TWO olive-branches—silver; two candelabra,—gold:Precious as only tried and precious thingsAre of their essence bold,The Roman John and Paul—young heads together—Pray on, nor is there any question whetherThe image that the Emperor’s Præfect bringsFor worship will be worshipped, for alreadyThe service of their ritual is so steadyIt is as day moving to noon, and moving to night’s fold.In one white, empty chamber two brethren, yet as one,And as a sepulchre their home made bare.Ye ask what they have done?And the poor answer, “These would have no treasureSave this, that they can die.” O solemn pleasureTo see their home a casket everywhereWrought for their hour of death! Gone the slow morningsThrough which they wearied out the Emperor’s warnings!Now they would hold their jewel safe in their white walls, with prayer.The silence! One can listen how the gold morning sunSings through the air, the hush is grown so fine.Steps!—Thus intrusive runRain-storms on solitudes—A white-flashed gleaming!The brow of Jove, the cloud-white hair, the beamingCloud-swirl of beard! A voice that bids, “Incline,And offer homage!” ... How the silence tingles!The sun with air in call and echo mingles:Those brethren of closed senses—peace! they have made no sign.They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor,The lilies of their garden—head by head,The older with the newer—Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses.And now the garden of their home unclosesTo cover into secrecy the dead:Deep hidden by the roses they had watered,Lying together sanctified and slaughtered,Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread.. . . .Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid,Unclean, tormented, and that do not ceaseTheir rending cries for aid,The son of him who slew the saints, by daytimeWandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime,Is cured of his distraction and at peace:Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden,Of which his well-belovèd is the warden,Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made.
TWO olive-branches—silver; two candelabra,—gold:Precious as only tried and precious thingsAre of their essence bold,The Roman John and Paul—young heads together—Pray on, nor is there any question whetherThe image that the Emperor’s Præfect bringsFor worship will be worshipped, for alreadyThe service of their ritual is so steadyIt is as day moving to noon, and moving to night’s fold.In one white, empty chamber two brethren, yet as one,And as a sepulchre their home made bare.Ye ask what they have done?And the poor answer, “These would have no treasureSave this, that they can die.” O solemn pleasureTo see their home a casket everywhereWrought for their hour of death! Gone the slow morningsThrough which they wearied out the Emperor’s warnings!Now they would hold their jewel safe in their white walls, with prayer.The silence! One can listen how the gold morning sunSings through the air, the hush is grown so fine.Steps!—Thus intrusive runRain-storms on solitudes—A white-flashed gleaming!The brow of Jove, the cloud-white hair, the beamingCloud-swirl of beard! A voice that bids, “Incline,And offer homage!” ... How the silence tingles!The sun with air in call and echo mingles:Those brethren of closed senses—peace! they have made no sign.They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor,The lilies of their garden—head by head,The older with the newer—Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses.And now the garden of their home unclosesTo cover into secrecy the dead:Deep hidden by the roses they had watered,Lying together sanctified and slaughtered,Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread.. . . .Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid,Unclean, tormented, and that do not ceaseTheir rending cries for aid,The son of him who slew the saints, by daytimeWandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime,Is cured of his distraction and at peace:Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden,Of which his well-belovèd is the warden,Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made.
TWO olive-branches—silver; two candelabra,—gold:Precious as only tried and precious thingsAre of their essence bold,The Roman John and Paul—young heads together—Pray on, nor is there any question whetherThe image that the Emperor’s Præfect bringsFor worship will be worshipped, for alreadyThe service of their ritual is so steadyIt is as day moving to noon, and moving to night’s fold.
In one white, empty chamber two brethren, yet as one,And as a sepulchre their home made bare.Ye ask what they have done?And the poor answer, “These would have no treasureSave this, that they can die.” O solemn pleasureTo see their home a casket everywhereWrought for their hour of death! Gone the slow morningsThrough which they wearied out the Emperor’s warnings!Now they would hold their jewel safe in their white walls, with prayer.
The silence! One can listen how the gold morning sunSings through the air, the hush is grown so fine.Steps!—Thus intrusive runRain-storms on solitudes—A white-flashed gleaming!The brow of Jove, the cloud-white hair, the beamingCloud-swirl of beard! A voice that bids, “Incline,And offer homage!” ... How the silence tingles!The sun with air in call and echo mingles:Those brethren of closed senses—peace! they have made no sign.
They had not sought to gather, even for the sick and poor,The lilies of their garden—head by head,The older with the newer—Nor violet-roots from Pæstum, the weaved roses.And now the garden of their home unclosesTo cover into secrecy the dead:Deep hidden by the roses they had watered,Lying together sanctified and slaughtered,Their blood upon them underground, above the rose-leaves spread.
. . . .
Lured, as the demons wander, demons sore afraid,Unclean, tormented, and that do not ceaseTheir rending cries for aid,The son of him who slew the saints, by daytimeWandering, by night, that garden in the Maytime,Is cured of his distraction and at peace:Then glad Terentius, coming to the garden,Of which his well-belovèd is the warden,Plucketh a reed to glorify the martyrs he hath made.
SYLVESTER by an open tombBeheld Time’s vanity and doom—A lovely body, as a flower,Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower.Sylvester meditated, thoughtHis days to solitude were brought.Sight of a corpse within its grave!...To be an eremite alone were brave.Sylvester is a monk: and menGrow frequent round his holy den:Thence to a mount he leads them out,CalledFannus... through the wood they hear a shout.Sylvester builds his cloister.—Hush!Across the doorstep comes a rush,And all the monks faint with a lureThat those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure.Sylvester calls into the dark—There is a breath of those that hark—“Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!”Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease.Sylvester in the woods, as stillEven as the grave that bowed his will,When he became at first a monk,Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk.Sylvester conquers by his name:King Fannus and all Fauns lie tameBeneath it, and the wild-wood Cross,That he hath planted deep into the moss.Sylvester and his monks are clearFrom any advent warm and drearThrough any door: but sometimes heLooks with slant eyes through piles of leafery.
SYLVESTER by an open tombBeheld Time’s vanity and doom—A lovely body, as a flower,Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower.Sylvester meditated, thoughtHis days to solitude were brought.Sight of a corpse within its grave!...To be an eremite alone were brave.Sylvester is a monk: and menGrow frequent round his holy den:Thence to a mount he leads them out,CalledFannus... through the wood they hear a shout.Sylvester builds his cloister.—Hush!Across the doorstep comes a rush,And all the monks faint with a lureThat those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure.Sylvester calls into the dark—There is a breath of those that hark—“Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!”Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease.Sylvester in the woods, as stillEven as the grave that bowed his will,When he became at first a monk,Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk.Sylvester conquers by his name:King Fannus and all Fauns lie tameBeneath it, and the wild-wood Cross,That he hath planted deep into the moss.Sylvester and his monks are clearFrom any advent warm and drearThrough any door: but sometimes heLooks with slant eyes through piles of leafery.
SYLVESTER by an open tombBeheld Time’s vanity and doom—A lovely body, as a flower,Left by a ploughman’s foot, wet in a shower.
Sylvester meditated, thoughtHis days to solitude were brought.Sight of a corpse within its grave!...To be an eremite alone were brave.
Sylvester is a monk: and menGrow frequent round his holy den:Thence to a mount he leads them out,CalledFannus... through the wood they hear a shout.
Sylvester builds his cloister.—Hush!Across the doorstep comes a rush,And all the monks faint with a lureThat those in burgeoning woods lost deep endure.
Sylvester calls into the dark—There is a breath of those that hark—“Peace, peace! I am Sylvester! Peace!”Trespass and echoes and sweet motions cease.
Sylvester in the woods, as stillEven as the grave that bowed his will,When he became at first a monk,Rules every power in oak and olive-trunk.
Sylvester conquers by his name:King Fannus and all Fauns lie tameBeneath it, and the wild-wood Cross,That he hath planted deep into the moss.
Sylvester and his monks are clearFrom any advent warm and drearThrough any door: but sometimes heLooks with slant eyes through piles of leafery.
“How bare! How all the lion-desert liesBefore your cell!Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyesCould, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock,That turn to the soft mass from barren rock,Familiarly dwell.”“O Traveller, for me the empty sandsBurning to white!There nothing on the wilderness withstandsThe soul or prayer. I would not look on trees;My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze,And buried as by night.“Yea, listen! If you build a cell, at last,Turned to the wood,Your fall is near, your safety over-past;And if you plant a tree beside your doorYour fall is there beside it, and no moreThe solitude is frank and good.“For trees must have soft dampness for their growth,And interfoldTheir boughs and leaves into a screen, not loathTo hide soft, tempting creatures at their play,That, playing timbrels and bright shawms, delay,And wear one’s spirit old.“Smoothly such numberless distractions come—ImpertinenceOf multiplicity, salute and hum.Away with solitude of leafy shade,Mustering coy birds and beasts, and men waylaid,Tingling each hooded sense!“Did not God call out of a covert-woodAdam and Eve,Where, cowering under earliest sin, they stood,The hugged green-leaves in bunches round their den?Himself God called them out—so lost are menWhom forest-haunts receive!”
“How bare! How all the lion-desert liesBefore your cell!Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyesCould, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock,That turn to the soft mass from barren rock,Familiarly dwell.”“O Traveller, for me the empty sandsBurning to white!There nothing on the wilderness withstandsThe soul or prayer. I would not look on trees;My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze,And buried as by night.“Yea, listen! If you build a cell, at last,Turned to the wood,Your fall is near, your safety over-past;And if you plant a tree beside your doorYour fall is there beside it, and no moreThe solitude is frank and good.“For trees must have soft dampness for their growth,And interfoldTheir boughs and leaves into a screen, not loathTo hide soft, tempting creatures at their play,That, playing timbrels and bright shawms, delay,And wear one’s spirit old.“Smoothly such numberless distractions come—ImpertinenceOf multiplicity, salute and hum.Away with solitude of leafy shade,Mustering coy birds and beasts, and men waylaid,Tingling each hooded sense!“Did not God call out of a covert-woodAdam and Eve,Where, cowering under earliest sin, they stood,The hugged green-leaves in bunches round their den?Himself God called them out—so lost are menWhom forest-haunts receive!”
“How bare! How all the lion-desert liesBefore your cell!Behind, are leaves and boughs on which your eyesCould, as the eyes of shepherd, on his flock,That turn to the soft mass from barren rock,Familiarly dwell.”
“O Traveller, for me the empty sandsBurning to white!There nothing on the wilderness withstandsThe soul or prayer. I would not look on trees;My thoughts and will were shaken in their breeze,And buried as by night.
“Yea, listen! If you build a cell, at last,Turned to the wood,Your fall is near, your safety over-past;And if you plant a tree beside your doorYour fall is there beside it, and no moreThe solitude is frank and good.
“For trees must have soft dampness for their growth,And interfoldTheir boughs and leaves into a screen, not loathTo hide soft, tempting creatures at their play,That, playing timbrels and bright shawms, delay,And wear one’s spirit old.
“Smoothly such numberless distractions come—ImpertinenceOf multiplicity, salute and hum.Away with solitude of leafy shade,Mustering coy birds and beasts, and men waylaid,Tingling each hooded sense!
“Did not God call out of a covert-woodAdam and Eve,Where, cowering under earliest sin, they stood,The hugged green-leaves in bunches round their den?Himself God called them out—so lost are menWhom forest-haunts receive!”
THE sheep still in dew, but the skyIn sun, the far river in sun;And the incense of flowers steeped bright—Their smell as sweet light;And the shepherd-boy tethered on highTo his flock and his day’s work begun.The bees in the wind of the dawn;The larks not yet climbing aloftAs high as the Aragon Hills ...What bell-ringing thrillsThrough the bell-wether’s pastoral lorn?From the valley a bell clear and soft.The shepherd-boy kneeling in dew;The bell of his wether rung sharp;Below him the tinkle and sway,From far, far away,Of the sacring-bell, clear as a harpIn its chime of God lifted anew.For his God, in the vale, on the heightHe weeps; while the morning-larks rise.Lo, in chasuble, living and richGolden rays cross-stitch,Foreshown by magnificent light—Lo, an angel grows firm on his eyes!As an altar of marvellous stoneBefore him the mountain hath blazed,Round the angel, who lifts in the airA Sun that is there:To the sheep and the shepherd-boy shown,With the ringing of larks, God is raised.O Angel-priest, fragrant with thyme,Girt with sixfold glorious wings!O sky of the mountains aboveAdventurous Love!How through air and the larks’ watchful chimeEarth her incense, as thurifer, flings!O Sacrament, shown to a boy,More blest than the Shepherds of old,He is thine for his lifetime, castOn his mountain vast,In his joy, his great freshness of joyFrom that high, singing daylight of gold!
THE sheep still in dew, but the skyIn sun, the far river in sun;And the incense of flowers steeped bright—Their smell as sweet light;And the shepherd-boy tethered on highTo his flock and his day’s work begun.The bees in the wind of the dawn;The larks not yet climbing aloftAs high as the Aragon Hills ...What bell-ringing thrillsThrough the bell-wether’s pastoral lorn?From the valley a bell clear and soft.The shepherd-boy kneeling in dew;The bell of his wether rung sharp;Below him the tinkle and sway,From far, far away,Of the sacring-bell, clear as a harpIn its chime of God lifted anew.For his God, in the vale, on the heightHe weeps; while the morning-larks rise.Lo, in chasuble, living and richGolden rays cross-stitch,Foreshown by magnificent light—Lo, an angel grows firm on his eyes!As an altar of marvellous stoneBefore him the mountain hath blazed,Round the angel, who lifts in the airA Sun that is there:To the sheep and the shepherd-boy shown,With the ringing of larks, God is raised.O Angel-priest, fragrant with thyme,Girt with sixfold glorious wings!O sky of the mountains aboveAdventurous Love!How through air and the larks’ watchful chimeEarth her incense, as thurifer, flings!O Sacrament, shown to a boy,More blest than the Shepherds of old,He is thine for his lifetime, castOn his mountain vast,In his joy, his great freshness of joyFrom that high, singing daylight of gold!
THE sheep still in dew, but the skyIn sun, the far river in sun;And the incense of flowers steeped bright—Their smell as sweet light;And the shepherd-boy tethered on highTo his flock and his day’s work begun.
The bees in the wind of the dawn;The larks not yet climbing aloftAs high as the Aragon Hills ...What bell-ringing thrillsThrough the bell-wether’s pastoral lorn?From the valley a bell clear and soft.
The shepherd-boy kneeling in dew;The bell of his wether rung sharp;Below him the tinkle and sway,From far, far away,Of the sacring-bell, clear as a harpIn its chime of God lifted anew.
For his God, in the vale, on the heightHe weeps; while the morning-larks rise.Lo, in chasuble, living and richGolden rays cross-stitch,Foreshown by magnificent light—Lo, an angel grows firm on his eyes!
As an altar of marvellous stoneBefore him the mountain hath blazed,Round the angel, who lifts in the airA Sun that is there:To the sheep and the shepherd-boy shown,With the ringing of larks, God is raised.
O Angel-priest, fragrant with thyme,Girt with sixfold glorious wings!O sky of the mountains aboveAdventurous Love!How through air and the larks’ watchful chimeEarth her incense, as thurifer, flings!
O Sacrament, shown to a boy,More blest than the Shepherds of old,He is thine for his lifetime, castOn his mountain vast,In his joy, his great freshness of joyFrom that high, singing daylight of gold!
SUDDENLY the snow is falling fast:Slow the lovely speed,All the air being full with fulness castOn the mounded world ...And the firmamental snow will give no heed,Nor the snow terrestrial have a careFor anything its heavy deluge hides,For anything upcurledIn its mountain-hug, nor what abidesImprisoned deep of the imprisoning air.Peter of Alcantara, how wideAnd untrodden quiteSwells the sudden snow on every side,Speckled with no sign,One in uncontrollable and fearful white!. . . .Swiftly, as it came, its mood is changed ...Now it drifts a white flame of caress,As if it took design,Learnt a new art of its loveliness,And in a cave above the Saint is ranged.Hour on hour the world is flooded brightWith fair agency,In continuance a sleep, of mightTo lay death athwartAny bosom, any limbs that cannot flee:Yet safely housed the holy traveller waits,Though in that white storm caught;For the deep snow of earth its snow abatesBefore a force of deeper chastity.Little flakes, that touch with feet like birds,Touch him not at all,But lie convex in a wave that curds,Bowed upon its vault,Stooping on him almost won to fall,Yet in strength withheld, whole in its love,As a virgin praying for a priest:So in its lovely halt,So aloof from sense, it rears aboveThe saint its covert, not a flake released.
SUDDENLY the snow is falling fast:Slow the lovely speed,All the air being full with fulness castOn the mounded world ...And the firmamental snow will give no heed,Nor the snow terrestrial have a careFor anything its heavy deluge hides,For anything upcurledIn its mountain-hug, nor what abidesImprisoned deep of the imprisoning air.Peter of Alcantara, how wideAnd untrodden quiteSwells the sudden snow on every side,Speckled with no sign,One in uncontrollable and fearful white!. . . .Swiftly, as it came, its mood is changed ...Now it drifts a white flame of caress,As if it took design,Learnt a new art of its loveliness,And in a cave above the Saint is ranged.Hour on hour the world is flooded brightWith fair agency,In continuance a sleep, of mightTo lay death athwartAny bosom, any limbs that cannot flee:Yet safely housed the holy traveller waits,Though in that white storm caught;For the deep snow of earth its snow abatesBefore a force of deeper chastity.Little flakes, that touch with feet like birds,Touch him not at all,But lie convex in a wave that curds,Bowed upon its vault,Stooping on him almost won to fall,Yet in strength withheld, whole in its love,As a virgin praying for a priest:So in its lovely halt,So aloof from sense, it rears aboveThe saint its covert, not a flake released.
SUDDENLY the snow is falling fast:Slow the lovely speed,All the air being full with fulness castOn the mounded world ...And the firmamental snow will give no heed,Nor the snow terrestrial have a careFor anything its heavy deluge hides,For anything upcurledIn its mountain-hug, nor what abidesImprisoned deep of the imprisoning air.
Peter of Alcantara, how wideAnd untrodden quiteSwells the sudden snow on every side,Speckled with no sign,One in uncontrollable and fearful white!
. . . .
Swiftly, as it came, its mood is changed ...Now it drifts a white flame of caress,As if it took design,Learnt a new art of its loveliness,And in a cave above the Saint is ranged.
Hour on hour the world is flooded brightWith fair agency,In continuance a sleep, of mightTo lay death athwartAny bosom, any limbs that cannot flee:Yet safely housed the holy traveller waits,Though in that white storm caught;For the deep snow of earth its snow abatesBefore a force of deeper chastity.
Little flakes, that touch with feet like birds,Touch him not at all,But lie convex in a wave that curds,Bowed upon its vault,Stooping on him almost won to fall,Yet in strength withheld, whole in its love,As a virgin praying for a priest:So in its lovely halt,So aloof from sense, it rears aboveThe saint its covert, not a flake released.
BLESSED with joy, as daybreak under cloud—Tender light of youth in the old face—Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroudOf the years before this day of Grace,Simeon blesses God and praises Him,As a little child and mother slimWith first girlhood come their wayToward his face, and night becometh day.Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land!Wide the welcome and the peace of joy!But he takes the infant on his hand,Graciously receives the milking boyFrom the mother’s bosom, from her heart,While she stands in reverence apart.Lo, the old man’s countenance,In a wave of anguish breaks from trance!All the features lift with power, and sink,As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolledThrough them, from a sudden thought they think.Can a child of but a few weeks oldSo confuse with terror an old man?Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span,Is for the ruin or the riseOf the generations, Simeon cries.Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleekAs a pearl—and the dire earthquake’s powerIn his little body set, to wreakDread requital on the souls that cowerMad with desolation, naked, lost,Or uplifted wild from a dead host:For the rise and ruin setOf so many—but not yet, not yet!Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turnsTo the slender Mother, bright and bowed.Woe again! A flawless lightning burnsThrough his eyes and his weak voice rings loud,How a sword shall pierce her heart aloneThat out of many hearts their thoughts be shown.Simeon, terror masks all joyIn this Mother and her milking Boy!
BLESSED with joy, as daybreak under cloud—Tender light of youth in the old face—Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroudOf the years before this day of Grace,Simeon blesses God and praises Him,As a little child and mother slimWith first girlhood come their wayToward his face, and night becometh day.Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land!Wide the welcome and the peace of joy!But he takes the infant on his hand,Graciously receives the milking boyFrom the mother’s bosom, from her heart,While she stands in reverence apart.Lo, the old man’s countenance,In a wave of anguish breaks from trance!All the features lift with power, and sink,As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolledThrough them, from a sudden thought they think.Can a child of but a few weeks oldSo confuse with terror an old man?Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span,Is for the ruin or the riseOf the generations, Simeon cries.Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleekAs a pearl—and the dire earthquake’s powerIn his little body set, to wreakDread requital on the souls that cowerMad with desolation, naked, lost,Or uplifted wild from a dead host:For the rise and ruin setOf so many—but not yet, not yet!Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turnsTo the slender Mother, bright and bowed.Woe again! A flawless lightning burnsThrough his eyes and his weak voice rings loud,How a sword shall pierce her heart aloneThat out of many hearts their thoughts be shown.Simeon, terror masks all joyIn this Mother and her milking Boy!
BLESSED with joy, as daybreak under cloud—Tender light of youth in the old face—Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroudOf the years before this day of Grace,Simeon blesses God and praises Him,As a little child and mother slimWith first girlhood come their wayToward his face, and night becometh day.
Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land!Wide the welcome and the peace of joy!But he takes the infant on his hand,Graciously receives the milking boyFrom the mother’s bosom, from her heart,While she stands in reverence apart.Lo, the old man’s countenance,In a wave of anguish breaks from trance!
All the features lift with power, and sink,As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolledThrough them, from a sudden thought they think.Can a child of but a few weeks oldSo confuse with terror an old man?Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span,Is for the ruin or the riseOf the generations, Simeon cries.
Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleekAs a pearl—and the dire earthquake’s powerIn his little body set, to wreakDread requital on the souls that cowerMad with desolation, naked, lost,Or uplifted wild from a dead host:For the rise and ruin setOf so many—but not yet, not yet!
Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turnsTo the slender Mother, bright and bowed.Woe again! A flawless lightning burnsThrough his eyes and his weak voice rings loud,How a sword shall pierce her heart aloneThat out of many hearts their thoughts be shown.Simeon, terror masks all joyIn this Mother and her milking Boy!
WHAT is it thou hast seen,O desert prophet, hung with camel’s hair, and lean?What makes thine eyes so wide?Not the huge desert where the camel-owners ride;But One, who comes along,So humble in His steps, and yet to Him belongThy days in their surcease,Because He must increase as thou must now decrease.Behold thy God, whose strengthIs as the coiling-in of thy life’s length!Thou of wide eyes, wide soul,Thy heart-blood as He comes to thee heaves on its goal!Saint of the sinner, John,Those whom thy lustral water hath been poured upon,Those who have kept thy fastWith locusts and wild honey and long hours have passedIn penance, when they seeChrist coming toward them, young and fair with what shall be,And giving God delight,They know, by very doom of that remorseless sight,That they, as they have been,Will fade away, diminish and no more be seen:They must, O desert saint,Bow them to certain death and yet they must not faint,And yet they must proclaimThe obliterating flourish of their Slayer’s name.
WHAT is it thou hast seen,O desert prophet, hung with camel’s hair, and lean?What makes thine eyes so wide?Not the huge desert where the camel-owners ride;But One, who comes along,So humble in His steps, and yet to Him belongThy days in their surcease,Because He must increase as thou must now decrease.Behold thy God, whose strengthIs as the coiling-in of thy life’s length!Thou of wide eyes, wide soul,Thy heart-blood as He comes to thee heaves on its goal!Saint of the sinner, John,Those whom thy lustral water hath been poured upon,Those who have kept thy fastWith locusts and wild honey and long hours have passedIn penance, when they seeChrist coming toward them, young and fair with what shall be,And giving God delight,They know, by very doom of that remorseless sight,That they, as they have been,Will fade away, diminish and no more be seen:They must, O desert saint,Bow them to certain death and yet they must not faint,And yet they must proclaimThe obliterating flourish of their Slayer’s name.
WHAT is it thou hast seen,O desert prophet, hung with camel’s hair, and lean?What makes thine eyes so wide?Not the huge desert where the camel-owners ride;But One, who comes along,So humble in His steps, and yet to Him belongThy days in their surcease,Because He must increase as thou must now decrease.Behold thy God, whose strengthIs as the coiling-in of thy life’s length!Thou of wide eyes, wide soul,Thy heart-blood as He comes to thee heaves on its goal!
Saint of the sinner, John,Those whom thy lustral water hath been poured upon,Those who have kept thy fastWith locusts and wild honey and long hours have passedIn penance, when they seeChrist coming toward them, young and fair with what shall be,And giving God delight,They know, by very doom of that remorseless sight,That they, as they have been,Will fade away, diminish and no more be seen:They must, O desert saint,Bow them to certain death and yet they must not faint,And yet they must proclaimThe obliterating flourish of their Slayer’s name.
HOW lovely is a silver winter-dayOf sturdy ice.That clogs the hidden river’s tiniest bayWith diamond-stone of priceTo make an empress cast her dazzling stonesUpon its light as hail—So little its effulgency condonesHer diamonds’ denser trailOf radiance on the air!How strange this ice, so motionless and still,Yet calling as with music to our feet,So that they chafe and dareTheir swiftest motion to repeatThese harmonies of challenge, sounds that fillThe floor of ice, as the crystalline sphereAround the heavens is filled with such a songThat, when they hear,The stars, each in their heaven, are drawn along!Oh, see, a dancer! One whose feetMove on unshod with steel!She is not skating fleetOn toe and heel,But only tip-toe dances in a whirl,A lovely dancing-girl,Upon the frozen surface of the stream.Without a wonder, it would seem,She could not keep her sway,The balance of her limbsSure on the musical, iced river-wayThat, sparkling, dimsHer trinkets as they swing, so high its sparksTingle the sun and scatter song like larks.She dances mid the sumptuous whiteness setOf winter’s sunniest noon;She dances as the sun-rays that forgetIn winter sunset falleth soonTo sheer sunset:She dances with a languor through the frostAs she had never lost,In lands where there is snow,The Orient’s immeasurable glow.Who is this dancer white—A creature slight,Weaving the East upon a stream of ice,That in a triceMight trip the dance and fling the dancer down?Does she not know deeps under ice can drown?This is Salome, in a western land,An exile with Herodias, her mother,With Herod and Herodias:And she has sought the river’s icy mass,Companioned by no other,To dance upon the ice—each handHeld, as a snow-bird’s wings,In heavy poise.Ecstatic, with no noise,Athwart the ice her dream, her spell she flings;And Winter in a rapture of delightFlings up and down the spangles of her light.Oh, hearken, hearken!... Ice and frost,From these cajoling motions freed,Have straight given heedTo Will more firm. In their obedienceTheir masses denseAre riven as by a sword....Where is the Vision by the snow adored?The Vision is no moreSeen from the noontide shore.Oh, fearful crash of thunder from the stream,As there were thunder-clouds upon its wave!Could nothing saveThe dancer in the noontide beam?She is engulphed and all the dance is done.Bright leaps the noontide sun—But stay, what leaps beneath it? A gold head,That twinkles with its jewels brightAs water-drops....O murdered Baptist of the severed head,Her head was caught and girded tight,And severed by the ice-brook sword, and spedIn dance that never stops.It skims and hopsAcross the ice that rasped it. Smooth and gay,And void of care,It takes its sunny way:But underneath the golden hair,And underneath those jewel-sparks,Keen noontide marksA little face as grey as evening ice;Lips, open in a scream no soul may hearEyes fixed as they beheld the silver plateThat they at Macherontis once beheld;While the hair trails, although so fleet and niceThe motion of the head as subjugateTo its own law: yet in the face what fear,To what excess compelled!Salome’s head is dancing on the brightAnd silver ice. O holy John, how stillWas laid thy head upon the salver white,When thou hadst done God’s Will!
HOW lovely is a silver winter-dayOf sturdy ice.That clogs the hidden river’s tiniest bayWith diamond-stone of priceTo make an empress cast her dazzling stonesUpon its light as hail—So little its effulgency condonesHer diamonds’ denser trailOf radiance on the air!How strange this ice, so motionless and still,Yet calling as with music to our feet,So that they chafe and dareTheir swiftest motion to repeatThese harmonies of challenge, sounds that fillThe floor of ice, as the crystalline sphereAround the heavens is filled with such a songThat, when they hear,The stars, each in their heaven, are drawn along!Oh, see, a dancer! One whose feetMove on unshod with steel!She is not skating fleetOn toe and heel,But only tip-toe dances in a whirl,A lovely dancing-girl,Upon the frozen surface of the stream.Without a wonder, it would seem,She could not keep her sway,The balance of her limbsSure on the musical, iced river-wayThat, sparkling, dimsHer trinkets as they swing, so high its sparksTingle the sun and scatter song like larks.She dances mid the sumptuous whiteness setOf winter’s sunniest noon;She dances as the sun-rays that forgetIn winter sunset falleth soonTo sheer sunset:She dances with a languor through the frostAs she had never lost,In lands where there is snow,The Orient’s immeasurable glow.Who is this dancer white—A creature slight,Weaving the East upon a stream of ice,That in a triceMight trip the dance and fling the dancer down?Does she not know deeps under ice can drown?This is Salome, in a western land,An exile with Herodias, her mother,With Herod and Herodias:And she has sought the river’s icy mass,Companioned by no other,To dance upon the ice—each handHeld, as a snow-bird’s wings,In heavy poise.Ecstatic, with no noise,Athwart the ice her dream, her spell she flings;And Winter in a rapture of delightFlings up and down the spangles of her light.Oh, hearken, hearken!... Ice and frost,From these cajoling motions freed,Have straight given heedTo Will more firm. In their obedienceTheir masses denseAre riven as by a sword....Where is the Vision by the snow adored?The Vision is no moreSeen from the noontide shore.Oh, fearful crash of thunder from the stream,As there were thunder-clouds upon its wave!Could nothing saveThe dancer in the noontide beam?She is engulphed and all the dance is done.Bright leaps the noontide sun—But stay, what leaps beneath it? A gold head,That twinkles with its jewels brightAs water-drops....O murdered Baptist of the severed head,Her head was caught and girded tight,And severed by the ice-brook sword, and spedIn dance that never stops.It skims and hopsAcross the ice that rasped it. Smooth and gay,And void of care,It takes its sunny way:But underneath the golden hair,And underneath those jewel-sparks,Keen noontide marksA little face as grey as evening ice;Lips, open in a scream no soul may hearEyes fixed as they beheld the silver plateThat they at Macherontis once beheld;While the hair trails, although so fleet and niceThe motion of the head as subjugateTo its own law: yet in the face what fear,To what excess compelled!Salome’s head is dancing on the brightAnd silver ice. O holy John, how stillWas laid thy head upon the salver white,When thou hadst done God’s Will!
HOW lovely is a silver winter-dayOf sturdy ice.That clogs the hidden river’s tiniest bayWith diamond-stone of priceTo make an empress cast her dazzling stonesUpon its light as hail—So little its effulgency condonesHer diamonds’ denser trailOf radiance on the air!How strange this ice, so motionless and still,Yet calling as with music to our feet,So that they chafe and dareTheir swiftest motion to repeatThese harmonies of challenge, sounds that fillThe floor of ice, as the crystalline sphereAround the heavens is filled with such a songThat, when they hear,The stars, each in their heaven, are drawn along!
Oh, see, a dancer! One whose feetMove on unshod with steel!She is not skating fleetOn toe and heel,But only tip-toe dances in a whirl,A lovely dancing-girl,Upon the frozen surface of the stream.Without a wonder, it would seem,She could not keep her sway,The balance of her limbsSure on the musical, iced river-wayThat, sparkling, dimsHer trinkets as they swing, so high its sparksTingle the sun and scatter song like larks.
She dances mid the sumptuous whiteness setOf winter’s sunniest noon;She dances as the sun-rays that forgetIn winter sunset falleth soonTo sheer sunset:She dances with a languor through the frostAs she had never lost,In lands where there is snow,The Orient’s immeasurable glow.
Who is this dancer white—A creature slight,Weaving the East upon a stream of ice,That in a triceMight trip the dance and fling the dancer down?Does she not know deeps under ice can drown?
This is Salome, in a western land,An exile with Herodias, her mother,With Herod and Herodias:And she has sought the river’s icy mass,Companioned by no other,To dance upon the ice—each handHeld, as a snow-bird’s wings,In heavy poise.Ecstatic, with no noise,Athwart the ice her dream, her spell she flings;And Winter in a rapture of delightFlings up and down the spangles of her light.
Oh, hearken, hearken!... Ice and frost,From these cajoling motions freed,Have straight given heedTo Will more firm. In their obedienceTheir masses denseAre riven as by a sword....Where is the Vision by the snow adored?The Vision is no moreSeen from the noontide shore.Oh, fearful crash of thunder from the stream,As there were thunder-clouds upon its wave!Could nothing saveThe dancer in the noontide beam?She is engulphed and all the dance is done.Bright leaps the noontide sun—But stay, what leaps beneath it? A gold head,That twinkles with its jewels brightAs water-drops....O murdered Baptist of the severed head,Her head was caught and girded tight,And severed by the ice-brook sword, and spedIn dance that never stops.It skims and hopsAcross the ice that rasped it. Smooth and gay,And void of care,It takes its sunny way:But underneath the golden hair,And underneath those jewel-sparks,Keen noontide marksA little face as grey as evening ice;Lips, open in a scream no soul may hearEyes fixed as they beheld the silver plateThat they at Macherontis once beheld;While the hair trails, although so fleet and niceThe motion of the head as subjugateTo its own law: yet in the face what fear,To what excess compelled!
Salome’s head is dancing on the brightAnd silver ice. O holy John, how stillWas laid thy head upon the salver white,When thou hadst done God’s Will!
O INSTRUMENT of God, baptizing menIn vehement, lone Jordan of the wilds,Amid the rushes, whenThou wert startled by the sightOf One coming, simply brightAs a Lamb, across the sand,Thou didst tremble to abideIn the shallows and to dash the tideOf the current on a HeadThat must bow beneath the sin of men!Thou wouldst only, at command,Keep thy awful station, grown more awful then.But thou wert obedient to His word,Who was greater beyond words than thou,As thy lips averred:And, obedient, thou wert blestWith the presence manifestOf the Holy Trinity—Thou the Body of the SonDidst behold on which thy rite was done;Thou didst hear the Father’s Voice,As the firmament soft thunder heard;And thy senses, blest to hear and see,Might behold the Spirit poised, a sunlit Bird.
O INSTRUMENT of God, baptizing menIn vehement, lone Jordan of the wilds,Amid the rushes, whenThou wert startled by the sightOf One coming, simply brightAs a Lamb, across the sand,Thou didst tremble to abideIn the shallows and to dash the tideOf the current on a HeadThat must bow beneath the sin of men!Thou wouldst only, at command,Keep thy awful station, grown more awful then.But thou wert obedient to His word,Who was greater beyond words than thou,As thy lips averred:And, obedient, thou wert blestWith the presence manifestOf the Holy Trinity—Thou the Body of the SonDidst behold on which thy rite was done;Thou didst hear the Father’s Voice,As the firmament soft thunder heard;And thy senses, blest to hear and see,Might behold the Spirit poised, a sunlit Bird.
O INSTRUMENT of God, baptizing menIn vehement, lone Jordan of the wilds,Amid the rushes, whenThou wert startled by the sightOf One coming, simply brightAs a Lamb, across the sand,Thou didst tremble to abideIn the shallows and to dash the tideOf the current on a HeadThat must bow beneath the sin of men!Thou wouldst only, at command,Keep thy awful station, grown more awful then.
But thou wert obedient to His word,Who was greater beyond words than thou,As thy lips averred:And, obedient, thou wert blestWith the presence manifestOf the Holy Trinity—Thou the Body of the SonDidst behold on which thy rite was done;Thou didst hear the Father’s Voice,As the firmament soft thunder heard;And thy senses, blest to hear and see,Might behold the Spirit poised, a sunlit Bird.
GARDEN by the brook,The brook Kedron—Olive-silvered nook,Red flowers to kneel on:There in blood and strife divine,There a Eucharist outspread,Christ gave the Father in a chalice Wine,And in His yielded Will He offered Bread.Garden on the hill,Mount Golgotha,Have you a running rillFrom your rocky spur?“Yea, a water from His side,Who was hanging on a Tree:Son of Man, they called Him, and He died,And is hidden in my rock with me.”
GARDEN by the brook,The brook Kedron—Olive-silvered nook,Red flowers to kneel on:There in blood and strife divine,There a Eucharist outspread,Christ gave the Father in a chalice Wine,And in His yielded Will He offered Bread.Garden on the hill,Mount Golgotha,Have you a running rillFrom your rocky spur?“Yea, a water from His side,Who was hanging on a Tree:Son of Man, they called Him, and He died,And is hidden in my rock with me.”
GARDEN by the brook,The brook Kedron—Olive-silvered nook,Red flowers to kneel on:There in blood and strife divine,There a Eucharist outspread,Christ gave the Father in a chalice Wine,And in His yielded Will He offered Bread.
Garden on the hill,Mount Golgotha,Have you a running rillFrom your rocky spur?“Yea, a water from His side,Who was hanging on a Tree:Son of Man, they called Him, and He died,And is hidden in my rock with me.”
WHAT art Thou sowing in the garden-ground,Sowing, sowing with such pain?Clouds are overhead, and all aroundSpring hath fallen spring-rainOf seed-growing power.Lo, where Thou bowest down, it seems a showerHath laid the grass, as rain ran through,Engendering rain, stronger than early dew.It is Thy Agony that pierces deepThrough the sod of that still place;For Thou bowest down where Thou dost weep,Bowest down Thy face;And Thou sowest seed,Drops of Thy most Holy Blood, that bleedThrough brow and limbs in sweat, and stayRed on the Earth, while the tears sink away.Sower, what herb shall spring, what flower be born?Will pomegranate-apples hang,When we pass this way, some morn?Struck with spring’s own pang,Thisour eyes will see—Faith that shoulders great buds lustily;Hope that shoots up a hundredfold;And Love in roses wondrous to behold.
WHAT art Thou sowing in the garden-ground,Sowing, sowing with such pain?Clouds are overhead, and all aroundSpring hath fallen spring-rainOf seed-growing power.Lo, where Thou bowest down, it seems a showerHath laid the grass, as rain ran through,Engendering rain, stronger than early dew.It is Thy Agony that pierces deepThrough the sod of that still place;For Thou bowest down where Thou dost weep,Bowest down Thy face;And Thou sowest seed,Drops of Thy most Holy Blood, that bleedThrough brow and limbs in sweat, and stayRed on the Earth, while the tears sink away.Sower, what herb shall spring, what flower be born?Will pomegranate-apples hang,When we pass this way, some morn?Struck with spring’s own pang,Thisour eyes will see—Faith that shoulders great buds lustily;Hope that shoots up a hundredfold;And Love in roses wondrous to behold.
WHAT art Thou sowing in the garden-ground,Sowing, sowing with such pain?Clouds are overhead, and all aroundSpring hath fallen spring-rainOf seed-growing power.Lo, where Thou bowest down, it seems a showerHath laid the grass, as rain ran through,Engendering rain, stronger than early dew.
It is Thy Agony that pierces deepThrough the sod of that still place;For Thou bowest down where Thou dost weep,Bowest down Thy face;And Thou sowest seed,Drops of Thy most Holy Blood, that bleedThrough brow and limbs in sweat, and stayRed on the Earth, while the tears sink away.
Sower, what herb shall spring, what flower be born?Will pomegranate-apples hang,When we pass this way, some morn?Struck with spring’s own pang,Thisour eyes will see—Faith that shoulders great buds lustily;Hope that shoots up a hundredfold;And Love in roses wondrous to behold.
THEY call the cohort from all sides together....There is a king, a king of mockery,His kingdom a pretence,An actor to be dressed for all to see,Whose body oozes from the cords or leatherThat struck with lashes dense—There is a king to mock, a make-believeTo be derided, a poor form to grieveWith haughty purple of the robe of state,And acclamations powerless to elate;A victim to be tortured and made grandWith clothes whose pomp He cannot understand,Claiming with slavish brow their heritage:There is the mocking of a solemn dupe,With laughter and a jollity of rage.They call together, like the vultures calledTo feast on what is yet a feast forestalled,The cohort in a troop.O Martyrs, press together from all regions,You have a King, a King for whom you died—His kingdom built on gems—And ye are dressed in purple from His side;The stoles of glory, clothing all your legion,His purple to their hems!Press round Him whom the Romans mocked that day,Press round Him, Martyrs; keep His foes at bay!And let me, though far off from your bright redOf vestures triumphing in Blood He shed,Yet wrap my heart in His deep sanguine robe,Ensanguined from the scourge, and nails that probe,And spear that cleaves! Wrapt in His Blood, O heart,We must bear witness that His purple dressIs not the dressing of an actor’s part,But of a Royalty no woof of manMight clothe that Day of Woe, nor ever can—That is the Martyr’s dress.
THEY call the cohort from all sides together....There is a king, a king of mockery,His kingdom a pretence,An actor to be dressed for all to see,Whose body oozes from the cords or leatherThat struck with lashes dense—There is a king to mock, a make-believeTo be derided, a poor form to grieveWith haughty purple of the robe of state,And acclamations powerless to elate;A victim to be tortured and made grandWith clothes whose pomp He cannot understand,Claiming with slavish brow their heritage:There is the mocking of a solemn dupe,With laughter and a jollity of rage.They call together, like the vultures calledTo feast on what is yet a feast forestalled,The cohort in a troop.O Martyrs, press together from all regions,You have a King, a King for whom you died—His kingdom built on gems—And ye are dressed in purple from His side;The stoles of glory, clothing all your legion,His purple to their hems!Press round Him whom the Romans mocked that day,Press round Him, Martyrs; keep His foes at bay!And let me, though far off from your bright redOf vestures triumphing in Blood He shed,Yet wrap my heart in His deep sanguine robe,Ensanguined from the scourge, and nails that probe,And spear that cleaves! Wrapt in His Blood, O heart,We must bear witness that His purple dressIs not the dressing of an actor’s part,But of a Royalty no woof of manMight clothe that Day of Woe, nor ever can—That is the Martyr’s dress.
THEY call the cohort from all sides together....There is a king, a king of mockery,His kingdom a pretence,An actor to be dressed for all to see,Whose body oozes from the cords or leatherThat struck with lashes dense—There is a king to mock, a make-believeTo be derided, a poor form to grieveWith haughty purple of the robe of state,And acclamations powerless to elate;A victim to be tortured and made grandWith clothes whose pomp He cannot understand,Claiming with slavish brow their heritage:There is the mocking of a solemn dupe,With laughter and a jollity of rage.They call together, like the vultures calledTo feast on what is yet a feast forestalled,The cohort in a troop.
O Martyrs, press together from all regions,You have a King, a King for whom you died—His kingdom built on gems—And ye are dressed in purple from His side;The stoles of glory, clothing all your legion,His purple to their hems!Press round Him whom the Romans mocked that day,Press round Him, Martyrs; keep His foes at bay!And let me, though far off from your bright redOf vestures triumphing in Blood He shed,Yet wrap my heart in His deep sanguine robe,Ensanguined from the scourge, and nails that probe,And spear that cleaves! Wrapt in His Blood, O heart,We must bear witness that His purple dressIs not the dressing of an actor’s part,But of a Royalty no woof of manMight clothe that Day of Woe, nor ever can—That is the Martyr’s dress.
WHAT is the desert? Thirst,And very immolation’s loneliness!Upon that land of death dry ridges press,Like to sand-drifts on the tongue—And the sequestered heart through fear will burst.Armies have gone along,Defeated, to oblivion amongThe naught of those bare sands—Banners and horses and bright-harnessed bands.None hath beheld the banners wave and slipAbyssward, and the horses, under whipOf crazy dust, plunge downWith manes sand-tossed,Beneath the plain they crossed,Making athwart the breadth a little frown,Gone in its very moment, like the smileThat followed, as the horsemen flashed awhileAbove the grave, and sank bright, and were gone.O desert, full of plots,On lapping water, of sleek palm-tree knots,And isles in haunted channels; cruel earth,Mirage of desolation, grace of dearth,Many have died in anguish at the painNever to drink those lakes that gibe and wane!“I thirst”—“My God, Thou hast forsaken Me!”Parched, sinking in abysses mortally,O Christ, and there is none to succour Thee,Water of Life, perpetual Deity!
WHAT is the desert? Thirst,And very immolation’s loneliness!Upon that land of death dry ridges press,Like to sand-drifts on the tongue—And the sequestered heart through fear will burst.Armies have gone along,Defeated, to oblivion amongThe naught of those bare sands—Banners and horses and bright-harnessed bands.None hath beheld the banners wave and slipAbyssward, and the horses, under whipOf crazy dust, plunge downWith manes sand-tossed,Beneath the plain they crossed,Making athwart the breadth a little frown,Gone in its very moment, like the smileThat followed, as the horsemen flashed awhileAbove the grave, and sank bright, and were gone.O desert, full of plots,On lapping water, of sleek palm-tree knots,And isles in haunted channels; cruel earth,Mirage of desolation, grace of dearth,Many have died in anguish at the painNever to drink those lakes that gibe and wane!“I thirst”—“My God, Thou hast forsaken Me!”Parched, sinking in abysses mortally,O Christ, and there is none to succour Thee,Water of Life, perpetual Deity!
WHAT is the desert? Thirst,And very immolation’s loneliness!Upon that land of death dry ridges press,Like to sand-drifts on the tongue—And the sequestered heart through fear will burst.
Armies have gone along,Defeated, to oblivion amongThe naught of those bare sands—Banners and horses and bright-harnessed bands.None hath beheld the banners wave and slipAbyssward, and the horses, under whipOf crazy dust, plunge downWith manes sand-tossed,Beneath the plain they crossed,Making athwart the breadth a little frown,Gone in its very moment, like the smileThat followed, as the horsemen flashed awhileAbove the grave, and sank bright, and were gone.
O desert, full of plots,On lapping water, of sleek palm-tree knots,And isles in haunted channels; cruel earth,Mirage of desolation, grace of dearth,Many have died in anguish at the painNever to drink those lakes that gibe and wane!“I thirst”—“My God, Thou hast forsaken Me!”Parched, sinking in abysses mortally,O Christ, and there is none to succour Thee,Water of Life, perpetual Deity!
THERE were trees that spring—One on a little hill,One in a small, green field.One stood a leaf-stripped thing;One had begun to fillWith leaves from shoots unsealed,With purple flowers along the wood—So those trees stood.One bore up a FormOn the clean branches nailed,Ineffable in peace:One bent as if a stormIn its descent had trailedDown the red blossom-fleece;And where the boughs most sullen hungA crisped form swung.One the Tree of Life—Both near Jerusalem—And one of Death the Tree!One bore a bitter strife;A cry came from its stem:“Thou hast forsaken Me!”The other heard no sound at all,Save a dumb fall.Both were gibbet-trees—From one was said, “Forgive!They know not what they do.”One rocked in purple breezeDespair, that would not live,Nor trust forgiveness:—no!And from the wreathèd branches fellA soul to Hell.
THERE were trees that spring—One on a little hill,One in a small, green field.One stood a leaf-stripped thing;One had begun to fillWith leaves from shoots unsealed,With purple flowers along the wood—So those trees stood.One bore up a FormOn the clean branches nailed,Ineffable in peace:One bent as if a stormIn its descent had trailedDown the red blossom-fleece;And where the boughs most sullen hungA crisped form swung.One the Tree of Life—Both near Jerusalem—And one of Death the Tree!One bore a bitter strife;A cry came from its stem:“Thou hast forsaken Me!”The other heard no sound at all,Save a dumb fall.Both were gibbet-trees—From one was said, “Forgive!They know not what they do.”One rocked in purple breezeDespair, that would not live,Nor trust forgiveness:—no!And from the wreathèd branches fellA soul to Hell.
THERE were trees that spring—One on a little hill,One in a small, green field.One stood a leaf-stripped thing;One had begun to fillWith leaves from shoots unsealed,With purple flowers along the wood—So those trees stood.
One bore up a FormOn the clean branches nailed,Ineffable in peace:One bent as if a stormIn its descent had trailedDown the red blossom-fleece;And where the boughs most sullen hungA crisped form swung.
One the Tree of Life—Both near Jerusalem—And one of Death the Tree!One bore a bitter strife;A cry came from its stem:“Thou hast forsaken Me!”The other heard no sound at all,Save a dumb fall.
Both were gibbet-trees—From one was said, “Forgive!They know not what they do.”One rocked in purple breezeDespair, that would not live,Nor trust forgiveness:—no!And from the wreathèd branches fellA soul to Hell.
SHAKEN by winds to sigh, to song,One reed amid the misty throngThat to a reed-bed, Christ, belong—One reed amongThose who are reeds to every wind,Now in Thy Presence, now declined:Cut me away from dim caprice,And sheer me from the reedy fleece!Let my poor, shivering motion cease,Dead of Thy peace:A reed and no more shaken—yea,No more a slant sedge-reed I pray!No more! But, Mercy infinite,Let me not be a reed to smiteThe thorns within Thy forehead tight,And urge to sightThy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain!Better the devious winds again!Upon Thy lips let me but laySuch sour, dun vintage as I may;Push not the sponge-tipped spear away,But let it stay!Oh, let the bitter draught through meBring to Thy Cross some lenity!
SHAKEN by winds to sigh, to song,One reed amid the misty throngThat to a reed-bed, Christ, belong—One reed amongThose who are reeds to every wind,Now in Thy Presence, now declined:Cut me away from dim caprice,And sheer me from the reedy fleece!Let my poor, shivering motion cease,Dead of Thy peace:A reed and no more shaken—yea,No more a slant sedge-reed I pray!No more! But, Mercy infinite,Let me not be a reed to smiteThe thorns within Thy forehead tight,And urge to sightThy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain!Better the devious winds again!Upon Thy lips let me but laySuch sour, dun vintage as I may;Push not the sponge-tipped spear away,But let it stay!Oh, let the bitter draught through meBring to Thy Cross some lenity!
SHAKEN by winds to sigh, to song,One reed amid the misty throngThat to a reed-bed, Christ, belong—One reed amongThose who are reeds to every wind,Now in Thy Presence, now declined:
Cut me away from dim caprice,And sheer me from the reedy fleece!Let my poor, shivering motion cease,Dead of Thy peace:A reed and no more shaken—yea,No more a slant sedge-reed I pray!
No more! But, Mercy infinite,Let me not be a reed to smiteThe thorns within Thy forehead tight,And urge to sightThy sacred Blood and urge Thy pain!Better the devious winds again!
Upon Thy lips let me but laySuch sour, dun vintage as I may;Push not the sponge-tipped spear away,But let it stay!Oh, let the bitter draught through meBring to Thy Cross some lenity!
IN the Orient heat He stands—Heat that makes the palm-trees dim,Palms that do not shelter Him,As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands.As a lizard of the rocks,Under furnace-sun He stays;Earth beneath Him in a dazeIs faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks.He among them mid the blue,With a mouth wide open held,As a lion-fountain welledUnder the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through.Wide His mouth as lion’s, setWide for waters of a fount!Through them words of challenge mount,Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met.“Ye the thirsty come to Me!”So He cries with lion-roar:“Ye will thirst not any more.Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free.Jesus, in the Eastern sun,A strange prophet with His cry!While the folk are passing by,And clack their tongues, nor will they run where thirst is done.
IN the Orient heat He stands—Heat that makes the palm-trees dim,Palms that do not shelter Him,As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands.As a lizard of the rocks,Under furnace-sun He stays;Earth beneath Him in a dazeIs faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks.He among them mid the blue,With a mouth wide open held,As a lion-fountain welledUnder the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through.Wide His mouth as lion’s, setWide for waters of a fount!Through them words of challenge mount,Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met.“Ye the thirsty come to Me!”So He cries with lion-roar:“Ye will thirst not any more.Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free.Jesus, in the Eastern sun,A strange prophet with His cry!While the folk are passing by,And clack their tongues, nor will they run where thirst is done.
IN the Orient heat He stands—Heat that makes the palm-trees dim,Palms that do not shelter Him,As under the fierce blue He stands with outstretched hands.
As a lizard of the rocks,Under furnace-sun He stays;Earth beneath Him in a dazeIs faint and trembling, spite of rocks, in shadeless blocks.
He among them mid the blue,With a mouth wide open held,As a lion-fountain welledUnder the spaciousness of blue, the heat throbs through.
Wide His mouth as lion’s, setWide for waters of a fount!Through them words of challenge mount,Great words that cry through them, wide-set, where men have met.
“Ye the thirsty come to Me!”So He cries with lion-roar:“Ye will thirst not any more.Come!” and He stands for all to see, and offers free.
Jesus, in the Eastern sun,A strange prophet with His cry!While the folk are passing by,And clack their tongues, nor will they run where thirst is done.
THIS sin is unto death. Whose death? Fair tombOf virgin rock, not for my corse such room!Where never man hath lainShall I by sin attain—Among the unpolluted crystals lieIn my malignity?For I have killed my God, and I beholdHis burial, behold His Body rolledIn a new sheet with nard,And in the grotto hardLying as hard—O tenderest Love!—as blockOf that new-cloven rock.As a vile, wandering spectre I must stray,Now I have quenched the Light, that was my Day,By wickedness, almostAgainst the Holy Ghost,Laying within His tomb God, laying HimWound tight in face and limb.I cannot see! My eyes are wells that beatFountains of tears forth on my hands and feet:With fire of pain I cry,That angels of the skyCome forth.... “My God, arise and live once more!My sin I will abhor!“Divine One, be not dead and put away!O Holy Ghost, blow down the stone, I pray,Though it should crush me thereOutspread, the worst I dare.Divine One, mid the tombs, with pardoning graceUnwrap Thy limbs, Thy face!“Austere come forth upon me as grey dawn!Well it had been that I had not been born,Who could Thy burial see!....What will become of me,Unless Thou wilt arise and bid me live,Unless Thou wilt forgive?”But there is Easter every day and hourWhen by the crevice of Thy tomb we cower,Ghosts from dank night, and call,And wait for one footfallOf the arising, awful Love we doomedOurselves to lie entombed.
THIS sin is unto death. Whose death? Fair tombOf virgin rock, not for my corse such room!Where never man hath lainShall I by sin attain—Among the unpolluted crystals lieIn my malignity?For I have killed my God, and I beholdHis burial, behold His Body rolledIn a new sheet with nard,And in the grotto hardLying as hard—O tenderest Love!—as blockOf that new-cloven rock.As a vile, wandering spectre I must stray,Now I have quenched the Light, that was my Day,By wickedness, almostAgainst the Holy Ghost,Laying within His tomb God, laying HimWound tight in face and limb.I cannot see! My eyes are wells that beatFountains of tears forth on my hands and feet:With fire of pain I cry,That angels of the skyCome forth.... “My God, arise and live once more!My sin I will abhor!“Divine One, be not dead and put away!O Holy Ghost, blow down the stone, I pray,Though it should crush me thereOutspread, the worst I dare.Divine One, mid the tombs, with pardoning graceUnwrap Thy limbs, Thy face!“Austere come forth upon me as grey dawn!Well it had been that I had not been born,Who could Thy burial see!....What will become of me,Unless Thou wilt arise and bid me live,Unless Thou wilt forgive?”But there is Easter every day and hourWhen by the crevice of Thy tomb we cower,Ghosts from dank night, and call,And wait for one footfallOf the arising, awful Love we doomedOurselves to lie entombed.
THIS sin is unto death. Whose death? Fair tombOf virgin rock, not for my corse such room!Where never man hath lainShall I by sin attain—Among the unpolluted crystals lieIn my malignity?
For I have killed my God, and I beholdHis burial, behold His Body rolledIn a new sheet with nard,And in the grotto hardLying as hard—O tenderest Love!—as blockOf that new-cloven rock.
As a vile, wandering spectre I must stray,Now I have quenched the Light, that was my Day,By wickedness, almostAgainst the Holy Ghost,Laying within His tomb God, laying HimWound tight in face and limb.
I cannot see! My eyes are wells that beatFountains of tears forth on my hands and feet:With fire of pain I cry,That angels of the skyCome forth.... “My God, arise and live once more!My sin I will abhor!
“Divine One, be not dead and put away!O Holy Ghost, blow down the stone, I pray,Though it should crush me thereOutspread, the worst I dare.Divine One, mid the tombs, with pardoning graceUnwrap Thy limbs, Thy face!
“Austere come forth upon me as grey dawn!Well it had been that I had not been born,Who could Thy burial see!....What will become of me,Unless Thou wilt arise and bid me live,Unless Thou wilt forgive?”
But there is Easter every day and hourWhen by the crevice of Thy tomb we cower,Ghosts from dank night, and call,And wait for one footfallOf the arising, awful Love we doomedOurselves to lie entombed.
THE Lord died yesterday:—Lowly and single, lost,His worn disciples, tossedWith pain of tears, have wandered wideIn the country-fields, as sheep might stray.No need to hide,For harvesters that shout and sing have heardOf the far city’s rumour scarce a word,And only stare to see a stranger lost.Tears fight with Peter’s breath—He roves a field of grass,At eventide ... a massOf faded flower of grass, grown grey,Cut from sap and clinging into death,And bowed one way.Alone amid the darkness soon to beDeep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterlyChrist buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass.Yet he had hailed Him Christ....The straw and clover feelSudden a lifted heel,And, rudely whirled aside, are leftBy the stranger’s feet, they had enticedBeneath their weft.But he is on the rock, the narrow way,As if he talked with something he would say,As if he would conceive as he could feel.He stands thus in sweet dark,The hay upon the air,His feet on bare rock bare,Set as a statue’s, waiting on....Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark,Hath a torch shone?The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dryIs Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry,As the first Easter Day assumes the air.
THE Lord died yesterday:—Lowly and single, lost,His worn disciples, tossedWith pain of tears, have wandered wideIn the country-fields, as sheep might stray.No need to hide,For harvesters that shout and sing have heardOf the far city’s rumour scarce a word,And only stare to see a stranger lost.Tears fight with Peter’s breath—He roves a field of grass,At eventide ... a massOf faded flower of grass, grown grey,Cut from sap and clinging into death,And bowed one way.Alone amid the darkness soon to beDeep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterlyChrist buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass.Yet he had hailed Him Christ....The straw and clover feelSudden a lifted heel,And, rudely whirled aside, are leftBy the stranger’s feet, they had enticedBeneath their weft.But he is on the rock, the narrow way,As if he talked with something he would say,As if he would conceive as he could feel.He stands thus in sweet dark,The hay upon the air,His feet on bare rock bare,Set as a statue’s, waiting on....Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark,Hath a torch shone?The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dryIs Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry,As the first Easter Day assumes the air.
THE Lord died yesterday:—Lowly and single, lost,His worn disciples, tossedWith pain of tears, have wandered wideIn the country-fields, as sheep might stray.No need to hide,For harvesters that shout and sing have heardOf the far city’s rumour scarce a word,And only stare to see a stranger lost.
Tears fight with Peter’s breath—He roves a field of grass,At eventide ... a massOf faded flower of grass, grown grey,Cut from sap and clinging into death,And bowed one way.Alone amid the darkness soon to beDeep midnight, Peter mourneth bitterlyChrist buried, the sunk day, the flower of grass.
Yet he had hailed Him Christ....The straw and clover feelSudden a lifted heel,And, rudely whirled aside, are leftBy the stranger’s feet, they had enticedBeneath their weft.But he is on the rock, the narrow way,As if he talked with something he would say,As if he would conceive as he could feel.
He stands thus in sweet dark,The hay upon the air,His feet on bare rock bare,Set as a statue’s, waiting on....Is it a trumpet raised and sounded? Hark,Hath a torch shone?The cock crows and the sun appears! Yet dryIs Peter’s face, although the dawn-bird cry,As the first Easter Day assumes the air.