XIII.

So, as Thou wert the seed and not the flower,

Having no form or comeliness, in chief

Sharing thy thoughts with thine acquaintance Grief;

Thou wert despised, rejected in thine hour

Of loneliness and God-triumphant power.

Oh, not three days alone, glad slumber brief,

That from thy travail brought Thee sweet relief,

Lay'st Thou, outworn, beneath thy stony bower;

But three and thirty years, a living seed,

Thy body lay as in a grave indeed;

A heavenly germ dropt in a desert wide;

Buried in fallow soil of grief and need;

‘ Mid earthquake-storms of fiercest hate and pride,

By woman's tears bedewed and glorified.