^ The Fifth Dolour The Sixth Dolour The Seventh Dolour The True Humanity . PAGS 203 204 203 20G 20T 209 210 211 212 214 216 217 218 219 221 223 225 22T 228 PROLOaUE. PROLOGUE. That sun-eyed Power whicli stands sublime Ujpon tlie rock that crowns our globe. Her feet on all tlie spoils of time, With liglit eternal on her robe, She, sovereign of the orb she guides, On Truth's broad sun may root a gdjze That deepens, onward as she rides, And shrinks not from the fontal blaze : But they — her daughter Arts — must hide Within the cleft, content to see Dim skirts of glory waving wide, And steps of parting Deity. 'Tis theirs to watch Religion break In types from Nature's frown or smile. The legend rise from out the lake, The relic consecrate the isle. XXll. PROLOGUE. 'Tis theirs to adumbrate and suggest ; To point toward founts of buried lore, Leaving, in reverence, unexpressed What Man must know not, yet adore. For where her court true Wisdom keeps, 'Mid loftier handmaids, one there stands Dark as the midnight's starry deeps, A Slave, gem-crowned, from ISiubia's sands. O thou whose light is in thy heart Love-taught Submission ! without thee Science may soar awhile; but Art Drifts barren o'er a shoreless sea. MAY CAROLS, PART I. MAY CAEOLS PAET I. Who feels not, wlieii the Spring once more, Stepping o'er Winter's grave forlorn With winged feet, retreads the shore Of widowed Earth, his bosom burn ? As ordered flower succeeds to flower, . And May the ladder of her sweets Ascends, advancing hour by hour From scale to scale, what heart but beats 1 Some Presence veiled, in fields and groves. That mingles rapture vf ith remorse ; — Some buried joy beside us moves, And thrills the soul with such discourse 26 MAY CxYROLS. As they, perchance, that wondering pair Who to Emmaus bent their way, Hearing, heard not. Like them our prayer We make : — " The night is near us . . Stay !" With Paschal chants the churches ring; Their echoes strike along the tombs; The birds their Hallelujahs sing; Each flower with fioral incense fumes. Our long-lost Eden seems restored; As on we move with tearful eyes We feel through all the illumined sward Some upward-working Paradise. MAY CAROLS. 27 n. FPON.Tliy face, O God, Thy world Looks ever up in love and awe; Thy stars, in circles onward hurled, Still weave the sacred chain of law. In alternating antiphons Stream sings to stream and sea to sea; And moons that set and sinking suns Obeisance make, 'O God, to Thee. The swallow, winter's rage o'erblown. Again, on warm May breezes borne, Revisiteth her haunts well-known; The lark is faithful to the morn. The whirlwind, missioned with its wings To drown the fleet and fell the tower. Obeys thee as the bird that sings Her love-chant in a fleeting shower. Amid an ordered universe Man's spirit only dares rebel : — With light, O God, its darkness pierce ! With love its raging chaos quell ! 28 MAY CAROLS. III. All but unutterable ]^ame ! Adorable, yet awful, sound ! Thee can the sinful nations frame Save with their foreheads to the ground? Soul-searching and all-cleansing Fire 1 To see Thy countenance w^ere to die: Yet how beyond the bound retire Of Thy serene immensity ? Thou mov'st beside us, if the spot We change — r a noteless, wandering tribe : The orbits of our life and thought In Thee their little arcs describe. In the dead calm, at cool of day, We hear Thy voice, and turn, and flee : — Thy love outstrips us on our way : From Thee, O God, we fly — to Thee. MAY CAROLS. 29 SANCTxi MARIA. IV. Mary! To thee the humble cry. What seek they? Gifts to Pride unknown. They seek thy help — to pass thee by:-^ They murmur, " Show us but thy Son." The childlike heart shall enter in; The virgin soul its God shall see: — Motherland maiden pure from sin, Be thou the guide : the Way is He. The mystery high of God made Man Through thee to man is easier made: Pronounce the consonant who can Without the softer vowel's aid! 30 MAY CAKOLS. DEI GENITRIX. V. I SEE Him: on tliy lap He lies 'Mid that Judsean stable's gloom: O sweet, O awful Sacrifice ! He smiles in sleep, yet knows His doom. Thou gav'st Him life! But was not this That life which knows no parting breath? Unmeasured life? unwaning bliss? Dread Priestess, lo ! thou gav'st Him death I Beneath the tree thy mother stood: Beneath the cross thou too shalt stand: — O Tree of Life ! O bleeding Eood ! Thy shadow stretches far its hand. That God who made the sun and moon In swaddling bands lies dumb and bound ! — Love's Captive! darker prison soon Awaits Thee in the garden ground. He wakens. Paradise looks forth Beyond the portals of the grave. Life, life thou gavest I life to Earth, Not Him. Thine Infant dies to save. MAYCAROLS. 81 VIRGO VIRGINUM. VT. "When from their lurking place tlie Voice Of God dragged forth that fallen pair, Still seemed the garden to rejoice; The sinless Eden still was fair. They, they alone, whose light of grace But late made Paradise look dim, Stood now, a blot upon its face. Before their God; nor gazed on Him. They glanced not up ; or they had seen In that severe, death-dooming Eye Unutterable depths serene Of sadly-piercing sympathy. Not them alone that Eye beheld, But, by their side, that other Twain, In whom the race whose doom was knelled Once more should rise ; once more should reign. 33 M A Y C A B O L S . It saw that Infant crowned with blood ; — And her from whose predestined breast That Infant ruled the worlds. She stood, Her foot upon the serpent's crest! Yoice of primeval prophecy ! She who makes glad whatever heart Adores her Son and Saviour, she In thee, that hour, possessed a joart I MAY CAROLS, 33 VII. AscENDiNa from the convent-grates, The children mount the woodland vale. 'Tis May -Day Eve; and Hesper waits To light them, while the western gale Blows softly on their bannered line : And, lo ! down all the mountain stairs The shepherd children come to join The convent children at their prayers. They meet before Our Lady's fane : On yonder central rock it stands, Uplifting, ne'er invoked in vain, That cross which blesses all the lands. Before the porch the flowers are flung ; The lamp hangs glittering 'neath the Eood ; The "Maris Stella" hymn is sung ; Their chant each morn to be renewed. Ah ! if a secular muse might dare. Far off, the children's song to catch; To echo back, or burthen bear! — As fitly might she hope to match 3 34 MAYCAROLS. The linnet's note as theirs, 'tis true : Yet, now and then, that borrowed tone, Like sunbeams flashed on pine or yew. Might shoot a sweetness through her own ! M A Y C A R O L S . 35; ADOLESCENTUL^ AMAVERUISTT TE NIMIS. VIII. " Behold ! the wintry rains are past ; The airs of midnight hurt no more : The young maids love thee. Come at last : Thou lingerest at the garden-door. "Blow over all the garden; blow, Thou'wind that breathest of the south, Through all the alleys winding low, With dewy wing and honeyed mouth. "But wheresoe'er thou wanderest, shape Thy music ever to one Kame : — Thou, too, clear stream, to cave and cape Be sure thou whisper of the same. " By every isle and bower of musTi Thy crystal clasps, as on it curls. We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk ; We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls." The stream obeyed. That Name he bore Far out above the moon-lit tide. The breeze obeyed. He breathed it o'er The unforgetting pines; and died. 36 MAYCAROLS. MATER CHEISTI. IX. Daily beneatli His mother's eye^ Her Lamb matured His lowliness: 'Twas hers the lovely Sacrifice With fillet and with flower to dress. Beside His little cross He knelt : With human-heavenly lips He prayed: His Will within her will she felt; And yet His Will her will obeyed. Gethseman^ ! when day is done Thy flowers with falliug dew are wet : Her tears fell never; for the sun Those tears that brightened never set. The house was silent as that shrine The priest but entered once a year. There shone His emblem. Light Divine ! Thy presence and Thy power were here ! MAYCAROLS. 87 MATER CHRISTI. He willed to lack; He willed to bear; He willed by sufFering to be schooled; He willed the chains of flesh to wear : Yet from her arms the worlds He ruled. As tapers 'mid the noontide glow With merged yet separate radiance burn, With human taste and touch, even sOj The things He knew He willed to learn. He sat beside the lowly door : His homeless eyes appeared to trace In evening skies remembered lore, And shadows of His Father's face. One only knew Him. She alone Who nightly to His cradle crept, And lying like the moonbeam prone, Worshipped her Maker as He slept. 88 M A T C A R O L S . MATER CREATORIS. XI. Bud forth a Saviour, Earth ! fulfil Thy first of functions, ever new ! Balm-dropping heaven, for aye distil Thy grace like manna or like dew ! " To us, this da}^, a Child is bom." Heaven knows not mere historic facts : Celestial mysteries, night and morn, Live on in ever-present Acts. Calvary's dread Victim in the sides On God's great altar rests even now : The Pentecostal glory lies For ever round the Church's brow. From Son and Father, He, the Lord Of Love and Life, proceeds alway: Upon the first creative word Creation, trembling, hangs for aye. Nor less ineffably renewed Than when on earth the tie began, Is that mysterious Motherhood Which re-creates the worlds and man. M A Y C A R O L S , 39 IIATER SALVATOBIS. XII. 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. 40 MAY CAROLS. MATER DOLOEOSA. XIII, She stood: slie sank not. Slowly fell Adown tlie Cross tlie atoning blood. In agony ineffable Slie offered still His own to God. No pang of His lier bosom spared ; She felt in Him its several power. But slie in heart His Priesthood shared: She offered Sacrifice that hour. " Behold thy Son ! " Ah, last bequest ! It breathed His last farewell! The sword Predicted pierced that hour her breast. She stood: she answered not a word. His own in John He gave. She wore Thenceforth the Mother-crown of Earth. O Eve ! thy sentence too she bore ; liike thee in sorrow she brought forth. MAY CAROLS. 41 MATER DOLOROSA. XIV. From her He passed: yet still with her The endless thought of Him found rest ; A sad but sacred branch of myrrh For ever folded in her breast. A Boreal winter void of light — So seemed her widowed days forlorn: She slept; but in her breast all night Her heart lay waking till the morn. Sad flowers on Calvary that grew ; — Sad fruits that ripened from the Cross ; — These were the only joys she knew: Yet all but these she counted loss. Love strong as Death! She lived through thee That mystic life whose every breath From Life's low harpstring amorously Draws out the sweetened name of Death. Love stronger far than Death or Life ! Thy martyrdom was o'er at last. Her eyelids drooped; and without strife To Him she loved her spirit passed. 42 . MAYCABOLS. MATER ADMIRABILIS. XV. O Mothek-Maid! to none save thee Belongs in full a Parent's name; So fruitful thy Virginity, Thy Motherhood so pure from blame! All other parents, what are they? Thy types. In them thou stoocVst 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 Chi^st ! Her substance fed Thy growth :— She shaped Thee in her virgin heart. Thy Mother and Thy Father both ! MAYCAROLS. 43 MATER AilABILIS. XVI. Mother of Love 1 Thy love to Him Cherub and seraph can but guess : — A mother sees its image dim In her own breathless tenderness. That infant touch none else could feel Vibrates like light through all her sense : Far off she hears his cry : her zeal With lions fights in his defence. Unmarked his youth goes by: his hair Still smooths she down, still strokes apart: The first w^hite thread that meets her there Glides, like a dagger, through her heart. Men praise him: on her matron cheek There dawns once more a maiden red. Of war, of battle-fields they speak: She sees once more his father dead. In sickness — half in sleep — she hears His foot, ere yet that foot is nigh : Wakes with a smile ; and scarcely fears, If he but clasp her hand, to die. 44^ MAYCAKOLS. MATER FILII. XVII. Others, tlie hours of youth gone by, A mother's hearth and home forsake; And, with the need, the filial tie Eelaxes, though it does not break. But Thou wert born to be a Son. God's Son in heaven, Thy will was this, To pass the chain of Sonship on. And bind in one whatever is. Thou cam'st the Son of Man to be. That so Thy brethren too might bear Adoptive Sonship, and with Thee Thy Sire's eternal kingdom share. Transcendently the Son Thou art: In this mysterious bond entwine, As in a single, two-celled heart. Thy natures, human and divine. MAYCAPvOLS. 45 MATER DIVINE GRATIS. xvm. " They have no wine." The tender guest Was grieved their feast should lack for aught. He seemed to slight her mute request: Kot less the grace she wished He wrought. O great in Love ! O full of Grace ! That winds in thee, a river broad, From Christ, with heaven-reflecting face, Gladdening the City of thy God : — Be this thy gift ; that man henceforth No more should creep through life content (Draining the springs impure of earth) With life's material element. Let sacraments to sense succeed; Let nought be winning, nought be good Which fails of Him to speak, and bleed Once more with His all-cleansing blood ! 46 MAYCAROLl MATER DIVINE GRATIS. XIX. The gifts a mother showers each day Upon her softly-clamorous brood: The gifts they value but for play, — The graver gifts of clothes and food, — Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his laboring brows, The guerdon of his manly toil ?. From Him the Grace : through her it stands Adjusted, meted, and applied; And ever, passing through her hands, Enriched it seems, and beautified. Love's mirror doubles Love's caress: Love's echo to Love's voice is true: — Their Sire the children love not less Because they clasp a Mother too. MAY CAROLS. 47 XX. When April's sudden sunset cold Througli boughs lialf-clothed with watery sheen Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold, And bathes a world half gold half green, Then shakes the illuminated air "With din of birds; the vales far down Grow phosphorescent here and there; Forth fiash the turrets of the town; Along the sky thin vapors scud ; Bright zephyrs curl the choral main; The wild ebullience of the blood Eings joy-bells in the heart and brain : Yet in that music discords mix ; The unbalanced lights like meteors play; And, tired of splendors that perplex, The dazzled spirit sighs for May. 48 MAYCAROLS. XXI. As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead — So stand the nations thine no more. From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home : They search; yet know not what they lack. Years pass: Self- Will and Passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and ''how unlike" Is all the tender neighbors say. And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother^s image o'er them flits: Like hers their eyes a moment beam; The voice grows soft; the brow unknits. Such, Mary, are the realms once thine, That know no more thy golden reign. Hold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! O make thine orphans thine again ! MAYCAROLS. 49 MARI^ CLIEKS. XXII. A LITTLE longer on the earth That aged creature's eyes repose (Though half their light and all their mirth Are gone) ; and then for ever close. She thinks that something done long since 111 pleases God: — or wh}' should He So long delay to take her hence Who waits His will so lovingly ? Whene'er she hears the church-bells toll She lifts her head, though not her eyes, With wrinkled hands, but youthful soul, Counting her lip-worn rosaries. And many times the weight of years Falls from her in her waking dreams: A child her mother's voice she hears : To tend her father's steps she seems. 4 00 MAY CAROLS. Once more she hears the whispermg rains On flowers and paths her childhood trod ; And of things jDresent nought remains Save the abiding sense of God. Mary ! make smooth her downward way ! Not dearer to the young thou art Than her. Make glad her latest May; And hold her, dying, on thy heart. MAYCAROLS. 51 TEST. VISITATIONIS. XXIII. The hilly region crossed "with haste, Its last dark ridge discerned no more, Bright as the bow that spans a waste She stood beside her Cousin's door ; And spake:— that greeting came from God! Filled with the Spirit from on high Sublime the aged Mother stood, And cried aloud in j)rophecy, — " Soon as thy voice had touched mine ears The child in childless age conceived Leaped up for joy ! Throughout all years Blessed the woman who believed." Type of Electing Love! 'tis thine To speak God's greeting from the skies I Thy voice we hear : thy Babe divine At once, like John, we recognize. Within our hearts the second birth Exults, though blind as yet and dumb. The child of Grace his hands puts forth And prophesies of things to come. 5^ MAYCAROLS. XXIV. Not yet, not yetl^tlie Season sings Not of fruition yet, but liope ; Still liolds aloft, like balanced wings, Her scales, and lets not either drop. The white ash, last year's skeleton. Still glares, uncheered by leaf or shoot, 'Gainst azure heavens, and joy hath none In that fresh violet at her foot. Yet Nature's virginal suspense Is not forgetfulness nor sloth: Where'er we wander, soul and sense Discern a blindly working growth. Her throne once more the daisy takes, That white star of our dusky earth ; And the sky-cloistered lark down-shakes Her passion of seraphic mirth. 'Twixt barren hills and clear cold skies She weaves, ascending high and higher, Songs florid as those traceries Which took, of old, their name from fire. MAY CAROLS. 53 Sing! thou that neecl'st no ardent clime To sun the sweetness from thy breast; And teach us those delights sublime Wherein ascetic spirits rest. 54 MAYCAKOLs FEST. NATiyiTATIS B. V. M. XXV. When thou wert born the murmuring world Eollecl on, nor dreamed of things to be, From joy to sorrow madly whirled ; — Despair disguised in revehy. A princess thou of David's line ; The mother of the Prince of Peace ; That hour no royal pomps were thine: The earth alone her boon increase Before thee poured. September rolled Down all the vine-clad Syrian slopes Her breadths of purple and of gold; And birds sang loud from olive tops. Perhaps old foes, they knew not why, Eelented. From a fount long sealed Tears rose, perhaps, to Pity's eye : Love-harvests crowned the barren field. MAYCAROLS. 55 The respirations of the year, At least, grew soft. O'er valleys wide Pine-roughened crags again shone clear; And the great Temple, far descried, To watchers, watching long in vain. To patriots grey, in bondage nursed, Flashed back their hope — "The Second Fane In glory shall surpass the First !" 56 MAY CABOLS. XXVI. The moon, ascending o'er a mass Of tangled yew and sable pine, "What sees she in yon watery glass? A tearful countenance divine. Far down, the winding hills between, A sea of vapor bends for miles, Unmoving. Here and there, dim-seen, The knolls above it rise like isles. The tall rock glimmers, spectre-white; The cedar in its sleep is stirred; At times the bat divides the night; At times the far-off liogd is heard. Above, that shining blue ! — below. That shining mist ! Oh, not more pure Midwinter's landscape, robed in snow, And fringed with frosty garniture. The fragrance of the advancing year — That, that assures us it is May. Ah, tell me! in the heavenlier sphere Must all of earth have passed away? MAY CAROLS. 57 XXVII. A DREAM came to me wliile tlie niglit Thinned off before the breath of morn, Which filled my soul with such delight As hers who clasps a babe new-born. I saw — in countenp.nce like a child — (Three years methought were hers, no more) That maid and mother undefiled The Saviour of the world who bore. A nun-like veil was o'er her thrown ; Her locks by fillet-bands made fast. Swiftly she climbed the steps of stone ; — Into the Temple swiftly passed. Not once she paused her breath to take; Kot once cast back a homeward look: — - As longs the hart his thirst to slake, When noontide rages, in the brook, So longed that child to live for God ; So pined, from earth's enthralments free, To bathe her wholly in the flood Of God's abysmal purity! 58 MAY CAROLS. Anna and Joacliim from far Their eyes on that white vision raised : And when, like caverned foam or star Cloud-hid, she vanished, still they gazed. MAY CAROLS* 59 FEST. PURIFICATIONIS. XXVIII. Twelve years had passed, and, still a child, In brightness of the unblemished face. Once more she scaled those steps, and smiled On Him who slept in her embrace. As in she passed there fell a calm Around: each bosom slowly rose Like the long branches of the palm When under them the south wind blows. The scribe forgot his wordy lore ; The chanted psalm was heard far off; Hushed was the clash of golden ore ; And hushed the Sadducean scoff. Type of the Christian Church ! 'twas thine To offer, first, to God that hour. Thy Son — the Sacrifice Divine, The Church's everlasting dower ! GO M A Y C A 11 O L S . Great Priestess ! round that aureoled brow Wliicli cloud or shadow ne'er liad crossed, Began there not that hour to grow A milder dawn of Pentecost? MAY CABOLS. 61 FEST. EFIPHANI^. XXIX. A VEIL is on the face of Truth: She prophesies behind a cloud; She ministers, in robes of ruth, ISTocturnal rites, and disallowed. Eleusis hints, but dares not speak; The Orphic minstrelsies are dumb ; Lost are the Sibyl's books, and weak Earth's olden faith in Him to come. But ah, but ah, that Orient Star! On straw-roofed shed and large-eyed kiue It flashes, guiding from afar The Magians to the Child Divine. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh they bring — Love, Worship, Life severe and hard : Well pleased the symbol gifts the King Accepts; and Truth is their reward. Rejoice, O Sion, for thy night Is past : the Lord, thy Light, is born. The Gentiles shall behold thy light; The kings walk forward in thy morn. 63 M A Y C A R O L S . The sunless day is sweeter yet Than when the golden sun-showers danced On bower new-glazed or rivulet; And Spring her banners first advanced. By wind unshaken hang in dream The wind-flowers o'er their dark green lair; And those thin poppy cups that seem Not bodied forms, but woven of air. Nor bird is heard ; nor insect flits. A tear-drop glittering on her cheek, Composed but shadowed, Nature sits — Yon primrose not more staid and meek. The light of pensive hope unquenched On those pathetic brows and eyes, She sits, by silver dew-showers drenched. Through which the chill spring-odors rise. Was e'er on human countenance shed So sweet a sadness? Once: no more. Then when his charge the Patriarch led Dream-warned to Egypt's distant shore. MAYCAROLS. C3 Down on lier Infant Mary gazed ; Her face tlie angels marked with awe; Yet 'neatli its dimness, undisplaced, Looked forth that smile the Magians saw. 64 M A Y C A n O L s . LEGEND A. XXXI. As, flying Herod, southward went That Child and Mother, unamazed, Into Egyptian banishment, The weeders left their work, and gazed. The bright One spake to them and said, "When Herod's messengers demand. Passed not the Infant, Herod's dread, — Passed not the Infant through your land? **Then shall ye answer make, and say, Behold, since first the corn was green No little Infant passed this way; No little Infant we have seen." Earth heard ; nor missed the Maid's intent — As on the Flower of Eden jpassed With Eden swiftness up she sent A sun-browned harvest ripening fast. By simplest words and sinless wheat The messengers rode back beguiled; And by that truthfulest deceit Which saved the little new-born Child ! MAY CAROLS PART II. \ II O L 9 . 67 PAET II. CONSERYABAT IN CORDE. As every change of April sky Is imaged in a placid brook. Her meditative memory Mirrored Ills every deed and look. As suns through summer ether rolled Mature each grov/th the spring has wrought, So Love's stroi)g day-star turned to gold Her harvests of quiescent thought. Iler soul was as a vase, and shone Translucent to an inner ray ; Iler 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. G8 MAY CAROLS. ASCENSIO DOMIOT. II. Eejoice, O Earth, thy crown is won! Rejoice, rejoice, ye heavenly host! And thou, the Mother of the Son, Rejoice the first: rejoice the most I Who caj)tivc led «aptivity — From Hades' void circumference Who led the Patriarch Band on high, There rules, and sends us graces thence. Rejoice, glad Earth, o'er winter's grave With altars wa^eathed and clarions blown ; And thou, the Race Redeemed, outbrave The rites of nature with thine own 1 Rejoice, O Mary! thou that long Didst lean thy breast upon the sword — Sad nightingale, the Spirit's song That sang'st all night! He reigns, restored! Rejoice ! He goes, the Paraclete To send ! Rejoice ! He reigns on high ! The sword lies broken at thy feet — His triumph is thy victory ! MAYCABOLS. 69 ASCENSIO DOMINI. III. I TAKE this reed— I know the hand That wields it must ere long be dust — And write, upon the fleeting sand Each wind can shake, the words, "I trust." And if that sand one day was stone And stood in courses near the sky, For towers b^ earthquake overthrown. Or mouldering piecemeal, what care I ? Things earthly perish : life to death And death to life in turn succeeds. The spirit never perisheth : The chrysalis its Psyche breeds. True life alone is that which soars To Him who triumphed o'er the grave; With Him, on life's eternal shores, I trust one day a part to have. All, hark! above the springing corn That chime ; in every breeze it swells ! Ye bells that wake the Ascension morn, Ye give us back our Paschal bells ! 70 MAY CAROLS. ELIAS. IV. O THOU that rodest up the skies, Thy task fulfilled, on steeds of fire, — That somewhere, sealed from mortal eyes, Some ah' immortal dost respire ! Thou that in heavenly beams enshrined. In quiet lulled of soul and flesh, With one great thought of Cro jL thy mind Dost everlastingly refresh ! Where art thou ? age succeeds to age ; Thou dost not hear their fret and jar: With thy celestial hermitage Successive winters wage not war. Still as a corse with field-fiowers strewn Thou liest ; on God thine eyes are bent : And the fire-breathing stars alone Look in vipon thy cloudy tent. Behold, there is a debt to pay ! Like Enoch, hid thou art on high : But both shall back return one day, To gaze once more on earth, and die. MAYCAROLS, 71 Stronger and steadier every hour The pulses of the season's glee, As toward her zenit'h climbs that Power Which rules the purple revelry. ^ Trees, that from winter's grey eclipse Of late but pushed their topmost plume, Or felt with green-touched finger-tips For spring, their perfect robes assume. Like one that reads, not one that spells, The unvarying rivulet onward runs: And bird to bird, from leafier cells, Sends forth more leisurely response. Through the gorse covert bounds the deer : — The gorse, wliose latest splendors won Make all the fulgent wolds appear Bright as the pastures of the sun. A balmier zephyr curls the wave ; More purple flames o'er ocean dance ; And the whito breaker by the cave Falls with more cadenced resonance; 72 MAYCAROLS. While vague no more the mountain^ stand With quivering line or hazy hue; But drawn with liner, firmer hand, And settling into deeper blue. MAYCAROLS. 73 SPECULUM JUSTITI^. VI. Not in Himself the Eternal Word Lay liid upon creation's day: His Loveliness abroad He poured On all tlie worlds; and pours for aye. Not in Himself the Incarnate Son, In whom Man's race is born again, His glory hides. The victory won. He rose to send His " Gifts on Men." In sacrament — His dread behests; In Providence ; in granted prayer ; Before the time He manifests His glory, far as man may bear. He shines not from a vault of gloom; The horizon vast His splendor paints: Both heaven and earth His beams illume; His light is glorious in His saints. >* He shines upon His Church — that Moon Who, in the watches of the night, Transmits to man the entrusted boon; A sister orb of sacred light. 74 M A Y C A 11 O L S . And thou, pure mirror of His grace ! — As sun reflected in a sea — So, Mary, feeblest eyes tlie face Of Him thou lovcst discern in thee. M A Y C A II O L S . 75 MUNERA. VII. Not for herself does Mary hold Among the saints that queenly throne, Her seat predestined from of old; But for the brethren of her Son. Pure thoughts that make to God their quest, With her find footing o'er the clouds ; Like those sea-crossing birds that rest A moment on the sighing shrouds. In her our hearts* no longer nursed On dust, for spiritual beauty yearn; From her our instincts, as at first, An upward gravitation learn. Her distance makes her not remote: For in true love's supernal sphere 1^0 more round self the afi'ections float — More near to God, to man more near. In her, the weary warfare past, The port attained, the exile o'er, We see the Church's barque at last Close-anchored on the eternal shore I 76 M A Y C A II O L S . 'PREDESTESTATA. VIII. Eternal Beauty, ere the spheres Had rolled from out tlie gulfs of night, Sparkled, through all the unnumbered years,' Before the Eternal Father's sight. Like objects seen by man in dream. Or landscape glassed on morning mist, Before His eyes it hung — a gleam Flashed from the eternal Thought of Christ. It stood the Archetype sublime Of that fair world of finite things Which, in the bands of Sj^ace and Time, Creation's glittering verge enrings. Star-like within the depths serene Of that still vision, Mary, thou With Him, thy Son, of God wert seen Millenniums ere the lucid brow MAYCAKOLS. 77 Of Eve o'er Eden founts had bent, — Millenniums ere that second Pair With dust the hopes of man had blent, And stained the brightness once so fair. Elect of Creatures ! Man in thee Beholds that primal Beauty yet, — Sees all that Man was formed to be, — Sees all that Man can ne'er forget I 78 31 A Y C A E O L S . IX. Three worlds there are: — the first of Sense- That sensuous earth which round us lies; The next of Faith's Intelligence ; The third of Glory, in the skies. The first is palpable, but bas€; The second heavenly, but obscure ; The third is star-like in the face — But ah ! remote that world as pure ! Yet, glancing through our misty clime, Some sparkles from that loftier sphere Make way to earth : — then most what time The annual spring-flowers re-appear. Amid the coarser needs of earth All shapes of brightness, what are they But wanderers, exiled from their birth, Or pledges of a happier day ? Yea, what is Beauty, judged aright. But some surpassing, transient gleam; Some smile from heaven, in waves of light, Rippling o'er life's distempered dream ? M A Y C A 11 O L S . 79 Or broken memories of that bliss Wliicli rusliecl through first-born Nature's blood When He v/ho ever was, and is, Looked down, and saw that all was good? 80 MAY CAROLS. Alas ! not only loveliest eyes, And brows with lordliest lustre briglit, But Nature's self— lier woods and skies — The credulous heart can cheat or blight. And why ? Because the sin of man Twixt Fair and Good has made divorce ; And stained, since Evil first began, That stream so heavenly at its source. O perishable vales and groves! Your master was not made for you; Ye are but creatures: human loves Are to the great Creator due. And yet, through Nature's symbols dim, There are with keener sight that i)iercG The outward husk, and reach to Him Whose garment is the universe. For this to earth the Saviour came In flesh : in part for this He died ; That man might have, in soul and frame, No faculty unsanctified. MAYCAROLS. Bl That Fancy's self— so prompt to lead Through paths disastrous or defiled — Upon the Tree of Life might feed ; And Sense with Soul be reconciled. 33 MAYCAROLS, IDOLATMA. XI. The fancy of an ^ gone by, When Fancy's self to eartli declined, Still thirsting for Divinity, Yet still, through sense, to Godhead blind. Poor mimic of that Truth of old. The patriarchs' hope— a faith revealed— Compressed its God in mortal mould. The prisoner of Creation's field. Nature and Nature's Lord were one! Then countless gods from cloud and stream Glanced forth; from sea, and moon, and sim: So ran the pantheistic dream. And thus the All-Holy, thus the All-True, The One Supreme, the Good, the Just, Like mist was scattered, lost like dew, And vanished in the wayside dust. MAY CAROLS. 83 Mary ! through thee the idols fell : When He the nations longed for* came — True God yet Man — with man to dwell, The phantoms hid their heads for shame. His place or thine removed, ere long The bards would push the sects aside; And lifted by the might of song Olympus stand re-edified. * " The Desire of the Nations." 84 M A Y C A R O L S . TOTA PULCHRA. A EHOKEK gleam ou wave and flower — A music that in utterance dies — O Poets, and O Men ! what more Is all that Beauty which ye prize ? And ah ! how oft Corruption works Through that brief Beauty's force or wile ! How oft a gloom eternal lurks Beneath an evanescent smile ! But thou, serene and smiling light Of every grace redeemed from Sense, In thee all harmonies unite That charm a pure Intelligence. Whatever teaches mind or heart To God by loveliest types to mount, Mary, is thine. Of each true Art The parent art thou, and the fount. MAY CAROLS. i Tliose pictures, fair as moon or star, The ages dear to Faith brought forth. Formed but the illumined calendar Of her, that Church which knows thy worth. l^ot less doth Nature teach through thee That mystery hid in hues and lines: Who loves thee not hath lost the key To all her sanctuaries and shrines. 86 MAY CAROLS, STELLA MATUTINA. XIII. Shine out, O Star, and sing the praise Of that unrisen Sun whose glow Thus feeds thee with thine earlier rays — - The secret of thy song we know. Thou sing'st that Sun of Righteousness, Sole light of this benighted globe, Whose beams, reflected, dressed and dress His Mother in her shining robe. Pale Lily, pearled around with dew, Lift high that heaven-illumined vase, And sing the glories ever new Of her, God's chalice, " full of grace." Cerulean Ocean, fringed with white, That wear'st her colors evermore, In all thy pureness, all thy might, Eesound her name from shore to shore. MAYCAROLS. 87 That fringe of foam, when drops the sun To-night, a sanguine stain shall wear: — Thus Mary's heart had strength, alone, The passion of her Lord to share. 88 MAYCAROLS, "JANUA CCELi;' XIV. The night tlirougli yonder cloudy cleft, "With many a lingering last regard, Withdraws — but slowly — and hath left Her inantle on the dewy sward. The lawns with silver dews are strewn ; The winds lie hushed in cave and tree ; Nor stirs a flower, save one alone That bends beneath the earliest bee. Peace over all the garden broods ; Pathetic sweets the thickets throng; Like breath the vapor o'er the woods Ascends — dim woods without a song; Or hangs, a shining, fleece-like mass O'er half yon lake that winds afar Among the forests, still as glass. The mirror of that Morning Star MAYCAROLS. 89 WMcIi, halfway wandering from the sky, Amid the 'rose of morn delays And (large and less alternately) Bends down a lustrous, tearful gaze. Mother and home of spirits blest ! Bright gate of Heaven and golden bower! Thy best of blessings, love and rest, Depart not till on earth thou shower I 90 MAYCAROLS. XV. If sense of Man's unwortliiness Witli iN'ature's blameless looks at strife, Should wake with wakening May, and j>res3 New-born contentment out of life : If thoughts of sable breed and blind Should stamp upon the springing flower, Or blacker memories haunt the mind As ravens haunt the ruined tower: — O then how sweet in heart to breathe Those pure Judean gales once more; From Bethlehem's crib to Kazareth In heart to tread that Syrian shore ! To watch that star-like Infant bring To one of soul as clear and white May-lilies, fresh from Siloa's spring, Or Passion-flower with May-dews bright I To follow, earlier yet, the feet Of her the "hilly land" who trod With true love's haste, intent to greet That aged saint beloved of God. MAYCAROLS. 91 Before lier, like a stream let loose, The long vale's flowerage, winding, ran : Nature resumed her Eden use; And Earth was reconciled with Man. 92 MAY CAROLS. CAUSA ISrOSTR^ L^TITI^. XVI. Whate'er is floral on the earth To thee, O Flower, of right belongs ; Whatever is musical in mirth, Whatever is jubilant in songs. Childhood and springtide never cease For him thy freshness keeps from stain: Dew-drenched for him, like Gideon's fleece, The dusty paths of life remain. Spirit of Brightness and qf Bliss ! Thou threaten'st none ! A sinless lure, Thy fragrance and thy gladsomeness Draw on to Christ; to Christ secure. Hope, Hope is Strength ! That joy of thine To us is Glory's earliest ray ! Through Faith's dim air, O star benign. Look down, and light our onward way ! M A Y C A R O L S . 93 STELLA MARIS. XVII. I LEFT at morn that blissful shore O'er v/hich the fruit-bloom fluttered free; And sailed the wildering waters o'er, Till sunset streaked with blood the sea. My sleep the hoarse sea-thunders broke, And sudden chill. Their feet foam-hid, Huge cliffs leaned out, through vapor-smoke, Like tower, and tomb, and pyramid. In the black shadow, ghostly white The breaker raced o'er foaming shoals : Froni caverns of eternal night Came wailings, as of suffering souls. Sudden, through clearing mists, the star Of ocean o'er the billow rose : Down dropped the elemental war; Tormented chaos found repose. 94 MAYCAROLS. Star of the ocean ! dear art tliou, All ! not to eartli and lieaven alone : The suffering Church, when shines thy brow Upon her x^enance, stays her moan. The Holy Souls draw in their breath; The sea of anguish rests in peace ; And, from beyond the gates of death, Up swell the anthems of release. MAY CABOLS. 95 XVIII. Blossom for ever, blossoming Kocl ! Thou clid'st not blossom once to die : That Life which, issuing forth from God, Thy life enkindled, runs not dry. Without a root in sin-stained earth, 'Twas thine to bud Salvation's flower. No single soul the Church brings forth But blooms from thee and is thy dower. Rejoice, O Eve ! thy promise waned ; Transgression nipt thy flower with frost : But, lo ! a mother man hath gained Holier than she in Eden lost. 96 MAY CAROLS, UNICA. XIX. While all the breathless woods aloof Lie hush'd in noontide's deep repose, That dove, sun-warmed on yonder roof. With what a grave content she coos ! One note for her! Deep streams run smooth: The ecstatic song of transience tells. O what a depth of loving truth In thy divine contentment dwells ! All day, with down-dropt lids, I sat In trance; the present scene foregone. When Hespcr rose, on Ararat, Methought, not English hills, he shone. Back to the ark, the waters o'er, The i)rimal dove pursued her flight: A branch of that blest tree she bore Which feeds the Church with holy light. MAYCAROLS. 97 I lieard lier rustling through the air "With sliding plume — no sound beside Save the sea-sobbings everywhere, And sighs of that subsiding tide. 08 MAY CAROLS. MAGNIFICAT. XX. She took the timbrel, as the tide Rushed, reflueut, up the Red Sea shore: " The Lord hath triumphed," she cried : Her song rang out above the roar Of lustral waves that, wall to wall, Fell back upon the host abhorred : Above the gloomy watery pall. As eagles soar, her anthem soared. Miriam, rejoice ! a mightier far Than thou, one day shall sing with thee ! Who rises, brightening like a star Above yon bright baptismal sea ? That harp which David touched who rears Heaven-high above those waters wide? The Prophet-Queen ! Througliout all years She sings the Triumph of the Bride ! M A Y C A R O L S . 99 MYSTICA. XXI. As- pebbles flung for sport, that leap Along the superficial tide, But enter not those chambers deep Wherein the beds of pearl abide ; Suth those light minds that, grazing, spurn The surface text of Sacred Lore, Yet ne'er its deeper sense discern, Its halls of mystery ne'er explore. Ah ! not for such the unvalued gems ; The priceless- pearls of Truth they miss : Not theirs the starry diadems That light God's temple in the abyss ! Ah ! not for such to gaze on her That moves through all that empire pale; At every shrine doth minister, Yet never drops her vestal veil. t.orc 100 MAY CAROLS. , "The letter kills." Make pure thy Will; So shalt thou pierce the Text's disguise: Till then, revere the veil that still Hides truth from truth-affronting eyes. MAY CAROLS. 101 EXPECTATIO. XXII. A SWEET exliaustion seems to hold In spells of calm the shrouded eve : The gorse itself a beamless gold Puts forth: — yet nothing seems to grieve. The dewy chaplets hang on air; The willowy fields are silver-grey ; Sad odors wander here and there ; — And yet we feel that it is May. Eelaxed, and with a broken flow, From dripping bowers low carols swell In mellower, glassier tones, as though They mounted through a bubbling well. The crimson orchis scarce sustains Upon its drenched and drooping spire The burden of the warm soft rains ; The purple hills grow nigh and nigher. 102 MAY CAROLS. Nature, suspending lovely toils, On expectations lovelier broods, Listening, with lifted hand, while coils The flooded rivulet through the woods. She sees, drawn out in vision clear, A w^orld with summer radiance drest, And all the glories of that year Which sleeps within her virgin breast. MAY CAROLS. 103 XXIII. Still on the gracious work proceeds; — The good, great tidings preached anew Yearly to green enfranchised meads, And fire-topped woodlands flushed with dew Yon cavern's mouth we scarce can see ; Yon rock in gathering bloom lies meshed ; And all the wood-anatomy In thickening leaves is over-fleshed. That hermit oak which frowned so long UX3on the spring with barren spleen, Yields to the holy Siren's song. And bends above her goblet green. Young maples, late with gold embossed, — Lucidities of sun-pierced limes, No more surprise us — merged and lost Like prelude notes in deepening chimes. Disordered beauties and detached Demand no more a separate place : The abrupt, the startling, the unmatched, Submit to graduated grace; 104 MAY CAROLS. Wliile ujDward from the ocean's marge The year ascends with statelier tread To where the sun his golden targe Finds, setting, on yon mountain's head. MAY CAROLS. 105 TURRIIS EBURKEA. XXIV. This scheme of worlds, wliicli vast we call, Is only vast compared with man: Compared with God^ the One yet All, Its greatness dwindles to a span. A Lily with its isles of buds Asleep on some unmeasured sea: — O God, the starry multitudes. What are they more than this to Thee? Yet girt by Nature's petty pale Each tenant holds the place assigned To each in Being's awful scale : — The last of creatures leaves behind The abyss of nothingness : the first Into the abyss of Godhead peers; Waiting that vision which shall burst In glory on the eternal years. 106 MAY CAROLS. Tower of our Hope ! through thee v/c climb Finite creation's topmost stair; Through tliee froiii Sion's height sublime Towards God we gaze through i)urer air. Infinite distance still divides Created from Creative Power ; But all which intercepts and hides Lies dwarfed by that surpassing Tower! MAY CAROLS. 107 XXV. Who doubts that thou art finite ? Who Is ignorant that from Goclhead'.s height To what is loftiest here below The interval is infinite? O Mary ! with that smile thrice-blest Upon their petulance look down ; — Their dull negation, cold protest — Thy smile will melt away their frown ! Show them thy S©n ! That hour their heart Will beat and burn with love like thine; Grow large : and learn from thee that art Which communes best with things divine. Tlie man who grasps not what is best In creaturely existence, he Is narrowest in the brain ; and least Can grasp the thought of Deity. 108 MAY CAROLS. XXVI. THiEY seek not ! or amiss they seek ; — The cold slight heart and captious brain: — To Love alone those instincts speak Whose challenge never yet was vain. True Gate of Heaven! As light through glass, So He who never left the sky To this low earth was pleased to pass Through thine unstained Virginity. Summed up in thee our hearts behold The glory of created things : — From His, thy Son's, corporeal mould Looks forth the eternal King of Kings ! MAY CAROLS. 109 xxvir. A SUDDEN sun-burst in the woods, But late sad "Winter's palace dim! O'er quickening boughs and bursting buds Pacific glories shoot and swim. As when some heart, grief-darkened long, Conclusive joy by force invades — So swift the new-born splendors throng; Such lustre swallows up the shades. The sun we see not : but his fires From stem to stem obliquely smite, Till all the forest aisle respires The golden-tongued and myriad light. The caverns blacken as their brows "With floral fire are fringed; but all Yon sombre vault of meeting boughs Turns to a golden fleece its pall. As o'er it breeze-like music rolls. O Spring, thy limit-line is crossed I O Earth, some orb of singing Souls Brings down to thee thy Pentecost I 110 MAY CAROLS. DOMIOTCA PENTE0OSTE9. XXYIII^ Clear as those silver trumps of old That woke Jiiclca's jubilee; Strong as the breeze of morning, rolled O'er answering woodlands from the sea, That matutinal anthem vast Which winds, like sunrise, round the globe, Following the sunrise, far and fast, And tramx^ling on his fiery robe. Once more the Pentecostal torch Lights on the courses of the year : The "upper chamber" of the Church Is thrilled once more with joy and fear. "Who lifts her brow from out the dust ? Who fixes on a world restored * A gaze like Eve's, but more august ? Who bends it heaven-ward on her Lord ? MAY CAROLS. Ill It is tlie Birthday of tlie Bride. The new begins ; the ancient ends : From all the gates of Heaven flung wide The promised Paraclete descends. He who o'ershadowed Mar^ once O'ershades Humanity to-day ; And bids her fruitful prove in sons Co-heritors with Christ for aye. 112 MAY CAKOLS. DOMINICA PENTECOSTES. XXIX. The Form decreed of tree and flower, The shape susceptible of life, Without the infused vivific Power, Were but a slumber or a strife. He whom the plastic hand of God Himself created out of earth Remained a statue and a clod Till spirit infused to life gave birth. So, till that hour, the Church. In Christ Her awful structure, nerve and bone, Though built, and shaped, and organized. Existed but in skeleton; Till do^\Ti on that predestined frame, Comi)lete through all its sacred mould, The Pentecostal Spirit came, — The self-same Spirit who of old MAY CAEOLS. 113 Creative o'er the waters moved. Tliencefortli tlie Church, made One and Whole, Arose in Him, and lived, and loved — His Temple she ; and He her Soul. S 114 MAY CAIIOLS. TUTIRIS DAVIDICA. Tns to\yerc(l City loves thee well, Strong Tower of DavicVs House ! In thee Sho hails the unvanquished ciradel That frowns o'er Error's subject sea. With magic might that Tower repels A host that breaks where foe is none, — No foe but statued .Saints in cells High-ranged, and smiling in the sun. There stands Augustin ; Leo there ; And Bernard, with a maiden face Like John's; and, strong at once and fair. That Spirit-Pythian, Athanase. Upon thy star-surrounded height God's angel kcepeth watch and ward; And sunrise flashes thence ere night ^nath left dark street and dewy sward. MAY CAROLS. 115 ' TU SOLA INTEREMISTI OMNES H^RESES.' XXXI. What tenderest liand uprears on high The standard of Incarnate God ? ^ Successive portents that deny Her Son, who tramples ? She who trod On Satan erst w^ith starlike scorn ! Ah ! never Al]3 looked dow^n through mist As she, that whiter star of morn, Through every cloud that darkens Christ ! Roll back the centuries : — who were those That, age by age, their Lord denied? Their seats they set with Mary's foes : — They mocked the Mother as the Bride. Of such was Arius ; and of such * He whom the Ephesian Sentence felled. tHer Title triumphed. At the touch Of Truth the insurgent rout w^as quelled. * Nestorius. t Dei-para. 116 MAY CAKOLS. Back, back the hosts of Hell were driven As forth that sevenfold thunder rolled: — And in the Church's mystic Heaven There was great silence as of old. MAY CAEOLS. PART III. MAY CAROLS. 119 PART III. In vain thine altars do they heap With blooms of violated May Who fail the words of Christ to keep ; Thy Son who love not, nor obey. Their songs are as a serpent's hiss ; Their praise a poniard's poisoned edge ; Their offering taints, like Judas' kiss, . Thy shrine; their vows are sacrilege. Sadly from such thy countenance turns : Thou canst not stretch thy Babe to such (Albeit for all thy pity yearns) As greet Him with a leper's touch. Who lovetli thee must love thy Son. Yf eak Love grows strong thy smile beneath : But nothing comes from nothing; none Can reap Love's harvest out of Death. 120 MAY CABOL8. BABYLON. II. The watchman watched along the walls : And lo ! an hour or more ere light Loud rang his trumpet. From their halls The revellers rushed into the night. There hung a terror on the air; There moved a terror under ground ; — The hostile hosts, heard everywhere, Within, without — were nowhere found *' The Christians to the lions ! ♦ Ho ! "— Alas ! self-tortured crowds, let be ! Let go your wrath ; your fears let go : Ye gnaw the net, but cannot flee. Ye drank from out Orestes' cup; Orestes' Furies drave ye wild. Who conquers from on high ? Look up 1 A Woman, holding forth a Child I MAY CAROLS. 121 m. The golden rains are dashed against Those verdant walls of lime and beech With which our happy vale is fenced Against the north ; yet cannot reach The stems that lift yon leafy crest High up above their dripping screen: The chestnut fans are downward pressed On banks of bluebell hid in green. White vapors float along the glen, Or rise from every sunny brake ; — A pause amid the gusts — again The warm shower sings across the lake. Sing on, all-cordial showers, and bathe . The deepest root of loftiest pine I The cowslip dimmed, the "primrose rathe'' Refresh; and drench in nectarous wine Yon fruit-tree copse, all blossomed o'er With forest-foam and crimson snow — Behold 1 above it bursts once more The world-embracing, heavenly bow! 132 MAY C A 11 O L 8 . SEDES SAPIEKTLE. IV. O THAT the wordy war might cease ! Self-sentenced Babel's strife of tongues I Loud rings the arena. Athletes, peace ! Isov drown the vv^ild-dove's Song of Songs. Alas, the wanderers feel their loss : With tears they seek— ah, seldom found — That peace wliose volume is the Cross; That peace which leaves not holy ground. Mary, who loves true peace loves thee ! A happy child, not taught of Scribes, He stands beside the Church's knee; From her the lore of Christ imbibes. Hourly he drinks it from her face: For there his eyes, he knows not how, The face of Him she loves can trace. And, crowned with thorn?, the sovereign brow. MAY CAROLS. ^ 12B " Beliold ! all colors blend in wliite ! Beliold ! all Truths liave root in Love V So sings, half lost in light of light, Her Song of Songs the mystic Dove. 134 MAY CAKOLS. SEDES SAPIENTLE. V. "Wisdom hatli built herself a House, And liewn her out her pillars seven." * Her wine is mixed. Her guests are these Who share the harvest-home of heaven. Who guards the gates ? The flaming sword Of Penance. Every way it turns: But healing from on high is poured On each that fire seraphic burns. The fruits upon her table piled Are gathered from the Tree of Life. Around are ranged the undefiled, And those that conquered in the strife. Who tends the quests ? Who smiles away Sad memories ? bids misgiving cease ? A crowned one countenanced like the day- The Mother of the Prince of Peace. * Proverbs ix. 1. MAY CAROLS. 125 VI. Here, in tliis paradise of light. Superfluous were botli tree and grass: Enough to watch the sunbeams smite Yon white flower sole in the morass. From his cold nest the skylark springs; Sings, pauses, sings ; shoots up anew ; Attains his topmost height, and sings Quiescent in his vault of blue. With eyes half-closed I watch that lake Flashed from whose jolane the sun-sparks fly, Like souls new-born that shoot and break From thy deep sea, Eternity! Kipplings of sunlight from the wave Ascend the white rock, high and higher; Soft gurglings fill the satiate cave; Soft airs amid the reeds expire. All round the lone and luminous meer The dark world stretches, far and free: That skylark's song alone I hear; That flashing wave alone I see. 120 MAY CAKOLS. O myriad Eartli ! Where'er tliy Word Makes way indeed into the soul, An answering echo there is stirred : — Of thee the part is as the whole. MAY CAKOLS. 127 TEST. B. V. M. DE MOl^TE CARMELO. VII. Carmel, with Alp and Apennine, Low whispers in the wind that blows Beneath the Eastern stars, ere shine The lights of morning on their snows. Of thee, Elias, Carmel speaks. And that white cloud, so small at firs! Thou saw'st approach the mountain peaki. To quench a dying nation's thirst. On Carmel, like a sheathed sword, Thy monks abode till Jesus came;^ On Carmel then they served their Lord - Then Carmel rang with Mary's name. • Blow over all the garden ; blow O'er all the garden of the West, Balm-breathing Orient ! Whisper low The secret of thy spicy nest. 128 MAY CAROLS. " Who from tlie Desert upward moves Like cloud of incense onward borne ? Who, moving, rests on Him she loves? Who mounts from regions of the Morn ? " Behold ! The apple-tree beneath — There where of old thy Mother fell — I raised thee up. More strong than Death Is Love; — more strong than Death or Hell."* * Cant. viii. 5. MAY CAROLS. 129 VIII. Come from tlie midniglit mountain tojDs, The momitains where the panthers play : Descend ; the veil of darkness drops ; Come fair and fairer than the day! Our hearts are .wounded with thine eyes : They character in words of light Thereon the mystery of the skies : The "Name o'er every name" they write. Come from ihj Lebanonian peaks Whose sacerdotal cedars nod Above the world, when morning breaks — The Mountain of the House of God. The land thou lov'st — O well is she! The ploughers on her back may plough ; But in her vales upgrows the Tree Of Life, and binds the bleeding brow. 130 MAY CAEOLS. ADYOCATA NOSTRA. IX. I SAW, in visions of the night, Creation like a sea outsi^read, With surf of stars and storm of light And movements manifold and dread, The^. lo, within a Unman Hand A Sceptre moved that storm above : Thereon, as on the golden wand Of kings new-crowned, there sat a Dove. Beneath her gracious weight inclined That Sce]3tre drooped. Tlie waves had rest And Scej^tre, Hand, and Dove were shrined Within a glassy ocean's breast. His Will it was that placed her there ! H^ at whose word the tempests cease Upon that Sceptre planted fair That peace-bestowing type of Peace ! MAY CAROLS. 131 THRONUS TRIKITATIS, Each several Saint the Church reveres, What is he but an altar whence Some separate Virtue ministers To God a separate frankincense? Each beyond each, not made of hands, They rise, a ladder angel-trod: Star-bright the last and loftiest stands — That altar is the Throne of God. Lost in the uncreated light A Form all Human rests thereon: His shade from that surpassing height Beyond creation's verge is thrown. Him " Lord of lords, and King of kings," The chorus of all worlds proclaim: — " He took from her," one angel sings At intervals, " His Human frame." 132 MAY CAROLS. CULTUS SANCTORUM. XI. He seemed to linger with them yet: But late ascended to the skies, They saw — ah, how could they forget ? — The form they loved, the hands, the eyes. From anchored boat — in lane or field — He taught; He blessed, and brake the bread; The hungry filled ; the afflicted healed ; And wept, ere yet he raised, the dead. But when, like some supreme of hills. Whose feet shut out its summit's snow, That, hid no longer, heavenward swells As further from its base we go, Abroad His perfect Godhead shone. Each hour more plainly kenned on high, And clothed His Manhood with the sun, And, cleansing, hurt the adoring eye ; MAY CAROLS. 133 Then fixed His Cliurcli a deepening gaze Upon His Saints. With Him they sate, And, burning in that Godhead's blaze. They seemed that Manhood to dilate. His were they : of His likeness each Had grace some fragment to present, And nearer brought to mortal reach Of Him some line or lineament. 134 MAY CAROLS, FEST. S. S. TRINITATIS. XII. Fall back, all worlds, into the abyss, That man may contcmp^iate once more Til at which lie ever was Who is : — The Eternal Essence we adore. Angelic hierarchies! recede Beyond extinct creation's shade ! What were ye at the first ? Decreed :— Decreed, not fashioned; thought, not made! Like wind the untold Millenniums passed. Sole-throned He sat ; yet not alone : Godhead in Godhead still was glassed; — The Spirit was breathed from Sire and Son. Prime Virgin, separate and sealed ; Nor less of social love the root; Dimly in lowliest shapes revealed; Entire in every Attribute ; — MAY CAROLS. 105 Thou liv'st in all things, and around; To Thee external is there nought; Thou of the boundless art the bound ; And still Creation is Thy Thought. In vain, O God, our wings we spread; So distant art Tliou — yet so nigh. Remains but this, when all is said, For Thee to live; in Thee to die. 136 MAY CAROLS. xm. Wheke is the crocus now, that first, When earth was dark and heaven was grey, A prothalamion flash, up-burst? Ah, then we deemed not of the May ! The clear stream stagnates in its course; I^arcissus droops in pallid gloom; Far off the liills of golden gorse A dusk Saturnian face assume. The seeded dandelion dim Casts loose its air-globe on the breeze; Along the grass the swallows skim; The cattle couch among the trees. Yet ever lordlier loveliness Succeeds to that which slips our hold: The thorn assumes her snowy dress; Laburnum bowers their robes of gold. Down waves successive of the year We drop ; but drop once more to rise, With ampler view, as on we steer, Of lovelier lights and loftier skies. MAY CAROLS. 137 "AD NIVES." XIV. Before tlie morn began to break The bright One bent above that pair Whose childless vows aspired to take The mother of their Lord for heir. 'Twas August: even in midnight shade The roofs were hot, and hot the street: — *' Build me a fane," the vision said, " Where first your eyes the snow shall meet.'' * With snow the Esquiline was strewn At morn ! — ^Fair Legend ! who but thinks Of thee, when first the breezes blown From summer Alp to Alp he drinks ? He stands : he hears the torrents dash : Slowly the vapors break ; and lo ! Through chasms of endless azure flash The i)eaks of everlasting snow. * Santa Maria Maggiorc, on the Esquiline, at Rome. 138 MAY CAIIO'LS. He stands ; lie listens ; on his ear Swells softly forth some virgin hymn : The white procession windeth near, With glimmering lights in sunshine dim. Mother of Purity and Peace ! They sing the Savior's name and thine :- Clothe them for ever with the fleece Unspotted of thy Lamb Divine 1 MAY CAROLS. 139 FEST. PURITATIS. XV. Far down the bird may sing of love ; The honey-bearing blossom blow : But hail, ye hills that rise above The limit of perpetual snow ! O Alpine Gity, with thy walls Of rock eterne and spires of ice, Where torrent still to torrent calls, And precipice to i^recipice; — How like that holier City thou, The heavenly Salem's earthly porch. Which rears among the stars her brow, And plants firm feet on earth — the Church 1 "Decaying, ne'er to be decayed," Her woods, like thine, renev/ their youth: Her streams, in rocky arms embaye,d, Are clear as virtue, stronoj as truth. 140 ^ MAY CAROLS. At times the lake may burst its dam ; Black pine and rock the valley strew; But o'er the ruin soon the lamb Its flowery pasture crops anew. She, too, in regions near the sky Up-piles her cloistered snows, and thence Diff'uses gales of purity O'er fields of consecrated sense. On those still heights a love-light glows The plains from them alone receive; — Not all the Lily ! There thy Rose, O Mary, triumphs, morn and eve I MAY CAROLS. 141 XVI. Cloud-piercing Mountains ! Chance and Change More high than you their thrones aclvancc. Self-vanquished Nature's rockiest range Gives way before them like the trance Of one that wakes. From morn to eve Through fissured clefts her mists make way; At Night's cold touch they freeze, and cleave Her crags ; and, with a Titan's sway, Flake off and peel the rotting rocks, And heap the glacier tide below With isles of sand and floating blocks, As leaves on streams when tempests blow. Lo, thus the great decree all-just, O Earth, thy mountains hear; and learn From fire and frost its import — "Dust Thou art; and shalt to dust return." He only zs Who ever was; The All-measuring Mind ; the Will Supreme. Eocks, mountains, worlds, like bubbles pass : God is ; the things not God but seem. 142 MAY C A n O L B , FOEDERIS ARCA. XYII. From end to end, O God, Thy Will Witli swift yet ordered might doth reach : Thy purposes their scope fulfil In sequence, resting each on each. In Thee is nothing sudden ; nought From harmony and law that swerves: The orbits of Thine act and thought In soft succession "wind their curves. O then with what a gradual care Must thou have shaped that sacred shrine, That Ark of grace, ordained to bear The burthen of the Babe divine ! How many a gift within her breast Lay stored, for Him a couch to strew! How many a virtue lined His nest ! How many a grace beside Him grew I MAY CAKOLS. 143 Of love on love what sweet excess ! IIow deep a faith! a hoj)e how high! — Mary ! on earth of thee we guess ; But we shall see thee when we diel 144 MAY CAROLS. DOMUS AUREA. XVIII. She mused upon the Saints of old ; Tlicir toils, their pains, she longed to share: Of Him she mused, the Child foretold ; To Ilim her hands she stretched in prayer. No moment passed without its crown ; xVnd each new grace was used so well It drew some tenfold talent down, Some miracle on miracle. O golden House ! O boundless store Of wealth by heavenly commerce won I When (jrod Himself could give no more, He gave thee all; He gave His Sonl Blessed the Mother of her Lord ! And yet for this more blessed still, Because she heard and kept His Word — HJo^h servant of His Soverei^xn Will I MAY CAKOLS. 145 RESPEXIT HUMILITATEM. XIX. Not all tliy purity, although The whitest moon that ever lit The peaks of Lebanonian snow Shone dusk and dim compared with it; — Not that great love of thine, whose beams Transcended in their virtuous heat Those suns which melt the ice-bound streams, And make earth's pulses newly beat : — It was not these that from the sky Drew down to thee the Eternal Word: He looked on thy humility; He knew thee, " Handmaid of thy Lord." Let no one claim -jv^ith thee a part; Let no one, Maiy, name thy name, While, aping God, upon his heart Pride sits, a demon robed in flame. 10 146 MAY CAB.OLB. Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place Be Sin's familiar self-disgust. Proud Virtues, doubly die ; that Grace At last may burgeon from your dust. HAY CAROLS. 147 KESPEXIT HUMILITATEir. XX, Supreme among the things create Omnipotence revealed below, More swift than thought, more strong than fate^ Such, such. Humility, art thou I All strength beside is weakness. Might Belongs to God : and they alone. Self-emptied souls and seeming-slight. Are filled with God and share his throne. O Mary ! strong wert thou and meek ; Thy meekness gave thee strength divine : Thyself in nothing didst thou seek j Therefore thy Maker made Him thine. Through Pride our parents disobeyed; Eebellious Sense avenged the crime: The soul, the body's captive made, Became the branded thrall of time. 148 MAY CAROLS. With barrenness the earth was cursed ; Inviolate she brought forth no more Her fruits, nor freely as at first: — Thou cam'st, her Eden to restore ! Low breathes the wind upon the string ; The harp, responsive, sounds in turn: Thus o'er thy Soul the Spirit's wing Creatire passed ;. and Christ was born. MAY CAROLS. 149 " SINE LABE OmaiNALI CONCEPT A." XXI. Met in a point "^ the circles twain Of temporal and eternal tilings Embrace, close linked. Redemption's chain Drops thence to earth its myriad rings. In either circle, from of old, That point of meeting stood decreed ; — Twin mysteries cast in one deep mould, "The Woman," and "the Woman's seed." Mary, long ages ere thy birth Resplendent with Salvation's Sign, In thee a stainless hand the earth Put forth, to meet the Hand Divine! First trophy of all-conquering Grace, First victory of that Blood all pure, Of man's once fair but fallen race Thou stood'st, the monument secure. * The Inca rnation. 150 MAY CAROLS. The Word made Flesh ! the Way ! the Door 1 The link that dust with Godhead blends ! Through Him the worlds their God adore:— Through thee that God to man descends. MAY CAROLS. l51 " SINE LABE ORiaiNALI CONCEPTA." XXII. A SOUL-LIKE sound, subdued yet strong, A whispered music, mystery-rife, A sound like Eden airs among The branches of the Tree of Life — At first no more than this ; at last The voice of every land and clime, It swept o'er Earth, a clarion blast : Earth heard, and shook with joy sublime. Mary ! thy triumph was her own. In thee she saw her prhne restored: She saw ascend a spotless Throne For Him, her Saviour, and her Lord. The Church had spoken. She that dwells Sun-clad with beatific light, From Truth's unvanquished citadels, From Sion's Apostolic height, 152 MAY CAROLS. Had stretched her sceptred hands, and pressed The seal of Faith, defined and known, Upon that Truth till then confessed By Love's instinctive sense alone. MAY CAROLS. 153 XXIII. Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold, Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights, Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold Her chalice of fulfilled delights. Confirmed around her queenly lip The smile late wavering, on she moves ; And seems through deepening tides to step Of steadier joys and larger loves. The stony Ash itself relents, Into the blue embrace of May Sinking, like old impenitents Heart-touched at last; and, far away, The long wave yearns along the coast With sob suppressed, like that which thrills (While o'er the altar mounts the Host) Some chapel on the Irish hills. 154 MAY CAROLS. CORPUS CHRISTL ^ XXIV. Rejoice, O Mary ! and be glady Thou Churcli triumphant here below 1 He Cometh, in meekest emblems clad; Himself he comleth to bestow ! That body which thou gav'st, O Earth, He giveth back — that Flesh, that Blood; Born of the Altar's mystic bii'th ; At once thy Worship and thy Food. He who of old on Calvary bled On all thine altars lies to-day, A bloodless Sacrifice, but dread; The Lamb in heaven adored for aye. His Godhead on the Cross He veiled ; His Manhood here He veileth too : But Faith has eagle eyes unsealed; And Love to Him she loves is true. MAY CAROLS. 155 "I will not leave you orphans. Lo ! While lasts the world with you am I.^' Saviour ! we see Thee not ; but know, With burning hearts, that Thou art nigh ! He comes ! Blue Heaven, thine incense breathe O'er all the consecrated sod ; And thou, O Earth, with flowers enwreathe The steps of thine advancing God! 156 MAY C A HOLS, OOIIPTJS CHRrSTi; XXV. What mtisic «w6lls on every galfe ? What heavenly Herald rideth past? Vale sings to vale, " He comes ; all hail P' Sea sighs to sea, " He comes at last*" The Earth bursts forth in choral song; Aloft her " Lauda Sion " soars; m Her myrtle boughs at once are flung Before a thousand Minster doors. Far on the white processions wind Through wood and plain and street and court: The kings and prelates pace behind The King of kings in seemly sort. The incense floats on Grecian air ; Old Carmel echoes back the chant; In every breeze the torches flare That curls the waves of the Levant. MAY CAROLS. 157 On Ramah's plain — in Bethlehem's bound — • Is heard to-day a gladsome voice: "Eejoice,'^ it cries, "the lost is found l^ With Mary's joy, O Earth, rejoice T' 168 MAY CAROLS. XXVI. Pleasant the swarm about the bongh ; The meadow-whisper round the woods; And for their coolness pleasant now The murmur of the falling floods. Pleasant beneath the thorn to lie, And let a summer fancy loose ; To hear the cuckoo's double cry; To make the noontide sloth's excuse. Panting, but pleased, the cattle stand Knee-deep in water-weed and sedge, And scarcely crop the greener band Of osiers round the river's edge. But hark ! Far off the south wind sweeps The golden-foliaged groves among. Renewed or lulled, with rests and leaps — Ah ! how it makes the spirit long To drop its earthly weight, and drift Like yon white cloud, on pinions free, Beyond that mountain's purple rift, And o'er that scintillating sea! MAY CAROLS. 159 XXVII.' Sing on, wide winds, your antliems vast ! The ear is richer than the eye : Upon the eye no shape can cast Such impress of Infinity. And thou, my soul, thy wings of might Put forth: — thou, too, one day shalt soar, And, onward borne in heavenward flight, The starry universe explore ; Breasting that breeze which waves the bowera Of Heaven's bright forest never mute, Whereof perchance this earth of ours Is but the feeblest forest-fruit. "The Spirit bloweth where He wills" — O Effluence of that Life Divine Which wakes the Umverse, and stills. In Thy strong refluence make us Thine ! IGO MAY CAROLS. CCELI ENARPvANT. XXTIII. Sole Maker of the "Worlds ! They lay A barren blank, a void, a nought, Beyond the ken of solar ray Or reach of archangelic thought. Thou spak'st; and they were made ! Forth sprang From every region of the abyss. Whose deeps, firc-clov'n, with anthems rang, The spheres new-born and numberless. Thou spak'st: — upon the winds were found The astonished Eagles. Awed and hushed Subsiding seas revered their bound ; And the strong forests upward rushed. Before the Vision angels fell. As though the face of God they saw ; And all the panting miracle Found rest within the arms of Law. MAY CAROLS. 161 Perfect, O God, Thy primal ]3lan— ^ That scheme frost-bound by Adam's sin: Create, within the heart of Man, Worlds meet for Thee; and dwell therein. From Thy bright realm of Sense and Nature, Which flowers enwreathe and stars begem, Shai)e Thou Thy Church; the crowned Creature; The Bride; the New Jerusalem! 11 163 MAY CAROLS. CARO FACTUS EST. When from beneath the Almighty Hand The suns and systems rushed abroad, Like coursers which have burst their band, Or torrents when the ice is thawed; When round in luminous orbits flung The great stars gloried in their might; Still, still, a bridgeless gulf there hung 'Twixt Finite things and Infinite. That crown of light creation wore Was edged with vast unmeasured black ; And all of natural good she bore Confessed her supernatural lack. For what is Nature at the best ? An arch suspended in its spring; An altar-step without a priest; A throne whereon there sits no king. MAY CAROLS. 163 As one stone-blind that fronts the mom, The world before her Maker stood, Uplifting suppliant hands forlorn — God's creature, yet how far from God ! He came. That world His priestly robe; The Kingly Pontiff raised on high The worship of the starry globe : — The gulf was bridged, and God was nigh. 1G4 MAY CAROLS. XXX. A WOMAN "clotlied with the sun,"* Yet fleeing from the Dragon's rage I— The strife in Eden-bowers begun Swells upward to the latest age. That woman's Son is throned on high; The angelic hosts before Him bend : The sceptre of His empery Subdues the worlds from end to end. Yet still the sword goes through her heart, For still on earth His Church survives. In her that woman holds a part : In her she suffers, wakes, and strives. Around her head the stars are set; A dying moon beneath her wanes: But he that letteth still must let: The Power accurst awhile remains. Break up, strong Earth, thy stony floors, And snatch to penal caverns dun That Dragon from the pit that wars Against the woman and her Son ! * Rev. xii. 1. MAY CAHOLS. 1G5 XXXI. No ray of all their silken sheen The leaves first fledged have lost as yet: Unfaded, near the advancing queen Of flowers, abides the violet. The rose succeeds — her month is come: — The flower with sacred passion red : She sings the praise of martyrdom, And Him for whom His martyrs bled. The perfect work of May is done : Hard by a new perfection waits: — The twain, a sister and a nun, A moment parley at the grates. The whiter Spirit turns in peace To hide her in the cloistral shade : — 'Tis time that you should also cease, Slight carols in her honor made. EPILOGUE. MAY CAKOLS. IGO EPILOGUE. Regent of Change, thou waning Moon, Whom they, the sons of night, adore, Her feet are on thee ! Late or soon Heap up upon the expectant shore The tides of Man's Intelligence ; Or backward to the blackening deep Remit them : Knowledge won from Sense But sleeps to wake, and wakes to sleep. Where are the hands that reared on high Heaven-threat'ning Babel ? where the might Of them, that giant progeny. The Deluge dealt with? Lost in night. The child who knows his creed doth stretch A sceptred hand o'er Space, and hold The end of all those threads that catch In wisdom's net the starry fold. The Sabbath comes : the work-days six Of Time go by ; meantime the key, O salutary crucifix. Of all the worlds, we clasp in thee. 170 MAY CAROLS. Truth deeplier felt by none than him * Who at the Alban mountain's foot, Wandering ho more in shadows dim, Lay down, a lamb-like offering mute. His mighty lore found rest at last In Faith, and woke in God. Ah, Friend I When life which is not Life is past, Pray that like thine may be my end. Thy fair large front ; thine eyes' grave blue : Thine English ways so staid and plain ;— Through native rosemaries and rue Memory creeps back to thee again. Beside thy dying bed were writ Some snatches of these random rhymes ; Weak Song, how happy if with it Thy name should blend in after times. EoiiB, April 27, 1857. ♦ Kobert leaak Wilberforce. HYMNS AND POEMS. HYMNS AND POEMS. 173 HYMIT FROM ST. GERTRUDE, In which the Saints are called upon to praise God. O God, my God! a slender voice from earth: Were weak to sing Thee* May Thy fair, strong sons. Thronging through heaven, Thine Angels and Thy Saints, The Hierarchies of Thy predestinate, In triumph hymn Thee ; may their song he mine. Those Spirits Seven that stand before Thy throne, And they the fervid hosts Thou sendest forth Like light o'er all the earth to minister Thy gifts and graces to the Race Redeemed, Let them sing loud and let their song be mine. The Four-and-twenty Elders that adore Thee; The Patriarchs, and the Prophets, they that cast Their crowns for ever down before Thy throne ; The Living Creatures Four, shadowed with wings. That from Thy praises cease not day or night. Let them sing loud and let their song be mine. 174 HYMNS AND POEMg. That worsliipfnl and Apostolic Band, High Puissances of Love, that with the might Of their strong arms in intercession raised Sustain (for such Thy Will) Thy sacred Church While the vain storm of ages round it roars, Let them sing loud and let their song be mine. The armies of Thy Martyrs, they whose robes Are purple ever with Thy Blood, not theirs, Which makes, through them, all Earth a Calvary, Let them sing loud and let their song be mine. The shining Senate of Thy Confessors, In blest translation from this world of sin Lifted by Thee, henceforth Thy peace to share. And reign with Thee in never-waning light, Let them sing loud and let their song be mme. Thy Virgin Choir serenely clothed upon With the snows of incorruption, they whose brows Flash far the splendors of Thy purity ; Who, up the hills of God ascending ever. Where'er He goeth follow still the Lamb, From their glad hearts resounding that new Song, "Jesus, Thou Spouse of Virgin souls, all hail!" Let them sing loud and let their song be mine. HYMNS AND POEMS. 175 May Thine Elect, wliom none can know or number, Thy People from all Nations, give Thee praise, Thou art their God, and there is none beside : May all Thy marvellous Works in heaven and earth, The jubilee re-echo : may Thy Church, And she that World material. Sisters twain, Sustain the eternal Psalm antiphonal, Burn in one Joy, and send Thee back a gleam, Reflex of that high Glory Increate, Whereof both flood and torrent-fount art Thou. 176 HYMNS AND POEMS. HYMN-. The Feast of St.- Peter's Cnair at Antioch. At Antioch first the Name of Christ Came down and clothed His Eace : Enthroned at Antioch Peter reared His earlier resting-place. O Eastern Church ! Imperial Schism Swept from thy forehead crown and chrism: Loose from the fold thy Caesars broke; Thy penance came — the Moslem yoke! II. O Eastern Church, so great of old, What art thou at this hour? God called thee ! why that backward gaze Servile to mortal Power ? Thou stand'st amid the salt sand-waste A queenly statue, fire-defaced; A Pillar wrecked of sentenced Pride, A dead Faith's Image petrified ! HYMNS AND POEMS. 177 III. I]astward, heaveii'Warned, thB Empire ranged; Byzantium ruled, not Eome: Westward the Churcli; the Vatican Not Salem was her home. Like ships that each the other pass, Swift-borne through mist o'er seas of glass, Those Spirits of a converse lot Each, other crossed and answered not. IV. Of all those Patriarchal Thrones Whereon the Apostles sate But Eome survives, the hond and seal Of Christ's Episcopate : There Peter reigns, and by his side That great compeer* who with him died; One walked the Gentiles' utmost bound, One sate, the Church's jcentre crowned. The Alexandrian altar fell, Jerusalem, like thine, Poor Eeliquaries they of Faith This hour, no more the Shrine; * St. Paul. 178 HYMNS AND POEMS. Chalcedon, Epliesus, and Nice, The Councils like the Arts of Greece, Their names are fair in sacred lore; The spirit of Life is theirs no more. VI. Thus in the dust of centuries sleep The glories once so bright ; Rome, Rome alone, whose vigil lasts Through all the wondering night, Still marks with awe and notes with care The spots where orbs that are not were : Her Ephemerides retain Their names and places, not in vain. VII. The Pilot of the Barque divine Still sees, as on he steers. Sad Antioch's ever-setting star O'erhang the seas of years ;. Sees rather where it shone of old A radiance posthumous and cold, A monitory gleam and grand, Imj)assive as- a dead man's hand. KTMNS AND POEMS. 179 VIII. Dread tnonument ! 'Tis thine to lay That warning Hand and frore On breasts of panting kings and realms That kings for Gods adore: To freeze the Gentile Hope, to bind The loftier with the lowlier mind, And with the weight of all the past Confirm that greatness shaped to last. 180 inrMNB AND POEMS. HYMN. The Peafet of St. Jolin the Baptist. Type of God's Predestinated, Ere thy birth regenerated, Thy Lord, Himself unborn, was thine ! Ere our sunlight yet had crowned thee The Sun that healeth sought and found thee; Thy Mother spake and hailed the sign ! Voice of God ! the rocks, they fed thee ; Thymy paths the desert spread thee; By the shoulders and the head Thou wert loftier than the human ; Among all the sons of woman None like thee for mien or tread. Hermit-chief and monk austerest I Nought thou lovest, nought thou fearest, Save that Lord and God most High: The viper generation trembled; In vain that King his fear dissembled ; Thy words went through him, and thine eye. HYMNS AND P0BM6. 181 A cloistered Virgin in tliy rigor, A giant athlete in thy vigor, Not in vain didst thou, a child. At Mary's foot lie down and nestle. Breast to breast with Jesus wrestle In the garden or the wild. Say, what seek ye, crowds forth-fleeting As though to grace some merry meeting, A Reed with every wind that moves? This is not a Reed that shaketh, Bujb God's Tempest that down breaketh Towers of Pride and Idol groveg> " Repent, repent !" Around thee gathered Men in prime, and men time-withered: About thy steps the children, crept: Unbelief made dumb thy Sire: Faith bore thy words o'er earth likB fire: The sinner heard thy voice and. wept. Foretold Precursor, Standard-bearer I As from Michael's sword in terror At thy voice the demona fled : Once alone on earth or under, A peal like thine again shall thunder, The angelic -Trump . that wakes the dead. 182 HYMNS AND POEMS. Thy power, wlieiice came it ? From tjiy meekness ! Like Moses mighty in tliy weakness, Thy strength was God, the dread "I am:" Thy life was Love : thy lips confessed it Then when thine eye on Jesus rested. And thou didst cry, " Behold the- Lamb !" Last of the prophets, last and greatest ! Baptist, the ancient Law that matest With God's new Law of Grace and Love; Pray thou that Christ's atoning merit May cleanse our deeds ; His promised Spirit Baptize our spirits from above. HYMNS AND POEMS. 183 KraiN" OF PEAISE TO GOD. Fr'om St.' Gertrude. Height inaccessible of* Sovran Power; Unfathomed depth of Wisdom hid and sealed ; Limitless breadth of all-embracing Love ; None but thyself can yield Thee worthy praise : Thyself alone canst know Thyself. Our Hymns Are as a little breeze that dies. O then May Thine eternal Godhead yield Thee praise : Thy Majesty enthroned and measureless, May It upon the altar of Itself Offer the unceasing incense. May the expanse Of Thy far Wisdom round Creation's shores Murmur Thy praise. Thy Justice and Thy Might, And all Thine Attributes unknown or known, Like heavenly armies may they chaunt Thy name, They most Thy piercing sweetness, and the voice Wounding, , yet healing, of Thy tender Love ! 184 HYMNS AND POEMS. May ail the Names that name Thee, may the might Of all Thy Titles radiant o'er the gates Of that Jerusalem, Thy regal seat, Which are as banners blazoning Thee to man ; May those mute types, revealed or latent yet I' the depths of thought, which like to keys unlock The secret chambers of Thy Mysteries, ' Bless Thee for ever, give Thee thanks for me, Exult in Thee, adore Thee, cliaunt the praise Of each of Thy compassions, in old time Vouchsafed or now or in the years to come, Vouchsafed to me Thy least, or him the greTatest, Whoe'er he be, of all Thy heavenly Hosts. May the adored Humanity- of Christ Praise Thee, my God, for me. May every Act And Suffering of His converse here on earth Yield Thee a separate incense. Be they thine His divine Virtue and the all- wondrous Grace That passed miraculous from Him. May His tears And those Five Fountains of His Blood all pure, Drown my transgressions; may His precious Death My lack supply and glorify Thy name. May that serenest Queen and crowned Creature That in the TuU assembly of Thy saints Through her humility is highest throned, And nearest to her Son, Mary thrice-blest, HYMNS AND POEMS. 185 May she, O Thou Creator of all worlds, For me ex?tol Thee ; may the heavenly choirs, Ten thousand times ten thousand, blissful Souls, And singing Spirits, hymn Thee. Kot alone Standeth the great Priest in the light eterne: His own are with Him, what He doth they do ; And, as the Shadow with the Substance moves. They also lift their hands and chaunt Thy praise. May our most holy Mother in all lands The Universal Church exult in Thee, Praise Thee for me, and sing to Thee. May they Her Daughters Seven, the all-quickening Sacra- ments, Her dread yet gentle Rites with touch air-soft, Her reverend and decorous ceremonies, Her Penances, her Yigils, and her prayers, Her Psalms re-echoed far from peak or isle Or Minster city-girt, while reigns the sun At noon, or sink the stars beneath the sea ; May all her Sanctities and holy Woes Praise Thee, and all her Raptures, their reward. The still processions of her kingly Thoughts, The angel-like ascent of Hopes and Yows, Her sacred Longings, her divine Desires, And each low sigh breathed from this vale of tears. 186 HYMNS AND POEMS. May all Thy gifts of Grace on me bestowed, Though I be dumb, confess thee. May that Love Which from Eternity its pitying eyes Eeposed on me, a spot amid the void, And forth from darkness called me ; may the hands Of that strong Providence which shaped my way Praise Thee. May all my being, all I have Or am, self-known, or self-unknown, to Thee Well known, my Maker, sing Thy laud. May all My Faculties of Body, Mind, and Soul, My nerves and veins, my sinews and my bones, Praise Thee ; they too, my Memory and my Will, My Heart with all its groanings, and my Life Warring to death on Sin which is Thy foe. HYMNS AND POEMS. 187 \ HYMK The Feast of St. John the Evangelist. I. His praise in all the Cliurcli is wide: He listened to the Master's Call : To-day his seat is set beside The seats of Peter and of Paul. His head upon the Saviour's breast Had leave to lie : and 'neath the Eood, When thunder-scattered were the rest, Beside the ]\Iother-Maid he stood* II. His name for ever shall endure: That Mother-Maid his dwelling shared, And to those eyes by hers made pure The heaven of heavens their mysteries bared : The Twelve dread Caesars slept in dust; Above their graves he looked, and saw The War of Ages, and the Just Judging the Tribes of Man with awe. 188 HYMNS AND POEMS. III. He opened 'mid the Cliurcli of God His mouth with wisdom from on high: Of him there went a word abroad, The rumor he should never die : Beside that lake in Galilee Christ, holding forth the Keys of Power, Thus spake to Peter, " Follow Me ;" But Peter looked on John that hour. IV. Lily impearled and morning-kissed I Love-Star of dawn perpetual, John I Apostle and Evangelist, In whom Belief and Love were one : Yet awful 'mid thy sweetness; firm The chaff to winnow from the grain ; Heart bleeding with the wounded worm, Yet counting tribulation gain. Seraph of all the Apostles' Band I Love's unconsumed, aye-burning Tree That light'st far off our desert land, This day our Guide and Patron bel HYMNS AND POEMS. 189 On realms that each the other tear,. On hearts worn out with bitterer strife, Send down from heaven — such strength hath prayer — That love which was thine earthly life. 190 JEYMNS AND POEMS, HYMN. Il'raiislation of the "Stabat Mater Dolorosa." I. By the Cross of Expiation The Mother stood, and kept her station, Weeping for her Son and Lord: With the nails His Hands were riven; Through her heart the sword was driven, Simeon's dread, predicted sword. II. O that blessed one grief-laden, Blessed Mother, blessed Maided, Mother of the all-blessed One I O that silent, ceaseless inournii\g, O those dim eyes never turning From that wondrous, suffering Son I III. Who is he of nature human Tearless that could watch that Woman? Hear unmoved that Mother's moan ? Who, unchanged in shape and color, Who could mark that Mother's dolour, Weeping with her Son alone ? HYMKS AND POEMS. 191 IV. For 'His people's sins tlie All-Holy There she saw, a victim lowly, Bleed in torments, bleed and die; Saw tlie Lord's Anointed taken; Baw lier Child in death forsaken ; Heard His last expiring cry. V. Fount of love and sacred sorrow ! Mother, may my spirit borrow Sadness from thy holy w^oe: May it love — on fire within me — : Christ, my God, till great love win me Grace to jolease Him here below. Those Five Wounds of Jesu smitten, Mother ! in my heart be written Deeply as in thine they be : Thou my Saviour's Cross who bearest, Thou thy Son's Rebuke w^lio sharest. Let me share them both with thee. .1 VII. In the Passion of my Maker Be my sinful soul partaker; 192 HYMNS AND POEMS. Let me weep till death with thee: Unto me this boon be given, By thy side, like thee bereaven, To stand beneath th' atoning Tree. VIII. Virgin holiest, Virgin purest, Of that anguish thou endurest. Make me bear with thee my farl: Of His Passion bear the token In a sj^irit bowed and broken, Bear His Death within my heart. May His Wounds both wound and heal me ; His Blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me ; Be His Cross my hope and stay; Virgin, when the mountains quiver From that flame which burns for ever, Shield me on the Judgment Day. X. Christ! when He that shaj^ed me calls me, When the advancing Death appals me, Through her prayer the storm make calm: When to dust my dust retumeth, Save a soul to Thee that ycarneth: Grant it then the crown and palm. HYMNS AND POEMS. 193 HYMN ON THE DIVIKE IIUMAKITY OF CHRIST. From St. Gertrude. Jesus, Thou Son of God, true God, true Man ! May one voice more, a feeble voice from earth. Blend with the choirs that Mystery who sing Highest, that thrilling Influx unrevealed Of Thy Divinity, which, like a tide From ocean winding up an inland stream, Creeps on through Thy Humanity for aye ; Creeps on through that Humanity enthroned In heaven, transfigured 'mid the eternal light. High guerdon for the Wounds that yet it bears Deep-graved ; the "Wounds that wrought man's peace below. Jesus, Thou Son of God, true God, true Man ! A voice from earth would join the choirs that sing That breathless, ravishing, supreme delight. Springtide of bloom for aye renewed, wherein The sacred Eyes of Thy Humanity, That close not, in their venerable trance Feast on those pastures green and limitless Irradiate by the Eternal Three iu One. 13 194 HYMKS AKD POEMS. Jesus, Thou Son of God, true God, true Man ! A voice from earth would join the choirs that sing That quietude and solace high wherein The sacred Ears of Thy Humanity (Fruition evermore renewed) are held, 'Not by the lute or viol, wind or cord, But by those dread interior Harhionies For ever whispering round the abyss of God, Prime Hymeneal and perpetual psalm — The concords of the Eternal Three in One. Jesus, Thou Son of God, true God, true Man! A voice from earth would join the choirs that sing The sweet refreshment of Thy heavenly Rest ; That clear, sabbatical, and mystic clime Whereby Thy deified Humanity, Its suffering past, is equably embraced. The embowering sunset of its endless peace, ^ And the vivific fragrance evermore Breathed from that underlying Eden vast, The Bosom of the Eternal Trinity. Jesus, Thou Son of God, true God, true Man ! Humanity with Godhead crowned, all hail ; In Thy sufficiencies impassible ; Yfith sx^iritual senses clothed, to earthly pain Superior, or the attempt of earthly joys ! In place of these one kingly bliss is Thine, HYMITS AKD POEMS. 195 Simple, inviolate, indivisible, The inflowing of Divinity for aye Permeant througlx Thy Humanity as when All heaven distils itself through dewy woods. Hail, Son of God, and Mary's Child ! Through Thee Within her luminous Bridal Chamber still Humanity with God for ever holds Commerce transcendent. Hail, for ever hail, Christ, God and Man, that makest all things one ! 196 HYMNS AND POEMS. MAUNDAY THURSDAY. (The Washing of the Feet.) Once more the Temple-Gates lie open wide: Onward, once more, Advance the Faithful, mounting like a tide That climbs the shore. Naked as Tombs the Altars stand to-day : The shrines are bare : Christ of His raiment was despoiled, and they His livery wear. To-day the mighty and th e proud have heard The " Mandate New :'' That which He did, their Master, and their Lord) This day they do. To-day the mitred foreheads, and the crowned, In meekness bend: New tasks to-day the sceptred hands have found : The Poor they tend. HYMNS AND POEMS. 197 To-day tliose feet which tread in lowliest ways, And follow Christj Are by the secular lords of power and praise, Both washed and kissed. Hail ordinance sage of hoar antiquity, Which she retains, That Church who teaches man how meek should be The head that reigns. 198 HYMITS AND POEMJ AN ANCIENT LEGEND AND ITS ANSWER. [" Through Alexandria there rushed of old a Woman with dis- orderedgarb that held high in one hand a Torch, and in the other bore a Jar of Water, and cried aloud, saying, ' With thia Torch I will burn up Heaven, and with this Jar of Water I will quench Heil, that henceforward God may be loved for His own sake alone.' "] . Tnou Christian Mocnad, with thy Torch and Jar, That wouldst burn Heaven to its remotest star And quench all Hell, that thus, beneath — above — God might be God alone, and LoveJ:>ut Love, Too proud for gifts ! dash down that Jar and Torch And learn a lowlier wisdom from the Church. Know this, that God is Heaven : with Ilim who dwell Find Love's Reward perforce : and theirs is Hell (Hate's dread self-prison) who pine in endless night From God exiled, or blinded by His light. Moenad! Thy Thyrsus is no Prophet Bod: Who cancels Heaven and Hell must cancel God. HYMNS AND POEMS. 109 LEGBNDA AUREA. She lived in woods ; in lioly fear Had bade her Fatlier's Court farewell ; " Yet all," slie said, " for gold to rear A convent where I found a cell!" 'Twas May-Day ! a Laburnum nigli With sudden blossoms strewed the mold ; (The same that tempted bards gone by To babble of their " sho^V^^ of gold.") ^' Search thou beneath that glittering soil,'^ Hope, singing like a throstle, said: She dug and found a golden spoil Rich as an Indian river's bed. What placed it there but love and prayer ? Ere long, they say, her convent bell Through crimson morning's throbbing air Sent happy news o'er flood and fell! 200 HYMNS AND POEMS. IMPENITENCE, Scarce marked my youth beside me streamed, And passed insensibly away: Upon tlie bank I slept, and seemed To rise a man new-born eacb day. Forgotten sins were mine no more ! I knew not that the slime and weed Down-washed on Life's remoter shore A pestilence at last would breed : That buried guilt brings darkly forth A wormy brood ; that unwept crimes, Though outcast like a spurious birth. Will haunt our doors in after times ! Round mine they sit from night to morn, Pale portents of a day gone by; And wail ^^ that ever we were born Who loathe to liva and cannot die.'' HYMNS AND POEMS. 201 PE:tTA]SiCE. The pilgrim risen whilst all is night Who nears ere morn some sleeping town, Crossing the dark hill's barrier height What sees he, gazing dimly down? A blank, a shade ! the fruitful plain Is lonelier than a barren moor, Forlorner than a moonless main, More dolorous than a wreck-strewn shore ! The grace that basked by day, the peace That smiled in Order's sacred bound, - Halls, hedges, flocks, ancestral trees, In one funereal gloom are drowned. A wan light spreads the hills beyond ; A dreary wind goes wailing by; While, swollen with rains, the sullen pond Gleams dully as a dead man's eye. 202 HYMNS AND POEMS. But lo* tlie sun ! with golden rod The Planet self-eclipsed he greets 1 Earth brightens like a wakening God ; Once more her deep heart bounds and beats. So leaps in life the unburthened breast "When She of Penitents the Queen Holds out the absolving Keys of Christ, Her hand puts forth, and says, " Be clean." HYMNS AND POEMS, 203 THE ANGEL OF THE WAY. I TOILED along the public path ; Loud rang the booths with knave and clown : Now laughter peals, now cries of wrath, Assailed the suburb from the town. The Circe of the kennel brimmed Her cup for him that passed. Hard by Sabbathless labor, dust-begrimmed Alternated the curse and sigh. " Alas." I wept, " no God is here ! The World, the Flesh, rule here confest:" I heard a voice : an Angel near On sailed; an altar touched his breast. He placed it by me, and I knelt ; Clamor and shout and dust were gone : I prayed, and in my prayer I felt The peace of God, and heard, " walk on." 204 HYMNS AND POEMS. QUESTIONINGS. Through all tlie house there stirs no sound Save this low flickering of my fire; In peaceful chambers all around The men I love unheard respire. Beside each bed a Phantom stands ; He waits his time; his name is Death. On every breast his icy hands He lays, and sucks each ebbing breath. Unmoved, yet changing, there they lie. Drawn downward in a fatal barque Unconscious t'wards Eternity Through caves successive of the dark. O Night, O Dark, O dreadful nurse, O thoughts we shun, yet cannot scorn; Each night our death do we rehearse; Yet meet in smiles each morrow morn. HYMNS AND POEMS. 205 TRIAL. (St. Francis de Sales.) As wlien for weeks the tempest blinds Some sea-girt mountain, night and day, So storms of trial, clouds and winds,. Besieged his soul, till not a ray Could reach him of that glory streamed From God upon the new-born world: An erring star and lost he seemed Through endless darkness onward hurled. At last, his large heart breaking, down He knelt his latest prayer to make, (True heart that, shrivelling in the frown Of God, that God would not forsake,) " If I must lose Thee there beneath. Lord, let me love Thee till I die !" It sank — the black cloud's latest wreath ; And God was his eternally ! 206 nYMNS AND POEMS, THE KINDLY TRANSIENCE. "Like flowers," they tell us, "Life must fade!" All briglit-faced Friend ! if flowers must die Immortal sweets of sucli arc- made : Thus Time bequeaths Eternity. "Life is a fleeting shade!" What then? The Substance doth the Shadow cast : Essential Life, it recks not when, Shall crown this seeming Life at last. Thus, while autumnal eddies caught Dead leaves, and whirled them in the sun, Half-Truths, deciduous sjDoils of Thought, Their clothing from on high put on: And better far it seemed to plight To earth a transient troth and trust Than with corruption wed, and blight The Spirit^s hope with deathless dust. HYMISrS AKD POEMS. 207 FESTUM MATERNITATIS, To lowliesfc creatures God permits Maternal Love, an instinct blind Y^eakness witli help that softly knits, Benignant Nature's '' Law of Kind." The human mother's happier nest, The bird's with wing and questing bill, Are both but Nature's ; and the best That earth can yield is earthly still. But Mary ! heavenly is her Child, And heavenly her Maternal Love: To her it comes, the undefiled, Comes, like her Infant, from above. From Him, the o'ershadowing Spirit, Him Alone descends that Love she proves: No mortal joy her eye makes dim : It is the God-Man that she loves. 208 HYMNS AND POEMS. It is tlie God-Man tliat slie loves; Her Motherhood's sublhnest part Is this, with Him the world that moves To share that prime Parental Heart 1 HYMNS AND P O E M.S . 209 MATER CHRISTI. "Behold thy Motlier!". From the Cross He gave her — not to one alone: We are His Brethren ; unto us He gave a mother as to John. Behold the greatest gift of Christ, Save that wherein Himself He gives, The wonder-working Eucharist, Sole life of each that truly lives. Mysterious Bread, not joined and knit With him that eats, like mortal food, But, fire-like, joining him with it. And blending with the Church of God. Mary ! from thee the Saviour took That Flesh He gives ! The mercies twain, Like streams of a divided brook, But separate to meet again. 14 310 HYMNS AND TOEMJ m HORA MORTIS. It was tlie dread last Eucharist: The hopes and fears of earth were gone ; The latest, Imgermg friend dismissed ; The bed was ashes strewed o'er stone. It was the dear last Eucharist : The old man lay in silent prayer : His heart was now a Shrine, and Christ Was with His Mother whispering there. He heard them, heard within that veil Voices that Angels may not hear, Not he that said to Mary, ^'Hail,'' • Not he that watched the Sepulchre: Voices that met with touch like light ; Murmurs that mixed, as when their breath Two pine trees, side by side, unite : Of Love one whispered ; one of Death. HYMNS AND POEMS. 211 THE CAYIL. "So great! Then wherefore whilst on earth So still, so silent, so unknown ? What prophet sang her death or birth? Before her steps what trump was blov/n ?" Ah, barren brain heaven-taught in vain ! So blind ! in texts so parrot-learned ! Against the grain plain shows not plain : Truth, grasped by sense, is undiscerned. Her Son was God, yet seemed but Man: She, Chief of Creatures, seemed the least. Thus likest Him who first began, So long concealed, at Cana's feast His Godlike Works, yet oft forbade To noise those Godlike Works abroad — Inferior greatness is displayed ; The loftier hides in \\^\t with God. 213 HYMNS AND POEMS. THE VEIL. For thirty years with her He lurked, As secret as the unrisen sun : In three short years His Work He worked : That work we know. The victory won Once more the veil descends, and shrouds That trance of Love, the Forty Days : Like mountains lost in luminous clouds Their marvels cheat our yearning gaze. The Saints who rose when Jesus died, Lazarus, twice cast from nature's womb, Hidden their after days abide As Enoch's life or Moses' tomb. The "Work, the Work — no more — is told : The lore man needs not shuns his sight : Thy Work was this, to clothe in mould Of Adam's race the Infinite. HYMNS AND POEMS. 213 Thy Motlierhood tMne endless Act, In this all lesser praise is drowned: To this to add were to detract: Sole-throned it bideth, and self-crowned. 214 HYMNS AND POEMS. THE LETTER AND THE SPHIIT. How oft that Sadducean fool That imped with feathers from the jay As hard a heart, a brain as dull As e'er were bubble-blown from clay, How oft his half-shut eye had roved From sacred page to page, and read Those words that unaffirming proved The Resurrection from the Dead!* Texts plainer were there : "I shall go To him ; he cannot come to me " — " Though worms consume this Body, lo 1 I in my flesh my God shall see." Such texts the Saviour challenged not: He willed to prove that at the core Of well-known words to reverent Thought There lurked a mine of unknown lore. * " The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." '^ HYMNS AND POEMS. '21^ "What texts avouch lier greatness?" Two, For those the Letter's rind who pierce; The Ancient Eecord and the New : In Christ they meet; and Christ is hers. 216 HYMNS AND POEMS. '' m ELECTIS MEIS MITTE RADICES." EouGH is tlie shock of adverse seas: Sudden the up-bursting of a sect : Thou, like a Vine, by soft degrees Didst root thyself in God's Elect. Slow like a Palm-tree's was thy growth, But sure : the Sun that heals stood high Ere all thy greatness met, though loth, Smit by His beam, the general eye. But, like some Western hill that flings O'er sunset vales at last its shade. Thy power shall wax when transient things Give i^lace, and shapes ephemeral fade. In the world's eve thy Star shall flash Through reddening skies that cease to weep While kings to earth their sceptres dash, And angel bands the harvest reap. HYMJ^S AND POEMS. 217 AUXILIUM CHRISTIANORUM. O STRONG- in prayer ! our spirits bind To God : our bodies keep from sin : Live in our hearts tliat Ciirist may find An incorrupt abode therein: That He, the Eternal Spirit, He Who overshadowed with His Grace The depths of thy Humility, In us may have a resting-place. Who love thee x)rosper! As a breeze Thou waft'st them o'er the ways divine : Strange heights they reach with magic ease Through music-moulded discipline. The children of the House are they, Kot strangers ranged around the gate : The children love, and learn in play; The stranf^ers w^in their dole, but wait. 218 HYMNS AND POEMS. THE FIRST DOLOUR. (The Prophecy of Simeon.) To he the motlier of her Lord — What means it ? • This, a bleeding heart ! The pang that woke at Simeon's word Worked inward, never to depart. The dreadful might of Sin she knew As Innocence alone can know: O'er her its deadliest gloom it threw As shades lie darkest on the snow. Yet o'er her Sorrow's depth no storm Of earth's rebellious passion rolled : So sleejDS some lake no gusts deform. High on the dark hills' craggy fold. In that still glass the unmeasured cliff, With all its scars and clouds is shown : And, mellowed in that Mother's grief. At times, O Christ, we catch Thine ovv^n I HYMNS AND POEMS. 219 THE SECOND DOLOUR. (The Flight into Egypt.) The fruitful River slides along; The Conqueror's City glitters nigli; The Palm-groves ring with dance and song; Earth trembles, crimsoned from the sky. Far down the sunset lonely stands Some temple of a bj^gone age, Slow-settling into sea-like sands, Long served with prayer and pilgrimage. Here ruled the Shepherd-Kings, and they That race from Sun and Moon which drew The unending lines of Priestly sway ; Here Alexander's standard flew. Here last the great Cs3sarian star Through Egypt's sunset flashed its beam. While pealed the Roman trump afar, And Earth's first Empire like a dream 220 HYMNS AND POEMS. Dissolved. But who are they — the Three That pierce, thus late, yon desert wide ? The Babe is on His Mother's knee; Low-bent an old Man walks beside. What say'st thou, Egypt ? " Let them come I Of such as little note I keeiD As of the least of flies that hum Above my deserts, or my deep l" HYMNB AN D POEMS. 221 THE THIRD DOLOUR. (Jesus left behind in the Temple.) Three days she seeks lier Child in vain: He who vouchsafed that holy woe And makes the gates of glory pain, He, He alone its dej)th can know. She wears the garment He must wear. She tastes His chalice ! From a Cross Unseen she cries, "Where art Thou, where? Why hast Thou me forsaken thus?" With feebler hand she touches first That sharpest thorn in all His Crown, Worse than the ISTails, the Reed, the Thirst, Seeming Desertion's icy frown! O Saviour ! we, the weak, the blind, We lose Thee, snared in Pleasure's bound: Teach us once more Thy Face to find Where only Thou art truly found, 222 HYMNS AND POEMS. In Thy true Chiircli, its Faith, its Love Its anthemed Rites or Penance mute, And that interior Life whereof Eternal Life is flower and fruit. T£ Y M N S A K D POEMS. c23 THE FOUETH DOLOUR. (The meeting on Calvary.) She stands before Him on the Road: He bears tlie Cross, and climbs tlie steep: Three times He sinks beneath His load: To earth He sinks: she does not weep. She may not touch that Cross whose weight Against His will a stranger bears: In heart to bear it, and to wait His upward footsteps, this is hers. She may not prop that thorn-crowned Head: The waves of men between them break : Another's hand the veil must spread Against that -forehead and that cheek. Her eyes on His are fastened. Lo ! There stand they, met on Calvary's height, Twin mirrors of a single woe Made by reflection inflnite. 224 HYMNS AND POEMS. The sons of Sion round tliem rave : The Roman trumpet storms the wind: They goad Him on with spear and stave : He j)asses by : she drops behind. HYMNS' AND POEMS. 225 THE FIFTH DOLOUR. (Beside the Croes.) She stood in silence. Slowly passed The hours whose moments dropped in blood: Its frown the Darkness further cast: She moved not: silently she stood. No human sympathy she sought : Her help was God, and God alone ; Not even the instinctive respite caught From passionate gesture, sigh, or moan. Her silence listened. On the air Like death-bells tolled that prime Decree Which bade the Eternal Victim bear Mankind's transgression. Let it be I The "Women round her heard all day The clash of arms, the scoffing tongue : She heard the breaking of that spray From which the fruit of Knowledge hung. 15 236 HYMNS AND POEMS. Behold the Babe of Bethlehem ! Aye ! The Infant slumbered on thy breast; And thou that heard'st His earliest cry Must hear His '' Consummatum est." HYMIs^S AKD POEMS. 227 THE SIXTH DOLOUR. (Jesns taken down from the Cross.) The Saviour from tlie Cross they took: Across His Mother's knee He lies: She wept not, but a little shook As with dead hand she closed dead eyes. The surface wave of Grief we know : By us its dejDths are unexplored: She treads the still abyss below, Following the footsteps of her Lord. Above her head the great floods roll: That Lord, that Son, remains her Hope : And calm, within the storms, her Soul, Calm as the w^hirlj^ool's central drop. The Saviour from the Cross they took : Across His Mother's knee He lay: O passers by ! be still and look ! That Twain compose one cross for aye. 238 HYMNS AND POEMS. THE SEVENTH DOLOUR. (Before the Tomb.) Before the Tomb the Mother sate Amid the ncw-clelved garden ground : Her eyes upon its stony gate Were fixed, while darkness closed around. A wind above the olives crept: It seemed the world's collected sigh: That Mother's eyes their vigil kept: She felt but this; her Lord was nigh. Behind her, leaning each on each, The Holy Women w^aited near: Nor any spake of comfort : speech Was slain by sorrow, and by fear. From realm to realm of night He passed, That Soul which smote the dark to day: That Mother's eyes were settled fast. Upon the Tomb where Jesus lay. HYMNS AND POEMS. 229 THE TRUE HUMANITY. Sacred Humanity of Christ, all hail ! Glorified Manhood which alone art Man; Great Archetype in God's own image formed From everlasting. Adam was to Thee Second, not first. Essential Man art Thou ; Yie are but pigmy and distorted shades Downcast from Adam's lightning-blasted trunk Upon the blighted heath of mortal li:fe, Or timeless and abortive fruit unblest. True Man ! true God that art alone true Man ! Thou from Whose touch deific streams that power Which keeps from further and more bestial lapse The race created human ; hail, O hail ! Hail in Thy Paradise of lonely light Walking with God ; in Thy Regalities The Mediatorial Realm from, pole to ]3ole Swaying: all hail, great Pontiff, with Thyself Lighting Thy Church: all hail. Prophetic Power Before Whose eyes Creation yet unborn In vision passed ; and from Whose tongue her Works Their Names received, and were what they were called. " Not alone Standetli tlie great Priest in the light eterne." Pago 12. This thought belongs not to St. Gertrude, but to Origen. It is, however, so completely in harmony with the spirit in which St. Gertrude writes on the Communion of Saints, that I have ventur- ed to connect it with a hymn of hers. \A^^ j»- * \V -^.'^ ">/> ,\\' V * , ••^^^^^ X '^. .^ .^.^ :i^\^ ^^y^ <^^ .^^"^.. -^. " 9 I \ .0^^ ,^^ •% ^,. v^^ ^M^ ■*op^ ^, c'i \^~ * Pl#.: ^^^..^^-^^ O C %^^r,\- -'0^' ■<^''%^ ^^-^.^ '^o 0^' /^ .^ ^ €' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 490 047 9 m