May Carols Part 12

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XXV.

Who doubts that thou art finite? Who Is ignorant that from G.o.dhead'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 Son! 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.

The man who grasps not what is best In creaturely existence, he Is narrowest in the brain; and least Can grasp the thought of Deity.

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XXVI.

They 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 gla.s.s, So He who never left the sky To this low earth was pleased to pa.s.s 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!

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XXVII.

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 splendours throng; Such l.u.s.tre 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!

O Earth, some orb of singing Souls Brings down to thee _thy_ Pentecost!

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_Dominica Pentecostes._

XXVIII.

Clear as those silver trumps of old That woke Judea'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 trampling 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?

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It is the Birthday of the Bride.

The new begins; the ancient ends: From all the gates of Heaven flung wide The promised Paraclete descends.

He who o'er-shadowed Mary once O'ershades Humanity to-day; And bids her fruitful prove in sons Co-heritors with Christ for aye.

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_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 G.o.d 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 organised, Existed but in skeleton;

Till down on that predestined frame, Complete through all its sacred mould, The Pentecostal Spirit came,-- The self-same Spirit who of old

Creative o'er the waters moved.

Thenceforth the Church, made One and Whole, Arose in Him, and lived, and loved-- His Temple she; and He her Soul.

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_Turris Davidica._

x.x.x.

The towered City loves thee well, Strong Tower of David's House! In thee She hails the unvanquished citadel 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 G.o.d's angel keepeth watch and ward; And sunrise flashes thence ere night Hath left dark street and dewy sward.