Oh, brighter than wild laurel The Babe bounds in her hand, The King, who for apparel Hath but a swaddling-band, And sees her heavenlier smiling than stars in Soon, mystic changes Part Him from her breast, Yet there awhile He ranges Gardens of rest: Yea, she the first to ponder Our ransom and recall, Awhile may rock Him under Her young curls' fall Against that only sinless love-loyal heart of all. What shall inure Him Unto the deadly dream, When the Tetrarch shall abjure Him, The thief blaspheme, And scribe and soldier jostle About the shameful tree, And even an Apostle Demand to touch and see? But she hath kissed her Flower where the Wounds are to be. III THREE without slumber ride from afar, Fain of the roads where palaces are; All by a shed as they ride in a row, "Here!" is the cry of their vanishing Star. 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 First doth a greybeard, glittering fine, 5 Look on Messiah in slant moonshine: "This have I bought for Thee!" Vainly: for lo, Shut like a fern is the young hand divine. Next doth a Magian, mantled and tall, Bow to the Ruler that reigns from a stall: ΙΟ "This have I sought for Thee." Though it be rare, Last doth a stripling, bare in his pride, Kneel by the Lover as if to abide: "This have I wrought for Thee!" Answer him there 15 IV WAS a Soule from farre away Stood wistful in the Hay, Neither reck'd hee any more And of the Babe a-sleeping hadde a sight: Harte to harte against my Brother let mee be. By the Fountaines that are His I wo'd slumber where Hee is: 15 Prithee, Mother, give the other Brest to mee!" The Soule that none co'd see She hath taken on her knee: (Yule! Yule!) Sing prayse to Our Ladye. V The Ox and the Ass, Tell aloud of them: Sing their pleasure as it was In Bethlehem. STILL as blowing rose, sudden as a sword, Maidenly the Maiden bare Jesu Christ the Lord; 20 Yet for very lowlihood, such a Guest to greet, Goeth in a little swoon while kissing of His feet. Mary, drifted snow on the earthen floor, Joseph, fallen wondrous weak now he would adore, 5 (Oh, the surging might of love! Oh, the drowning bliss!) Both are rapt to Heaven and lose their human Heaven that is. From the Newly Born trails a lonely cry. With a mind to heed, the Ox turns a glowing eye; In the empty byre the Ass thinks her heart to blame: Up for comforting of God the beasts of burden came, Softly to inquire, thrusting as for cheer There between the tender hands, furry faces dear. Friended Our Delight so well when warmth had strayed away. Crooks are on the sill; scepters sail the wave; All the hopes of all the years are thronging to the Cave. The Ox and the Ass, Be you glad for them Such a moment came to pass In Bethlehem! THE WILD RIDE I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing. Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle 20 5 The trail is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding. Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, 10 A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, 15 (I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.) We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind; 20 We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from an anvil. SAINT FRANCIS ENDETH HIS SERMON "AND now, my clerks who go in fur or feather To your true Lover and Avenger, whether By land or sea ye die the death undue. Then proffer man your pardon; and together 5 Track him to Heaven, and see his heart made new. "From long ago one hope hath in me thriven, O doves! how from The Dove shall ye be driven? SUMMUM BONUM WAITING on Him who knows us and our need, Against His gift with no inglorious greed, To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher, Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense A praying more than prayer: "Great good have I, Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence, For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!" 5 10 ERNEST CHRISTOPHER DOWSON' 1867-1900 Ernest Dowson, convert and poet, was born in Kent in 1867. Much of his early life was spent in Italy and France. His education was irregular and incomplete, most of it being obtained through more or less desultory reading, although he studied for a time at Queen's College, Oxford. At the age of twenty, however, he left Oxford, and spent the remainder of his short life either in London or in France. About the time he left Oxford he was received into the Catholic Church, one of the first of those whose conversion to the Faith during the late eighties and early nineties forms a curious comment upon that strangely hectic period. Dowson's verse, naturally, is the product of his temperament and the elements of his training. At times decadent to a degree almost incomprehensible in the light of his other moments, it rises just as frequently to levels among the highest reaches and is there sustained in perfect harmonies. 1Selections from the work of Ernest Christopher Dowson are used by permission of Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. |