Great love it was to give His Body to thy care, In thine awhile to live: For me this love He will dare.... Pray, Mary, pray! My soul is shent! Thy wings, thy wings, O Gabriel, for my tent! EXTREME UNCTION Soft fall the Holy Oils, their drip Peaceful as Jesus sleeping on the ship. Our eyes, so restless and so full of grip, Reflecting as the sea, Give up their range and their possession, free As if to sleep--the sleep of Deity. Upon the ears a lull that dowers With gentleness of bees in laurel-flowers; So that it gives to Quiet breeding powers, A future wrought of gold, When we shall hear what never hath been told, And fathom sound it takes all heaven to hold. Oh, softness on the nostrils, where they strained After their airy lusts till they attained; Now, by the Cross of balm so softly reined, They wait to breathe for breath The vigour of their God, as a shell saith, Left on the beach, “The brine will wake my death.” The lips receive no coal of fire To urge their fervent crying should not tire; A tender Cross gives check to such desire, And bids them wait their song, Till they are far from peril and among The consonant and ever-praising throng. The hands, the feet ... O Jesus, all Marked with Thy Cross, but as a dream may fall In mercy on a mind great woes appal-- A healing shade, A priestly grace, so soft the Cross is made, Embracing, by the nails we are not frayed. Crosses as flowers on every sense Fall, rest on them in heavenly suspense; And then we know the holy, the immense Delight of what shall be. When, sanctified and calm for joyance, we Shall have of God our bodies deathlessly. AFTER ANOINTING Joy of the senses, joy of all And each of them, as fall The Holy Oils!... O senses, ye would dance, Would circle what ye cannot see, Nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch, Yet ye receive of your felicity, Till ye would reel and dance; The joy apparent from your bliss being such That, in a fivefold garland knit, Softly ye would circle it. Joy ripples through each covered lid; Nor are the ears forbid Sounds as of honeycomb, so sweet is Heaven Afar, such sweet, such haunting sound! O nostrils, myrtle ye shall love! The lips taste fully, as if God were found. Swift, under peace, toward Heaven The hands, the feet, so still, like still lakes move, Delighted Powers of Sense, ye dance, Woven in such a lovely chance! VIATICUM