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 God'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.

Behold, she seemed on Earth to dwell;

But, hid in light, alone she sat

Beneath the Throne ineffable,

Chanting her clear Magnificat.

Fed from the boundless heart of God,

The joy within her rose more high

And all her being overflowed,

Until the awful hour was nigh.

Then, then, there crept her spirit o'er

The shadow of that pain world-wide

Whereof her Son the substance bore:—

Him offering, half in Him she died;

Standing like that strange Moon, whereon

The mask of Earth lies dim and dead,

An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,

Yet girdled with a luminous thread.