May Carols Part 8

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V.

Stronger and steadier every hour The pulses of the season's glee, As toward her zenith 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 a.s.sume.

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, whose latest splendours 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 white breaker by the cave Falls with more cadenced resonance;

While, vague no more, the mountains stand With quivering line or hazy hue; But drawn with finer, firmer hand, And settling into deeper blue.

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_Speculum Just.i.tiae._

VI.

Not in Himself the Eternal Word Lay hid upon creation's day: His Loveliness abroad He poured On all the 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 sacraments--His dread behests; In Providence; in granted prayer; Before the time He manifests His glory, far as man may bear.

He s.h.i.+nes not from a vault of gloom; The horizon vast His splendour paints: Both heaven and earth His beams illume; His light is glorious in His saints.

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He s.h.i.+nes upon His Church--that Moon Who, in the watches of the night, Transmits to man the entrusted boon; A sister orb of sacred light.

And thou, pure mirror of His grace!-- As sun reflected in a sea-- So, Mary, feeblest eyes the face Of Him thou lovest discern in thee.

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_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 G.o.d 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 No more round self the affections float-- More near to G.o.d, 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-anch.o.r.ed on the eternal sh.o.r.e!

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_Predestinata._

VIII.

Eternal Beauty, ere the spheres Had rolled from out the gulfs of night, Sparkled, through all the unnumbered years, Before the Eternal Father's sight.

Like objects seen by Man in dream, Or landscape gla.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce and Time, Creation's glittering verge enrings.

Star-like within the depths serene Of that still vision, Mary, thou With Him, thy Son, of G.o.d wert seen Millenniums ere the lucid brow

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Of Eye o'er Eden founts had bent,-- Millenniums ere that second Fair 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!

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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 base; 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 coa.r.s.er 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 surpa.s.sing, transient gleam; Some smile from heaven, in waves of light, Rippling o'er life's distempered dream?

Or broken memories of that bliss Which rushed through first-born Nature's blood When He who ever was, and is, Looked down, and saw that all was good?

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