VII.
Ascending 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 Rood; 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
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!
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_Adolescentulae amaverunt 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 wheresoever thou wanderest, shape Thy music ever to one Name:-- Thou too, clear stream, to cave and cape Be sure thou whisper of the same.
"By every isle and bower of musk 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.
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_Mater Christi._
IX.
Daily beneath His mother"s eyes 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.
Gethsemane! when day is done Thy flowers with falling dews 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 was here!
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_Mater Christi._
X.
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 so, 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 p.r.o.ne, Worshipped her Maker as He slept.
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_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 day, a Child is born.""
Heaven knows not mere historic facts:-- Celestial mysteries, night and morn, Live on in ever-present Acts.
Calvary"s dread Victim in the skies On G.o.d"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.
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_Mater Salvatoris._