O heart, that burns within, Illuminated, hot! O feet, that tread the road As if they trod it not-- So lifted and so winged By rare companionship! No matter tho’ the road Doth unto shadow dip; The meaning of the night My ears, attentive, hail. The mighty silence brings Music no nightingale Hath warbled from its fount; Music of holy things Made clear as song can make, With marvellous utterings: The Past become a joy Of instant clarity, As the deep evening fills With converse brimmingly. O nightingale, hold back Your wildest song’s discant; You cannot make my heart With such devotion pant As He who steps along Beside me in the shade, Down the steep valley-road, The enveloping, dark glade! Hush, O dim nightingale!... Is it my God whose Feet Wing mine to travel on; Whose voice in current sweet Shows how divine the thought And purpose is of all That hath been and shall be, And shall to me befall? Stay, nightingale! Behold! This Wayfarer, with strange, Wild Voice that rouses gloom Thy voice could never range, Hath broken Bread with me! No resinous, balmed shrine Glows from its core as I, When I behold His sign, And touch His offering Hand. O holiest journey, sped With Him who died for me, Who breaking with me Bread, Is known to me as Life, Is felt by me as Fire; Who is my Way and all My wayfaring’s Desire! A GIFT OF SWEETNESS I thought to lay my hands about Thy Crown, And gather, bleeding, its sharp spines: But as I knelt and bowed my forehead down, Worshipping thy cruel desert-Crown, Worshipping its thicket of sharp spines-- Through them blew a little wind, Clearer than the dew in breath Round Thy Mother’s feet at Nazareth; In a cloud it left behind Scent of violets, of such birth They had never broken earth, But through meshes of the Crown of Thorn, In a fertilising cloud, were born; And, fresh with piety of grace, Were thrown--oh sweet!--unseen across my face. That never will a mould-born violet-bed Smell like the violets from the Sacred Head. IN CHRISTO As shade doth on a dial slide, Those dark and parting eyes abide Toward me from the tall vessel’s side: Eyes lovelier than the stones of grace That build for God His dwelling-place; Beyond all jewels in device, Yea, beyond amethyst in price, The hyacinth-stone in loveliness. Delectable, dear eyes that bless; A saviour’s eyes, bent down on me, As New Jerusalem might be Come down, adorned with Charity.... Let the tall vessel sweep to sea! SIGHTS FOR GOD