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}