O myriad Earth! Where'er thy Word Makes way indeed into the soul, An answering echo there is stirred:-- Of thee the part is as the whole. {89} _Fest. B.V.M. de Monte Carmelo._ VII. Carmel, with Alp and Apennine, Low whispers in the wind that blows Beneath the Eastern stars, ere shine The lights of morning on their snows. Of thee, Elias, Carmel speaks, And that white cloud, so small at first, Thou saw'st approach the mountain peaks To quench a dying nation's thirst. On Carmel, like a sheathed sword, Thy monks abode till Jesus came; On Carmel then they served their Lord;-- Then Carmel rang with Mary's name. Blow over all the garden; blow O'er all the garden of the West, Balm-breathing Orient! Whisper low The secret of thy spicy nest. {90} "Who from the Desert upward moves Like cloud of incense onward borne? Who, moving, rests on Him she loves? Who mounts from regions of the Morn? "Behold! The apple-tree beneath-- There where of old thy Mother fell-- I raised thee up. More strong than Death Is Love;--more strong than Death or Hell." [Footnote 5] [Footnote 5: Cant. viii. 5.] {91} VIII. Come from the midnight mountain tops, The mountains where the panthers play: Descend; the veil of darkness drops; Come fair and fairer than the day! Our hearts are wounded with thine eyes: They character in words of light Thereon the mystery of the skies: The "Name o'er every name" they write. Come from thy Lebanonian peaks Whose sacerdotal cedars nod Above the world, when morning breaks-- The Mountain of the House of God. The land thou lov'st--well is she! The ploughers on her back may plough; But in her vales upgrows the Tree Of Life, and binds the bleeding brow. {92} _Advocata Nostra._ IX. I saw, in visions of the night, Creation like a sea outspread, With surf of stars and storm of light And movements manifold and dread. Then lo, within a Human Hand A Sceptre moved that storm above: Thereon, as on the golden wand Of kings new-crowned, there sat a Dove. Beneath her gracious weight inclined That Sceptre drooped. The waves had rest And Sceptre, Hand, and Dove were shrined Within a glassy ocean's breast. His Will it was that placed her there! He at whose word the tempests cease Upon that Sceptre planted fair That peace-bestowing type of Peace! {93} _Thronus Trinitatis._ X. Each several Saint the Church reveres, What is he but an altar whence Some separate Virtue ministers To God a separate frankincense? Each beyond each, not made of hands, They rise, a ladder angel-trod: Star-bright the last and loftiest stands-- That altar is the Throne of God. Lost in the uncreated light A Form all Human rests thereon: His shade from that surpassing height Beyond creation's verge is thrown.