LO, from Thy Father’s bosom Thou dost sigh;
 Deep to Thy restlessness His ear is bent:—
 “Father, the Paraclete is sent,
 Wrapt in a foaming wind He passeth by.
 Behold, men’s hearts are shaken—I must die:
 Sure as a star within the firmament
 Must be my dying: lo, my wood is rent,
 My cross is sunken! Father, I must die!”
 Lo, how God loveth us, He looseth hold....
 His Son is back among us, with His own,
 And craving at our hands an altar-stone.
 Thereon, a victim, meek He takes his place;
 And, while to offer Him His priests make bold,
 He looketh upward to His Father’s Face.

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

I

GATHER, gather,
 Drawn by the Father,
 Drawn to the dear procession of His Son!
 They are bearing His Body.... Run
 To the Well-Belovèd! Haste to Him,
 Who down the street passeth secretly,
 Adorned with Seraphim,
 Still as the blooms of an apple-tree.

II

Gather, gather,
 Drawn by the Father!
 Not now He dwelleth in the Virgin’s womb:
 In the harvests He hath His room;
 From the lovely vintage, from the wheat,
 From the harvests that we this year have grown,
 He giveth us His flesh to eat,
 And in very substance makes us His own.

III

Gather, gather,
 Drawn by the Father!
 The sun is down, it is the sundown hour.
 He, who set the fair sun to flower,
 And the stars to rise and fall—
Kneel, and your garments before Him spread!
 Kneel, He loveth us all;
 He is come in the breaking of Bread.

IV

Gather, gather
 (Drawn by the Father),
 To our God who is shown to us so mild,
 Borne in our midst, a child!
 He is King and with an orb so small:
 And not a word will He say,
 Nor on the Angels call,
 Though we trample Him down on the way.
 On the Holy Angels He will not call....
 Oh, guard Him with breasts impregnable!
Sept. 25-26, 1908

COLUMBA MEA

“Una est Columba mea, perfecta mea.”

DOVE of the Holy Dove,
 His one, His mate—
 One art thou, single in thy mortal state
 To be the chosen of Love,
 His one, white Dove,
 For whom He left His place in Trinity,
 Letting His pinions fall
 Low to the earth, that His great power might be
 Around thee, nor appal,
 But, soft in singleness of strength, might bring
 The glory of the Father and the Son
 To thee, the chosen One,
 Amid the sounding clash of each vast wing.
His Perfect, thou art made
 Immaculate;
 For thou with dovelike whiteness must elate
 That Heavenly Spouse arrayed,
 Beyond all shade,
 In whiteness of the Godhead of God’s throne,
 That loves in utter white
 From Person unto Person, and alone
 Had dwelt in His pure light,
 Until one day the Holy Dove was sent
 To Thee, O Mary, thee, O Dove on earth,
 And God the Son had birth
 Of thee, Perfection of thy God’s intent.

VIRGO POTENS

YOUNG on the mountains and fresh
 As the wind that thrills her hair,
 As the dews that lap the flesh
 Of her feet from cushions of thyme;
 While her feet through the herbage climb,
 Growing hardier, sweeter still
 On rock-roses and cushions of thyme,
 As she springs up the hill!
A goat in its vaultings less lithe,
 From rock, to a tuft, to a rock;
 As the young of wild-deer blithe,
 The young of wild-deer, yet alone:
 Strong as an eaglet just flown,
 She wanders the white-woven earth,
 As the young of wild-deer, yet alone,
 In her triumph of mirth.
She will be Mother of God!
 Secret He lies in her womb:
 And this mountain she hath trod
 Was later in strength than is she,
 Who before its mass might be
 Was chosen to bear her bliss:
 Conceived before mountains was she,
 Before any abyss.
The might that dwells in her youth
 Is song to her heart and soul,
 Of joy that, as joy, is truth,
That magnifies, and leaps
 With its jubilant glee and sweeps,
 O fairest, her breast, her throat,
 Her mouth, and magnanimous leaps,
 As the mountain-lark’s note!
Across the old hills she springs,
 With God’s first dream as her crown:
 She scales them swift, for she brings
 Elizabeth news of grace.
 The charity of her face
 Is that of a lovely day,
 When the birds are singing news of grace,
 And the storms are away.

ANOTHER LEADETH THEE

IN whose hands, O Son of God,
 Was Thy earthly Mission held?
 Not in Thine, that made earth’s sod,
 And the ocean as it welled
 From creation to the shore;
 Not in Thine, whose fingers’ lore
 Checked the tide with golden bars,
 Ruled the clouds and dinted stars—
 Not in Thine, that made fresh leaves,
 And the flourished wheat for sheaves;
 Grapes that bubbled from a spring,
 Where the nightingale might sing
 From the blood of her wild throat;
 Not in Thine that struck her note;
 Maned the lion and wrought the lamb;
 Breathed on clay, “Be as I am!”
 And it stood before Thee fair,
 Thinking, loving, furnished rare,
 Like Thee, so beyond compare....
Not within Thy hands!—Behold,
 By a woman’s hand unrolled
 All the mystery sublime
 Of Thy ableness through Time!
 Thou, in precious Boyhood, knew
 For Thy Father what to do;
 And delayed Thyself to hear
 Questions and to answer clear
 To the Doctors’ chiming throng,
Thou, admired, wert set among.
 Straight Thy Mission was begun,
 As the Jewish Rabbis spun
 Round Thy fetterless, sweet mind
 Problems no one had divined.
 But Thy Mother came that way,
 Who had sought Thee day by day,
 And her crystal voice reproved
 Thy new way with Thy beloved.
 In Thy wisdom-widened eyes
 Throbbed a radiance of surprise:
 But, Thy Mother having chidden,
 Thou in Nazareth wert hidden;
 And Thy Father’s Work begun
 Stayed full eighteen years undone,
 Till Thou camest on Thine hour,
 When Thy Mother loosed Thy power
 For Thy Father’s business, said,
 In a murmur softly spread,
 Rippling to a happy few,
 “What He says unto you do!”
 As the spring-time to a tree,
 Sudden spring she was to Thee,
 When her strange appeal began
 Thy stayed Mission unto man;
 Stayed but by her earlier blame,
 When from three days’ woe she came;
 Yet renewed when she gave sign
 “Son, they have not any wine!”
Holy trust and love! She gave
 For Thy sake oblation brave
 Of her will, her spotless name:
 Thou for her didst boldly tame
 God the Word to wait on her;
 God’s own Wisdom might not stir
 Till her lovely voice decreed.
 Thou wouldst have our hearts give heed,
 And revere her lovely voice;
 Wait upon her secret choice,
 Stay her pleasure, as didst Thou,
 With a marvel on Thy brow,
 And a silence on Thy breath.
 We must cherish what she saith;
 As she pleadeth we must hope
 For our deeds’ accepted scope,
 Humble as her Heavenly Son,
 Till our liberty be won.

THE GARDEN OF LAZARUS

IN a garden at Bethany,
 O Mother, Mother, Mother!
 Amid the passion-flowers and olive-leaves—
 His Mother—
 Yet, behold, how tranquilly
 She is sad and grieves,
 Though her Son is gone away,
 And she knows Passover Day
 Will not leave her Lamb, her Child unslain!
 He hath spoken to deaf ears,
 All save hers, of mortal pain
 And of parting, yet she has no tears....
 He is gone away
 With His chosen few to eat the Pasch,
 Leaving in the eyes, she raised to ask,
 Mute assurance He would come no more
 Back to Bethany, nor Lazarus’ door.
 O Mother, Mother, Mother!—
 But she keeps so many things apart
 In their silence, pondering them by heart;
 Always she has pondered in her heart;
 And it knows her Son is Son of God....
 Silently she gazes where He trod
 Down the valley to Jerusalem—
 His Mother!
 Round her birds are at their parting song
 To the light that will not strike them long;
 And the flowers are very gold
 With the light before whose loss they fold.
Keen the song, as on each wing,
 And on each rose and each rose-stem
 Full the burnishing.
 She hath crossed her hands around her breast,
 And it seems her heart is taking rest
 With some Mystery her spirit heeds....
 Song of Songs the birds now chaunt,
 And the lilies vaunt
 How among them, white, He feeds,
 Who but now hath left her—fair and white
 As the lover of the Sunamite.
. . . .
In the city, in an upper room,
 As fair Paschal Bread He breaks and gives
 Unto men His Body while He lives—
 Then seeks out a Garden for His Doom.

HOLY CROSS

MYSTERIOUS sway of mortal blood,
 That urges me upon Thy wood!—
O Holy Cross, but I must tell
 My love; how all my forces dwell
 Upon Thee and around Thee day and night!
 I love the Feet upon thy beam,
 As a wild lover loves his dream;
 My eyes can only fix upon that sight.
O Tree, my arms are strong and sore
 To clasp Thee, as when we adore
 The body of our dearest in our arms!
 Each pang I suffer hath for aim
 Thy wood—its comfort is the same—
 A taint, an odour from inveterate balms.
My clasp is filled, my sight receives
 The compass of its power; pain grieves
 About each sense but as a languid hum:
 And, out of weariness, at length,
 My day rejoices in its strength,
 My night that innocence of strife is come.

PURGATORY

PERFECTION of my God!—
 With hands on the same rod,
 With robes that interfold,
 One weft together rolled;
 With two wings of one Dove
 Stretched the royal heads above—
 God severs from His Son,
 That what is not be won;
 Immortal, mortal grow,
 God entering manhood know
 What was not and shall be
 Of cogent Deity.
Perfection of my soul!—
 How shall I reach my goal,
 Unless I leave His Face,
 Who is my dwelling-place,
 Unless in exile do
 His will a short while through,
 To the time’s sharpest rim:
 Unless, deprived of Him,
 I may achieve Him, lie
 His victim, sigh on sigh,
 Bearing consummate pain,
 Supremely to attain?

FORTITUDO EGENIS

LOVER of Souls, Immaculate,
 Mary, by thy Immaculate Conception,
 Thy soul and body white for God’s reception,
 Beyond the ridg’d snows on the sky;
 Beyond the treasure of white beams that lie
 Within the golden casket of the sun;
 By the excelling franchise of thy state,
 Plead for the Holy Souls, O Holiest One!
Till they be cleansed grief hath no date!
 Them, through thy spotless grace, embolden
 To passion for their God, but once beholden,
 Nor ever more beheld till pain
 Hath made their souls’ recesses bright from stain.
 Plead they may swiftly see Him, nor may shun
 The Vision, each achieved immaculate!
 Pure from the first, plead for them, Holiest One!

PAX VOBISCUM

To Notre Dame de Boulogne

MY heart is before thee, Queen,
 As a mariner at sea—
 It vows its sighs that swell to thee,
 Sighs as great as against waves may be.
For thou art above the waves,
 On their summits thou dost float;
 Thy locks of gold along thy throat;
 Thou more gold than gold upon thy boat.
Pomp of thy body, thy Child—
 On thy arm, small-crowned and sweet;
 Thou, large-crowned! Where billows meet,
 Why these crowns, like shocks of golden wheat?
The Prince of Peace He is....
 As a mariner at sea,
 When waves are high and thronging free,
 High my heart entreats thy Son and thee.

PURISSIMÆ VIRGINI SACELLUM

IT is new in the air from the sea and the height,
 New as a nest by a sea-bird fashioned....
 O Carmel, thy mound the rock-site!...
 And roofless our chapel, the home we, impassioned,
 Have built for her coming, O Gift from the Sea!
 Elijah, our father, descend to thy mountain,
 Where once was thy shrine, God created by flame;
 Where from a land dry in well as in fountain
 Thou did’st keep vigil—as we—till she came,
 The Cloud from God’s Bosom, the Grace of His favour,
 The sweetness of Rain! O balm, oh, the savour
 Of air on the throat! O Desire from the Sea!
 Surrounded by roses and lilies of valleys,
 Sweeter than myrrh, or than balsam in chalice,
 Queen of the East, O Magnificent, bring
 The sweetness familiar as rain to man’s cry;
 Murmur as rain round our hearts lest we die,
 White Cloud of felicity, Voice to our ears!
 Girt with vale-lilies and roses a spring-day appears,
 But Thou, Queen of Carmel, art Spring.
Surely the last, we are first in our glory:
 Splendid out-broke in our desert the story
 How flame that fell down on our shrine at the call
 Of our father Elijah had fallen down on all.
 So Christ is received of us, Carmel receives Him,
The stones and the dust and the sea-winds believe Him:
 But after God’s Fire there is hope of God’s Rain.
 To us art thou come, O Abundance of Rain!
Thy little, roofless sanctuary, Queen,
 Finds us in winds, in sunset or at night,
 With stars to help our candles, wild and free
 As Pagans by their Virgin of moonlight,
 Diana of the Hunters’ rocks: so we
 Upon the heights, and in the breeze are seen,
 And called the Brothers of thy lovely name,
 Blest Mary of Mount Carmel. Asia, cry
 Her splendour! Cry to her, O Eastern Kings,
 Encompass her! She is our very own,
 In mercy manifest to us alone,
 Our Cloud of Mercy that from seaward springs,
 And crouched Elijah sought for, sigh on sigh.
And for our thanks ... O Eastern Kings, your treasure
 In this may serve us, that a pearl may lurk,
 Or in your chests there may be jewel-work
 That, as she is a Queen, might give her pleasure.
 We are her monks, we have no precious things.
 Close round her, Kings!
 With frankincense and myrrh,
 Open a fount for her!
 With cloth of gold proclaim her and enthrone!
 Afar off we will weep—she is our own.

IN THE BEGINNING

HOW still these two!
 Christ with far eyes, John with the fond eyes closed,
 And close unto
 The breast wherefrom is peace—
 No slumber that shall cease,
 But charmed safety of a faith as sure
 As a mountain’s founding to endure:
 And warm as sleep John’s love
 For the rapt Face above.
Far-rapt, Christ’s eyes,
 In strength, remember His own resting-place,
 Where, in this wise,
 He, the Eternal Word,
 Had kept deep lull unstirred,
 Upon the bosom of the Father laid;
 And, of that peace divined,
 Knew the Eternal mind.
Then the raised Face
 Breaks soft and the eyes droop and bend above
 The sweet head’s place,
 Where from closed eyelids John
 Setteth his love upon
 God, his Lord, his Thought, his Lover dear:
 And, in lapse of silence falling clear,
 One heareth only this—
 On the sweet head, a kiss.

AN ANTIPHONY OF ADVENT

Ad Laudes

I

COME to a revel, happy men!
 Far away on the hills a wine of joy
 Makes golden dew in drops, that cloy
 The fissures of the glen,
 The crevices of rock;
 Caught in its sweetness thyme and cistus lock;
 The hills are white and gold
 In every fold;
 The hills are running milk and honey-rivers;
 Yet not a thyrsus on a mountain quivers.

II

DOES not the distant city cry,
 As if filled with an unexpected rout,
 Alleluia, shout on shout?
 Nor can the city high
 Exult in song enough,
 Tuning to smoothness all her highways rough.
 And yet the Bromian god
 Hath never trod
 With choir the pavements, nor each grape-haired dancer
 Given to the mountain-streams a city’s answer.

III

BEHOLD, O men, a vivid light!
 Is it the lightning-fire that blazes wide,
Or torches lit on every side
 That turn the sky so bright?
 Through this great, sudden day,
 No levin-gendered god’s triumphant way
 The brands of pine confess:
 A loveliness
 Within that mighty light of larger story
 Is come among us with exceeding glory.

IV

YE that would drink, come forth and drink!
 Within the hills are rivers white and gold;
 Clear mid the day a portent to behold.
 Stoop at the water’s brink,
 Seek where the light is great!
 Why should the revellers for revel wait?
 Now ye can drink as thirsty stags
 Where no source flags.
 Forth to the water-brooks, forth in the morning;
 Forth to the light that out of light is dawning!

V

TIRESIAS, with thy wreath, not thou!
 Gray prophet of the fount of Thebes, behold
 A prophet neither blind nor old,
 Spare and of solemn brow,
 Is risen to make all young:
 He dwells among
 The freshets of the stream. Come to the Waters;
 O Sons of Adam, haste, and Eva’s daughters!
 This revel, children, is a revelry
 Ascetic, of a joy that cannot be
 Unless we fast and pray and wear no wreaths,
 Nor brandish cones the forest-fir bequeathes,
 Nor make a din—but sweet antiphonies—
 Nor blow through organ-reeds to sing to these,
 But of ourselves make song: it is a feast,
 That by the breath of deserts is increased;
 And by ablution in the river lifts
 Its grain to crystal—earth so full of gifts
 Most exquisite, breaths that are infinite
 Of infinite judgment, hesitations light
 Of infinite choiceness, life so fine, so fine,
 Since of our flesh we welcome the Divine;
 Since by our fast and reticence, our food
 From honey-bees in haunts of solitude,
 O mighty Prophet of the river-bank,
 We see that light that makes the sun a blank,
 As a white dove makes a whole region dim;
 See in the greatness of the great Light’s rim
 One we must fall down under would we win
 The ecstasy of revel—all our sin
 Borne from us by the Wine-Cup in a hand
 That bleeds about the vessel’s golden stand,
 Bleeds as the white throat of a lamb just slain.
 Behold! No Evoe at that poured red stain,
 No Evoe—Alleluia! He is dumb:
 But let us laud Him, Eleutherius come!

ANNUNCIATIONS

“Blessèd art Thou among women, Mary!”
 Through white wings,
 The angel brings
 Of a Saviour’s birth annunciation—
 Tidings of great joy to one afraid.
“Blessèd art thou Simon, son of Jonah!”
 In his power,
 His smile as dower,
 Of His Church’s birth, annunciation
 Is by God Himself, no angel, made.
Blessèd art Thou, Mary; blessèd, Peter!
 But the grace
 Of God’s own face
 Is on Peter for annunciation,
 When he speaks, by flesh and blood unswayed.

STONES OF THE BROOK

FORTH from a cloud,
 Loosed as a greyhound is loosed,
 To sweep down the sky,
 To sweep down the hill,
 A torrent of water unnoosed—
 The rain rushes on aloud,
 And becometh a stream on the earth, and still
 Groweth and spreadeth as its stream sweeps by.
And the stones of its course
 Are bright with its joy as it leaps
 Around them in might,
 Beyond them in joy;
 For it sings round the rocky heaps,
 From the brightness of its force;
 Nor can pebbles nor boulders of granite cloy
 In their multitude the stream’s delight.
With a torrent’s bliss,
 The Martyr Stephen receives
 The stones for his head,
 The stones for his breast,
 And smiles from his strength that believes:
 “Sweet stones of the brook!”—for this
 Is the singing, the song of his heart expressed,
 As he kneels, looking up, his hands outspread.
A river of blood, the tide
 Of martyrdom, gathers round
 His soul as a stream;
While the stones are drenched
 With tides of his blood as they bound
 From temple and mouth and side ...
 Stones of offence, dark stones from the torrent wrenched,
 Ye strike the trend of his joy as a dream!

RELICS

AN alabaster box,
 A tomb of precious stone—
 White, with white bars, as white
 As billows on a sea:
 With spaces where some flush
 Of sky-like rose is conscious and afraid
 Of whiteness and white bars.
 A lovely sepulchre of loveliest stone,
 This alabaster box—
 Coy as a maiden’s blood in flush,
 White as a maiden’s breast in stretch,
 Alive with fear and grace;
 Transparent rose,
 Translucent white;
 A treasury of precious stone,
 A strange, long tomb....
 ’Twas Maximin, who had this casket made,
 The holy Maximin, who travelled once
 With Mary Magdalen, and preached with her;
 Till on a wind as quiet
 As it had been a cloud,
 She was removed by Christ to dwell alone.
Alone she dwelt, her peace
 A thought that never fell
 From its full tide.
 Ever beside her in her cave,
 A vase of golden curls,
 A clod of blooded earth.
And when she died at last, and Maximin
 Must bury her;
 Being man and holy, in his love
 He laid her in an alabaster box,
 As she had laid her soul’s deep penitence,
 Her soul’s deep passion, a sweet balm, within
 An alabaster box:
 So Maximin gave Magdalen to God—
 Shut as a spice in precious stone,
 In bland and flushing box
 Of alabaster stone.
 And knowing all her secrets, Maximin,
 Being man and holy, laid within
 The priceless cave of alabaster two
 Most precious, cherished things—
 A vase of curly hair,
 A vase of golden web;
 A clod of withered soil,
 A clod of blooded earth.
The curls were crushed together in gold lump,
 Crushed by the hand that wiped
 The Holy Feet, kept in a crush of gold,
 Just as they dabbed the sweetly smelling Feet—
 The curls enwoven by the balm they dried,
 Knotted as rose of Sharon, when the winds
 Sweep it along the desert.... Curls, of power
 To float the charm of Eve in aureole
 Round her they covered, till she crushed them tight
 To dab the Holy Feet, and afterward
 Be severed from their growth,
 Stiff in their balm and gold;
 A piece of honeycomb in rings and web;
 Sweetness of shorn, gold, unguent-dabbled hair,
 A handful in a vase.
The clod, a bit of hill-turf dry;
 The turf that sheep might pull up as they graze;
 Or men might throw upon the fire
 At sundown when the air is loosed and cold:
 A clod an eagle might
 Ascend to build with, or a goat
 Kick down a valley’s side;
 A clod dark-red
 As if it mothered ruby of the mines.
 The hand that gathered it one hollow night
 Gathered it up red-wet from Golgotha.
 Three crosses lay about the grass—
 Such arms and shafts of crosses on the grass!—
 When she, who gathered, crept
 Among the prostrate arms;
 Roused a great death-bird from the ground,
 And, in its place,
 Bent down and pressed her lips where it had couched,
 And lifted up the ground to press her heart;
 And went her way, hugging the Sacred Blood
 As in a sponge of turf,
 That dried about the treasure, now grown hard,
 As if it mothered ruby of the mines—
 A clod of blooded soil.
O Relics of the Holy Magdalen!
 The balmy hair her plea,
 God’s Blood her grace:
 Within a vase her gift,
 Within a turf-clod His—
 Her relics, by her corpse;
 All she had cared to keep,
 Through hermit years of life,
 To bless her in her tomb
 Till Judgment-Day.

ON CAUCASUS

LO, Crimean marble-quarries tower
 Colder even than snow-peaks in their power,
 To the very heart stone-white:
 And the Christian captives strain
 On the hillsides in their pain,
 As they toil for Trajan day and night.
Who is this who comes with stirless brow,
 And sweet eyes that never could allow
 Rebels save upon their knees?
 Through the hills a voice is fanned
 That Pope Clement hath been banned
 Straightly to the marble Chersonese.
Toiling with his people ’mid the rocks,
 On a streamless slope, the quarried blocks
 He compels to whiteness clear.
 There a bitter cry is made
 Of the thirst that, unallayed,
 Dreams of well, or freshet, or wide mere.
He hath climbed to pray.... A lamb he sees,
 Pawing gladly in the mountain-breeze,
 Very golden unto snow:
 Lamb of God, cross-aureoled,
 Lovely on His vertex bold,
 Set above a River’s gush and flow.
By the brazen footstroke is expressed
 Impetus as of God’s River blest.
 Dew and snow in all their shine
 Round that heavenly Lamb and Stream
 Take the lustre of their dream,
 In a flood and blush of flame combine.
On the heavens, from Patmos’ shore,
 John beheld this crystal sight before—
 Not to bring a people aid;
 But, sweet Clement, thou hast seen, on earth
 God’s own Lamb, His River’s birth;
 How He shone and how its waters played!

IN THE SEA

(The Martyrdom of St. Clement)

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy! Save him, save!”—
 “Father, receive my spirit from the wave.”
Rolls the great Sea of the Chersonese
 Tossed and facing him and these....
 Cold in waters, high in heap
 As a quarry should it sweep
 With a landslip down on men:
 And it roars as in its den
 Roars a monster apt for blood.
 He must journey on this flood
 To the harbour of his soul;
 He must seek his furthest goal,
 With an anchor round his neck,
 From yon tossing vessel’s deck
 Cast to drown, when out at sea
 Full three miles that ship may be.
 And his fellow-exiles cry,
 “Let him not, Lord Jesus, die!”
On the clouds the vessel is a spot.
 “Lord Jesus, save him!... Is there not,
 O brothers, in the sea retreat—
 Caught back, rolling from our feet,
 Not in waves, as under tide,
 But withdrawn on every side?
Very solemn is this floor!
 We can see the waves no more.
 Let us follow them athwart
 Sea-deeps with no waters fraught;
 Let us wipe our tears away,
 Let us take this holy way!
 Large the floor and larger still:
 Must the whole horizon fill
 With a land of weed and shell,
 Where no billows native dwell
 Any more—we know not why:
 Any more, since we made cry?”
As the sunset clears the sky,
 Yet across its wondrous space
 There is one transcendent place
 Where the sun is laid to rest:
 So these mourners, strangely blessed—
 Over sand and coral clean
 And unbroken shells, serene,
 With the peace where sea hath been,
 Over panting sea-stars bright,
 Silver-raying fishes, mad
 For the livesome brine they had—
 Come upon a Temple-grot,
 Set before them in a spot
 Of the naked desert, left
 By the ocean’s woof and weft
 Of the tidal streams withdrawn.
There upon the sand, forlorn
 In its beauty, far remote,
 Stands a Temple-shrine, they note
 Of the Holy Spirit’s dream....
 And they cross a little stream,
 Thrilling with the far-off sea;
 And they follow what must be,
 As they tread within the shrine,
 Builded marble for a sign
 Angels had been set to build
 On a ground the ocean filled.
 In a tabernacle lies,
 Lone and grand to seeking eyes,
 Not the sunk sun, but a tomb,
 Whitest marble, and the room
 Of the holy Clement dead.
 There he lies, how comforted!
 Through the mighty water brought
 To a peace, a harbour wrought
 Of the holy Angels’ care.
 Close his anchor! He so still
 And sufficed—the waves that kill
 Driven away by angel-hands;
 While his people’s exile bands
 Kneel around him in the sea....
 Come to port, his anchor by!
 Thus the sun each day must die:
 Thus sweet Clement but one day
 In the sea sank down, and lay
 As at sunset, full of peace.
They bear him to the land: and the flood-tides increase.

“COMMUNICANTES ET MEMORIAM VENERANTES ... JOANNIS ET PAULI”