Kitabı oku: «Religious Studies, Sketches and Poems», sayfa 24

V
FOURTH HOUR
THE SORROWS OF MARY

DEDICATED TO THE MOTHERS WHO HAVE LOST SONS IN THE LATE WAR

 
I slept, but my heart was waking,
And out in my dreams I sped,
Through the streets of an ancient city,
Where Jesus, the Lord, lay dead.
 
 
He was lying all cold and lowly,
And the sepulchre was sealed,
And the women that bore the spices
Had come from the holy field.
 
 
There is feasting in Pilate's palace,
There is revel in Herod's hall,
Where the lute and the sounding instrument
To mirth and merriment call.
 
 
"I have washed my hands," said Pilate,
"And what is the Jew to me?"
"I have missed my chance," said Herod,
"One of his wonders to see.
 
 
"But why should our courtly circle
To the thought give further place?
All dreams, save of pleasure and beauty,
Bid the dancers' feet efface."
 
 
… .
 
 
I saw a light from a casement,
And entered a lowly door,
Where a woman, stricken and mournful,
Sat in sackcloth on the floor.
 
 
There Mary, the mother of Jesus,
And John, the belovèd one,
With a few poor friends beside them,
Were mourning for Him that was gone.
 
 
And before the mother was lying
That crown of cruel thorn,
Wherewith they crowned that gentle brow
In mockery that morn.
 
 
And her ears yet ring with the anguish
Of that last dying cry, —
That mighty appeal of agony
That shook both earth and sky.
 
 
O God, what a shaft of anguish
Was that dying voice from the tree! —
From Him the only spotless, —
"Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
 
 
And was he of God forsaken?
They ask, appalled with dread;
Is evil crowned and triumphant,
And goodness vanquished and dead?
 
 
Is there, then, no God in Jacob?
Is the star of Judah dim?
For who would our God deliver,
If he would not deliver him?
 
 
If God could not deliver, – what hope then?
If he would not, – who ever shall dare
To be firm in his service hereafter?
To trust in his wisdom or care?
 
 
So darkly the Tempter was saying,
To hearts that with sorrow were dumb;
And the poor souls were clinging in darkness to God,
With hands that with anguish were numb.
 
 
… .
 
 
In my dreams came the third day morning,
And fairly the day-star shone;
But fairer, the solemn angel,
As he rolled away the stone.
 
 
In the lowly dwelling of Mary,
In the dusky twilight chill,
There was heard the sound of coming feet,
And her very heart grew still.
 
 
And in the glimmer of dawning,
She saw him enter the door,
Her Son, all living and real,
Risen, to die no more!
 
 
Her Son, all living and real,
Risen no more to die, —
With the power of an endless life in his face,
With the light of heaven in his eye.
 
 
O mourning mothers, so many,
Weeping o'er sons that are dead,
Have ye thought of the sorrows of Mary's heart,
Of the tears that Mary shed?
 
 
Is the crown of thorns before you?
Are there memories of cruel scorn?
Of hunger and thirst and bitter cold
That your belovèd have borne?
 
 
Had ye ever a son like Jesus
To give to a death of pain?
Did ever a son so cruelly die,
But did he die in vain?
 
 
Have ye ever thought that all the hopes
That make our earth-life fair,
Were born in those three bitter days
Of Mary's deep despair?
 
 
O mourning mothers, so many,
Weeping in woe and pain,
Think on the joy of Mary's heart
In a Son that is risen again.
 
 
Have faith in a third-day morning,
In a resurrection-hour;
For what ye sow in weakness,
He can raise again in power.
 
 
Have faith in the Lord of that thorny crown,
In the Lord of the piercèd hand;
For he reigneth now o'er earth and heaven,
And his power who may withstand?
 
 
And the hopes that never on earth shall bloom,
The sorrows forever new,
Lay silently down at the feet of Him
Who died and is risen for you.
 

VI
DAY DAWN

 
The dim gray dawn, upon the eastern hills,
Brings back to light once more the cheerless scene;
But oh! no morning in my Father's house
Is dawning now, for there no night hath been.
 
 
Ten thousand thousand now, on Zion's hills,
All robed in white, with palmy crowns, do stray,
While I, an exile, far from fatherland,
Still wandering, faint along the desert way.
 
 
O home! dear home! my own, my native home!
O Father, friends! when shall I look on you?
When shall these weary wanderings be o'er,
And I be gathered back to stray no more?
 
 
O Thou, the brightness of whose gracious face
These weary, longing eyes have never seen, —
By whose dear thought, for whose belovèd sake,
My course, through toil and tears, I daily take, —
 
 
I think of thee when the myrrh-dropping morn
Steps forth upon the purple eastern steep;
I think of thee in the fair eventide,
When the bright-sandaled stars their watches keep.
 
 
And trembling Hope, and fainting, sorrowing Love,
On thy dear word for comfort doth rely;
And clear-eyed Faith, with strong forereaching gaze,
Beholds thee here, unseen, but ever nigh.
 
 
Walking in white with thee, she dimly sees,
All beautiful, these lovely ones withdrawn,
With whom my heart went upward, as they rose,
Like morning stars, to light a coming dawn.
 
 
All sinless now, and crowned and glorified,
Where'er thou movest move they still with thee,
As erst, in sweet communion by thy side,
Walked John and Mary in old Galilee.
 
 
But hush, my heart! 'Tis but a day or two
Divides thee from that bright, immortal shore.
Rise up! rise up! and gird thee for the race!
Fast fly the hours, and all will soon be o'er.
 
 
Thou hast the new name written in thy soul;
Thou hast the mystic stone He gives his own.
Thy soul, made one with him, shall feel no more
That she is walking on her path alone.
 

VII
WHEN I AWAKE I AM STILL WITH THEE

 
Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee!
 
 
Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows,
The solemn hush of nature newly born;
Alone with Thee in breathless adoration,
In the calm dew and freshness of the morn.
 
 
As in the dawning o'er the waveless ocean
The image of the morning star doth rest,
So in this stillness Thou beholdest only
Thine image in the waters of my breast.
 
 
Still, still with Thee! as to each new-born morning
A fresh and solemn splendor still is given,
So doth the blessed consciousness, awaking,
Breathe, each day, nearness unto Thee and heaven.
 
 
When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,
Its closing eye looks up to Thee in prayer;
Sweet the repose beneath the wings o'ershading,
But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there.
 
 
So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee;
O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning,
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee!
 

PRESSED FLOWERS FROM ITALY

A DAY IN THE PAMFILI DORIA

 
Though the hills are cold and snowy,
And the wind drives chill to-day,
My heart goes back to a spring-time,
Far, far in the past away.
 
 
And I see a quaint old city,
Weary and worn and brown,
Where the spring and the birds are so early,
And the sun in such light goes down.
 
 
I remember that old-times villa,
Where our afternoons went by,
Where the suns of March flushed warmly,
And spring was in earth and sky.
 
 
Out of the mouldering city,
Mouldering, old, and gray,
We sped, with a lightsome heart-thrill,
For a sunny, gladsome day, —
 
 
For a revel of fresh spring verdure,
For a race 'mid springing flowers,
For a vision of plashing fountains,
Of birds and blossoming bowers.
 
 
There were violet banks in the shadows,
Violets white and blue;
And a world of bright anemones,
That over the terrace grew, —
 
 
Blue and orange and purple,
Rosy and yellow and white,
Rising in rainbow bubbles,
Streaking the lawns with light.
 
 
And down from the old stone pine-trees,
Those far-off islands of air,
The birds are flinging the tidings
Of a joyful revel up there.
 
 
And now for the grand old fountains,
Tossing their silvery spray,
Those fountains so quaint and so many,
That are leaping and singing all day.
 
 
Those fountains of strange weird sculpture,
With lichens and moss o'ergrown,
Are they marble greening in moss-wreaths?
Or moss-wreaths whitening to stone?
 
 
Down many a wild, dim pathway
We ramble from morning till noon;
We linger, unheeding the hours,
Till evening comes all too soon.
 
 
And from out the ilex alleys,
Where lengthening shadows play,
We look on the dreamy Campagna,
All glowing with setting day, —
 
 
All melting in bands of purple,
In swathings and foldings of gold,
In ribands of azure and lilac,
Like a princely banner unrolled.
 
 
And the smoke of each distant cottage,
And the flash of each villa white,
Shines out with an opal glimmer,
Like gems in a casket of light.
 
 
And the dome of old St. Peter's
With a strange translucence glows,
Like a mighty bubble of amethyst
Floating in waves of rose.
 
 
In a trance of dreamy vagueness
We, gazing and yearning, behold
That city beheld by the prophet,
Whose walls were transparent gold.
 
 
And, dropping all solemn and slowly,
To hallow the softening spell,
There falls on the dying twilight
The Ave Maria bell.
 
 
With a mournful, motherly softness,
With a weird and weary care,
That strange and ancient city
Seems calling the nations to prayer.
 
 
And the words that of old the angel
To the mother of Jesus brought,
Rise like a new evangel,
To hallow the trance of our thought.
 
 
With the smoke of the evening incense,
Our thoughts are ascending then
To Mary, the mother of Jesus,
To Jesus, the Master of men.
 
 
O city of prophets and martyrs,
O shrines of the sainted dead,
When, when shall the living day-spring
Once more on your towers be spread?
 
 
When He who is meek and lowly
Shall rule in those lordly halls,
And shall stand and feed as a shepherd
The flock which his mercy calls, —
 
 
O then to those noble churches,
To picture and statue and gem,
To the pageant of solemn worship,
Shall the meaning come back again.
 
 
And this strange and ancient city,
In that reign of His truth and love,
Shall be what it seems in the twilight,
The type of that City above.
 

THE GARDENS OF THE VATICAN

 
Sweet fountains, plashing with a dreamy fall,
And mosses green, and tremulous veils of fern,
And banks of blowing cyclamen, and stars,
Blue as the skies, of myrtle blossoming,
The twilight shade of ilex overhead
O'erbubbling with sweet song of nightingale,
With walks of strange, weird stillness, leading on
'Mid sculptured fragments half to green moss gone,
Or breaking forth amid the violet leaves
With some white gleam of an old world gone by.
Ah! strange, sweet quiet! wilderness of calm,
Gardens of dreamy rest, I long to lay
Beneath your shade the last long sigh, and say,
Here is my home, my Lord, thy home and mine;
And I, having searched the world with many a tear,
At last have found thee and will stray no more.
But vainly here I seek the Gardener
That Mary saw. These lovely halls beyond,
That airy, sky-like dome, that lofty fane,
Is as a palace whence the king is gone
And taken all the sweetness with himself.
Turn again, Jesus, and possess thine own!
Come to thy temple once more as of old!
Drive forth the money-changers, let it be
A house of prayer for nations. Even so,
Amen! Amen!
 

ST. PETER'S CHURCH
HOLY WEEK, APRIL, 1860

 
O fairest mansion of a Father's love,
Harmonious! hospitable! with thine arms
Outspread to all, thy fountains ever full,
And, fair as heaven, thy misty, sky-like dome
Hung like the firmament with circling sweep
Above the constellated golden lamps
That burn forever round the holy tomb.
Most meet art thou to be the Father's house,
The house of prayer for nations. Come the time
When thou shalt be so! when a liberty,
Wide as thine arms, high as thy lofty dome,
Shall be proclaimed, by thy loud singing choirs,
Like voice of many waters! Then the Lord
Shall come into his temple, and make pure
The sons of Levi; then, as once of old,
The blind shall see, the lame leap as an hart,
And to the poor the Gospel shall be preached,
And Easter's silver-sounding trumpets tell,
"The Lord is risen indeed," to die no more.
Hasten it in its time. Amen! Amen!
 

THE MISERERE

 
Not of the earth that music! all things fade;
Vanish the pictured walls! and, one by one,
The starry candles silently expire!
 
 
And now, O Jesus! round that silent cross
A moment's pause, a hush as of the grave.
Now rises slow a silver mist of sound,
And all the heavens break out in drops of grief;
A rain of sobbing sweetness, swelling, dying,
Voice into voice inweaving with sweet throbs,
And fluttering pulses of impassioned moan, —
Veiled voices, in whose wailing there is awe,
And mysteries of love and agony,
A yearning anguish of celestial souls,
A shiver as of wings trembling the air,
As if God's shining doves, his spotless birds,
Wailed with a nightingale's heart-break of grief,
In this their starless night, when for our sins
Their sun, their life, their love, hangs darkly there,
Like a slain lamb, bleeding his life away!