Poems of Adoration

DESOLATION

WHO comes?...

O Beautiful!

Low thunder thrums,

As if a chorus struck its shawms and drums.

The sun runs forth

To stare at Him, who journeys north

From Edom, from the lonely sands, arrayed

In vesture sanguine as at Bosra made.

O beautiful and whole,

In that red stole!

Behold,

O clustered grapes,

His garment rolled,

And wrung about His waist in fold on fold!

See, there is blood

Now on His garment, vest and hood;

For He hath leapt upon a loaded vat,

And round His motion splashes the wine-fat,

Though there is none to play

The Vintage-lay.

The Word

Of God, His name ...

But nothing heard

Save beat of His lone feet forever stirred

To tread the press—

None with Him in His loneliness;

No treader with Him in the spume, no man.

{2}


His flesh shows dusk with wine: since He began

He hath not stayed, that forth may pour

The Vineyard’s store.

He treads

The angry grapes ...

Their anger spreads,

And all its brangling passion sheds

In blood. O God,

Thy wrath, Thy wine-press He hath trod—

The fume, the carnage, and the murderous heat!

Yet all is changed by patience of the feet:

The blood sinks down; the vine

Is issued wine.

O task

Of sacrifice,

That we may bask

In clemency and keep an undreamt Pasch!

O Treader lone,

How pitiful Thy shadow thrown

Athwart the lake of wine that Thou hast made!

O Thou, most desolate, with limbs that wade

Among the berries, dark and wet,

Thee we forget!

{3}

ENTBEHREN SOLLST DU

’Neath the Garden of Gethsemane’s

Olive-wood,

Thou didst cast Thy will away from Thee

In Thy blood.

Through the shade, when torches spat their light,

And arms shone,

Thou didst find Thy lovers and Thy friends

Were all gone.

In the Judgment Hall, Thy hands and feet

Bound with cord,

Thou didst lose Thy freedom’s sweetness—all

Thy freedom, Lord.

In the Soldiers’ Hall, Thy Sovereignty

Laughed to naught,

Thou wert scourged, Thy brow by bramble-wreath

Sharply caught.

Stripped of vest and garments Thou didst lie,

Mid hill-moss,

Naked, helpless as a nurse’s child,

On Thy cross.

Raised, Thou gavest to another son,

Standing by,

Her who bore Thee once, and, deep in pain,

Watched Thee die.

{4}


All was cast away from Thee; and then,

With wild drouth,

“Why dost Thou forsake me, Father?” broke

From Thy mouth.

Everything gone from Thee, even daylight;

None to trust;

Thou didst render up Thy holy Life

To the dust.

Help me, from my passion, to recall

Thy sheer loss,

And adore the sovereign nakedness

Of Thy Cross!

{5}

FREGIT

ON the night of dedication

Of Thyself as our oblation,

Christ, Belovèd, Thou didst take

In Thy very hands and break....

O my God, there is the hiss of doom

When new-glowing flowers are snapt in bloom;

When shivered, as a little thunder-cloud,

A vase splits on the floor its brilliance loud;

Or lightning strikes a willow-tree with gash

Cloven for death in a resounded crash;

And I have heard that one who could betray

His country and yet face the breadth of day,

Bowed himself, weeping, but to hear his sword

Broken before him, as his sin’s award.

These were broken; Thou didst break....

Thou the Flower that Heaven did make

Of our race the crown of light;

Thou the Vase of Chrysolite

Into which God’s balm doth flow;

Thou the Willow hung with woe

Of our exile harps; Thou Sword

Of the Everlasting Word—

Thou, betrayed, Thyself didst break

Thy own Body for our sake:

Thy own Body Thou didst take

In Thy holy hands—and break.

{6}

SICUT PARVULI

WITH me, laid upon my tongue,

As upon Thy Mother’s knee

Thou wert laid at Thy Nativity;

And she felt Thee lie her wraps among.

Tenderest pressure, dint of grace,

All she dreamed and loved in God,

As a shoot from an old Patriarch’s rod,

Laid upon her, felt by her embrace.

O my God, to have Thee, feel Thee mine,

In Thy helpless Presence! Love,

Not to dream of Thee in power above,

But receive Thee, Little One divine!

As the burthen of a seal

May give kingdoms with its touch,

Lo, Thy meek preponderance is such,

I am straight ennobled as I kneel.

Teach me, tiny Godhead, to adore

On my flesh Thy tender weight,

As Thy Mother, bowing, owned how great

Was the Child that unto us she bore.

{7}