CONFIRMATION CONTINUED

I saw a Mother's eye intensely bent

Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;

In and for whom the pious Mother felt

Things that we judge of by a light too faint:

Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint!

Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved —

Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,

And such vibration throughthe Mother went

That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear?

Opened a vision of that blissful place

Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given

Part of her lost One's glory back to trace

Even to this Rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere

The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.