Highest lesson of all lessons for all to con,
“Beloved, let us love.”
HOLY INNOCENTS
They scarcely waked before they slept,
They scarcely wept before they laughed;
They drank indeed death’s bitter draught,
But all its bitterest dregs were kept
And drained by Mothers while they wept.
From Heaven the speechless Infants speak:
Weep not (they say), our Mothers dear,
For swords nor sorrows come not here.
Now we are strong who were so weak,
And all is ours we could not seek.
We bloom among the blooming flowers,
We sing among the singing birds;
Wisdom we have who wanted words:
Here morning knows not evening hours,
All’s rainbow here without the showers.
And softer than our Mother’s breast,
And closer than our Mother’s arm,
Is here the Love that keeps us warm
And broods above our happy nest.
Dear Mothers, come: for Heaven is best.
UNSPOTTED LAMBS TO FOLLOW THE ONE LAMB
Unspotted lambs to follow the one Lamb,
Unspotted doves to wait on the one Dove;
To whom Love saith, “Be with Me where I am,”
And lo! their answer unto Love is love.
For tho’ I know not any note they know,
Nor know one word of all their song above,
I know Love speaks to them, and even so
I know the answer unto Love is love.
EPIPHANY
“Lord Babe, if Thou art He
We sought for patiently,
Where is Thy court?
Hither may prophecy and star resort;
Men heed not their report.” —
“Bow down and worship, righteous man:
This Infant of a span
Is He man sought for since the world began!” —
“Then, Lord, accept my gold, too base a thing
For Thee, of all kings King.” —
“Lord Babe, despite Thy youth
I hold Thee of a truth
Both Good and Great:
But wherefore dost Thou keep so mean a state,
Low-lying desolate?” —
“Bow down and worship, righteous seer:
The Lord our God is here
Approachable, Who bids us all draw near.” —
“Wherefore to Thee I offer frankincense,
Thou Sole Omnipotence.” —
“But I have only brought
Myrrh; no wise afterthought
Instructed me
To gather pearls or gems, or choice to see
Coral or ivory.” —
“Not least thine offering proves thee wise:
For myrrh means sacrifice,
And He that lives, this Same is He that dies.” —
“Then here is myrrh: alas! yea, woe is me
That myrrh befitteth Thee.” —
Myrrh, frankincense, and gold:
And lo! from wintry fold
Good-will doth bring
A Lamb, the innocent likeness of this King
Whom stars and seraphs sing:
And lo! the bird of love, a Dove
Flutters and coos above:
And Dove and Lamb and Babe agree in love: —
Come all mankind, come all creation hither,
Come, worship Christ together.
EPIPHANYTIDE
Trembling before Thee we fall down to adore Thee,
Shamefaced and trembling we lift our eyes to Thee:
O First and with the last! annul our ruined past,
Rebuild us to Thy glory, set us free
From sin and from sorrow to fall down and worship Thee.
Full of pity view us, stretch Thy sceptre to us,
Bid us live that we may give ourselves to Thee:
O faithful Lord and True! stand up for us and do,
Make us lovely, make us new, set us free —
Heart and soul and spirit — to bring all and worship Thee.
SEPTUAGESIMA
“So run that ye may obtain.”
One step more, and the race is ended;
One word more, and the lesson’s done;
One toil more, and a long rest follows
At set of sun.
Who would fail, for one step withholden?
Who would fail, for one word unsaid?
Who would fail, for a pause too early?
Sound sleep the dead.
One step more, and the goal receives us;
One word more, and life’s task is done;
One toil more, and the Cross is carried
And sets the sun.
SEXAGESIMA
“Cursed is the ground for thy sake.”
Yet earth was very good in days of old,
And earth is lovely still:
Still for the sacred flock she spreads the fold,
For Sion rears the hill.
Mother she is, and cradle of our race,
A depth where treasures lie,
The broad foundation of a holy place,
Man’s step to scale the sky.
She spreads the harvest-field which Angels reap,
And lo! the crop is white;
She spreads God’s Acre where the happy sleep
All night that is not night.
Earth may not pass till heaven shall pass away,
Nor heaven may be renewed
Except with earth: and once more in that day
Earth shall be very good.
THAT EDEN OF EARTH’S SUNRISE CANNOT VIE
That Eden of earth’s sunrise cannot vie
With Paradise beyond her sunset sky
Hidden on high.
Four rivers watered Eden in her bliss,
But Paradise hath One which perfect is
In sweetnesses.
Eden had gold, but Paradise hath gold
Like unto glass of splendours manifold
Tongue hath not told.
Eden had sun and moon to make her bright;
But Paradise hath God and Lamb for light,
And hath no night.
Unspotted innocence was Eden’s best;
Great Paradise shows God’s fulfilled behest,
Triumph and rest.
Hail, Eve and Adam, source of death and shame!
New life has sprung from death, and Jesu’s Name
Clothes you with fame.
Hail Adam, and hail Eve! your children rise
And call you blessed, in their glad surmise
Of Paradise.
QUINQUAGESIMA
Love is alone the worthy law of love:
All other laws have presupposed a taint:
Love is the law from kindled saint to saint,
From lamb to lamb, from dove to answering dove.
Love is the motive of all things that move
Harmonious by free will without constraint:
Love learns and teaches: love shall man acquaint
With all he lacks, which all his lack is love.
Because Love is the fountain, I discern
The stream as love: for what but love should flow
From fountain Love? not bitter from the sweet!
I ignorant, have I laid claim to know?
Oh, teach me, Love, such knowledge as is meet
For one to know who is fain to love and learn.
PITEOUS MY RHYME IS
Piteous my rhyme is
What while I muse of love and pain,
Of love misspent, of love in vain,
Of love that is not loved again:
And is this all then?
As long as time is,
Love loveth. Time is but a span,
The dalliance space of dying man:
And is this all immortals can?
The gain were small then.
Love loves for ever,
And finds a sort of joy in pain,
And gives with nought to take again,
And loves too well to end in vain:
Is the gain small then?
Love laughs at “never,”
Outlives our life, exceeds the span
Appointed to mere mortal man:
All which love is and does and can
Is all in all then.
ASH WEDNESDAY
My God, my God, have mercy on my sin,
For it is great; and if I should begin
To tell it all, the day would be too small
To tell it in.
My God, Thou wilt have mercy on my sin
For Thy Love’s sake: yea, if I should begin
To tell This all, the day would be too small
To tell it in.
GOOD LORD, TODAY
Good Lord, today
I scarce find breath to say:
Scourge, but receive me.
For stripes are hard to bear, but worse
Thy intolerable curse;
So do not leave me.
Good Lord, lean down
In pity, tho’ Thou frown;
Smite, but retrieve me:
For so Thou hold me up to stand
And kiss Thy smiting hand,
It less will grieve me.
LENT
It is good to be last not first,
Pending the present distress;
It is good to hunger and thirst,
So it be for righteousness.
It is good to spend and be spent,
It is good to watch and to pray:
Life and Death make a goodly Lent
So it leads us to Easter Day.
EMBERTIDE
I saw a Saint. — How canst thou tell that he
Thou sawest was a Saint? —
I saw one like to Christ so luminously
By patient deeds of love, his mortal taint
Seemed made his groundwork for humility.
And when he marked me downcast utterly
Where foul I sat and faint,
Then more than ever Christ-like kindled he;
And welcomed me as I had been a saint,
Tenderly stooping low to comfort me.
Christ bade him, “Do thou likewise.” Wherefore he
Waxed zealous to acquaint
His soul with sin and sorrow, if so be
He might retrieve some latent saint: —
“Lo, I, with the child God hath given to me!”
MID-LENT
Is any grieved or tired? Yea, by God’s Will:
Surely God’s Will alone is good and best:
O weary man, in weariness take rest,
O hungry man, by hunger feast thy fill.
Discern thy good beneath a mask of ill,
Or build of loneliness thy secret nest:
At noon take heart, being mindful of the west,
At night wake hope, for dawn advances still.
At night wake hope. Poor soul, in such sore need
Of wakening and of girding up anew,
Hast thou that hope which fainting doth pursue?
No saint but hath pursued and hath been faint;
Bid love wake hope, for both thy steps shall speed,
Still faint yet still pursuing, O thou saint.
PASSIONTIDE
It is the greatness of Thy love, dear Lord, that we would celebrate
With sevenfold powers.
Our love at best is cold and poor, at best unseemly for Thy state,
This best of ours.
Creatures that die, we yet are such as Thine own hands deigned to create:
We frail as flowers,
We bitter bondslaves ransomed at a price incomparably great
To grace Heaven’s bowers.
Thou callest: “Come at once” — and still Thou callest us: “Come late, tho’ late” —
(The moments fly) —
“Come, every one that thirsteth, come” — ”Come prove Me, knocking at My gate” —
(Some souls draw nigh!) —
“Come thou who waiting seekest Me” — ”Come thou for whom I seek and wait” —
(Why will we die?) —
“Come and repent: come and amend: come joy the joys unsatiate” —
— (Christ passeth by …) —
Lord, pass not by — I come — and I — and I.
Amen.
PALM SUNDAY
“He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
I lift mine eyes, and see
Thee, tender Lord, in pain upon the tree,
Athirst for my sake and athirst for me.
“Yea, look upon Me there,
Compassed with thorns and bleeding everywhere,
For thy sake bearing all, and glad to bear.”
I lift my heart to pray:
Thou Who didst love me all that darkened day,
Wilt Thou not love me to the end alway?
“Yea, thee My wandering sheep,
Yea, thee My scarlet sinner slow to weep,
Come to Me, I will love thee and will keep.”
Yet am I racked with fear:
Behold the unending outer darkness drear,
Behold the gulf unbridgeable and near!
“Nay, fix thy heart, thine eyes,
Thy hope upon My boundless sacrifice:
Will I lose lightly one so dear-bought prize?”
Ah, Lord; it is not Thou,
Thou that wilt fail; yet woe is me, for how
Shall I endure who half am failing now?
“Nay, weld thy resolute will
To Mine: glance not aside for good or ill:
I love thee; trust Me still and love Me still.”
Yet Thou Thyself hast said,
When Thou shalt sift the living from the dead
Some must depart shamed and uncomforted.
“Judge not before that day:
Trust Me with all thy heart, even tho’ I slay:
Trust Me in love, trust on, love on, and pray.”
MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK
“The Voice of my Beloved.”
Once I ached for thy dear sake:
Wilt thou cause Me now to ache?
Once I bled for thee in pain:
Wilt thou rend My Heart again?
Crown of thorns and shameful tree,
Bitter death I bore for thee,
Bore My Cross to carry thee,
And wilt thou have nought of Me?
TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK
By Thy long-drawn anguish to atone,
Jesus Christ, show mercy on Thine own:
Jesus Christ, show mercy and atone
Not for other sake except Thine own.
Thou Who thirsting on the Cross didst see
All mankind and all I love and me,
Still from Heaven look down in love and see
All mankind and all I love and me.
WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK
Man’s life is death. Yet Christ endured to live,
Preaching and teaching, toiling to and fro,
Few men accepting what He yearned to give,
Few men with eyes to know
His Face, that Face of Love He stooped to show.
Man’s death is life. For Christ endured to die
In slow unuttered weariness of pain,
A curse and an astonishment, passed by,
Pointed at, mocked again
By men for whom He shed His Blood — in vain?
MAUNDY THURSDAY
“And the Vine said … Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?”
The great Vine left its glory to reign as Forest King.
“Nay,” quoth the lofty forest trees, “we will not have this thing;
We will not have this supple one enring us with its ring.
Lo, from immemorial time our might towers shadowing:
/>
Not we were born to curve and droop, not we to climb and cling:
We buffet back the buffeting wind, tough to its buffeting:
We screen great beasts, the wild fowl build in our heads and sing,
Every bird of every feather from off our tops takes wing:
I a king, and thou a king, and what king shall be our king?”
Nevertheless the great Vine stooped to be the Forest King,
While the forest swayed and murmured like seas that are tempesting:
Stooped and drooped with thousand tendrils in thirsty languishing;
Bowed to earth and lay on earth for earth’s replenishing;
Put off sweetness, tasted bitterness, endured time’s fashioning;
Put off life and put on death: and lo! it was all to bring
All its fellows down to a death which hath lost the sting,
All its fellows up to a life in endless triumphing, —
I a king, and thou a king, and this King to be our King.
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING
“Bearing His Cross.”
Up Thy Hill of Sorrows
Thou all alone,
Jesus, man’s Redeemer,
Climbing to a Throne:
Thro’ the world triumphant,
Thro’ the Church in pain,
Which think to look upon Thee
No more again.
Upon my hill of sorrows
I, Lord, with Thee,
Cheered, upheld, yea, carried,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Christina Rossetti Page 37