O Mother-Maid! to none save thee Belongs in full a parent's name: So faithful thy virginity, Thy motherhood so pure from blame! All other parents, what are they? Thy types. In them thou stood'st rehearsed, (As they in bird, and bud, and spray). Thine Antitype? The Eternal First! Prime Parent He: and next Him thou! Overshadowed by the Father's Might, Thy 'Fiat' was thy bridal vow; Thine offspring He, the "Light of Light." Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art, O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:-- She shaped Thee in her virgin heart, Thy Mother and Thy Father both! Let us pass on from this, without breaking the continuity, to CONSERVABAT IN CORDE. As every change of April sky Is imaged in a placid brook, Her meditative memory Mirrored His every deed and look. As suns through summer ether rolled Mature each growth the spring has wrought, _So Love's strong day-star turned to gold Her harvests of quiescent thought_. _Her soul was as a vase, and shone Translucent to an inner ray; Her Maker's finger wrote thereon A mystic Bible new each day_. Deep Heart! In all His sevenfold might The Paraclete with thee abode; And, sacramented there in light, Bore witness of the things of God. The last verse has a flaw rare in these volumes--a mixture of metaphors. In the first two lines, "heart" is strongly personified, and clearly represents Mary herself. In the third with no intimation whatever, and without a break in the construction of the sentence, the same heart is become a place, and is indicated by "there." We cannot imagine how the author, with his susceptible taste, read it over in the proof-sheets without feeling the jar of the phrases. So much for the loving side of Mary's character. In depicting her suffering, the poet has even excelled this. The first broad stroke of his picture is MATER DOLOROSA She stood: she sank not. Slowly fell Adown the Cross the atoning blood. In agony ineffable She offered still His own to God. No pang of His her bosom spared; She felt in Him its several power. But she in heart His Priesthood shared: She offered Sacrifice that hour. . . . Beautifully our author hag named the succeeding poem also Mater Dolorosa. The one is the agony of loss, the other the bitterness of bereavement: From her He passed: yet still with her The endless thought of Him found rest; A sad but sacred branch of myrrh _For ever folded in her breast_. A Boreal winter void of light-- So seemed her widowed days forlorn: _She slept; but in her breast all night Her heart lay waking till the morn_. Sad flowers on Calvary that grew;-- Sad fruits that ripened from the Cross;-- These were the only joys she knew: Yet all but these she counted loss.