My Lord, the honour of great fear To be Thy teeming _fiat_ here; In blood and will Urged to fulfil Thy rounded motion of behest; One with Thy power and blest To act by aim and right Of Thy prevenient might! OF SILENCE “Be it done unto me According to Thy word....” Into Mortality Slips the Eternal Word, When not a sound is heard. She spake those words, and then Was silent in her heart; Mother of Silence, when Her will spake from her heart Her lips had done their part. And only once we hear Her words that intercede; Her will so sweetly clear Those lips should intercede, And help men in their need. Out of her silence grew The Word, and as a man He neither cried nor knew The strivings of a man, When doom for Him began. And after He had gone From Earth to Heaven away, He came and lingered on; He would not pass away, But with His people stay. Son of the Silent Maid, He chose her silence too. In dumbness He hath stayed, Dumbness unbroken too, Past measure--as night-dew. O quiet, holy Host, Our pondering Joy and Light, In Thy still power engrossed, As a mute star pleads light, Thou pleadest, Infinite! REAL PRESENCE I approach Thy Altar.... Stay! Let me break away! Level stones of marble, brazen lights, Linen spread, flowers on the shelves and heights-- I bow down, I kneel ... And far away, where the sun sets, would reel! For from forth Thy altar Thou Strikest on me now, Strikest on me, firm and warm to thrill, With the charm of one whose touch could kill; Giving me desire Toward substance, yet for flight the lightning’s fire. So, if close a lover kneels, Praying close, one feels All the body’s flow of life reined tight, As when waters struggle at their height; From Thy altar-stone, Thou in my body bodily art known. And I fear Thee worse than death, As we fear Love’s breath: Thou art as a tiger round a camp; And I kindle, terrified, my lamp, Since I cannot fly, But to hold Thee distant, lest I die. Thou art God, and in the mesh, Close to me, of flesh; And we love and we have been in range Of wild secrecies of interchange: Could I bear Thee near I should be humble to Thee--but I _fear_! FROM THE HIGHWAY