Eyes of Youth. Various

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      O Lady Mary, thy bright crown

      Is no mere crown of majesty;

      For with the reflex of His own

      Resplendent thorns Christ circled thee.

      The red rose of this passion tide

      Doth take a deeper hue from thee,

      In the five Wounds of Jesus dyed,

      And in Thy bleeding thoughts, Mary.

      The soldier struck a triple stroke

      That smote thy Jesus on the tree;

      He broke the Heart of hearts, and broke

      The Saint's and Mother's hearts in thee.

      Thy Son went up the Angels' ways,

      His passion ended; but, ah me!

      Thou found'st the road of further days

      A longer way of Calvary.

      On the hard cross of hopes deferred

      Thou hung'st in loving agony,

      Until the mortal dreaded word,

      Which chills our mirth, spake mirth to thee.

      The Angel Death from this cold tomb

      Of life did roll the stone away;

      And He thou barest in thy womb

      Caught thee at last into the day—

      Before the living throne of Whom

      The lights of heaven burning pray.

      O thou who dwellest in the day,

      Behold, I pace amidst the gloom:

      Darkness is ever round my way,

      With little space for sunbeam room.

      Yet Christian sadness is divine,

      Even as thy patient sadness was:

      The salt tears in our life's dark wine

      Fell in it from the saving Cross.

      Bitter the bread of our repast;

      Yet doth a sweet the bitter leaven:

      Our sorrow is the shadow cast

      Around it by the light of Heaven.

      O Light in light, shine down from Heaven!

      O woman, shapely as the swan,

      On your account I shall not die.

      The men you've slain—a trivial clan—

      Were less than I.

      I ask me shall I die for these:

      For blossom-teeth and scarlet lips?

      And shall that delicate swan-shape

      Bring me eclipse?

      Well shaped the breasts and smooth the skin,

      The cheeks are fair, the tresses free;

      And yet I shall not suffer death,

      God over me.

      Those even brows, that hair like gold,

      Those languorous tones, that virgin way;

      The flowing limbs, the rounded heel

      Slight men betray.

      Thy spirit keen through radiant mien,

      Thy shining throat and smiling eye,

      Thy little palm, thy side like foam—

      I cannot die.

      O woman, shapely as the swan,

      In a cunning house hard-reared was I;

      O bosom white, O well-shaped palm,

      I shall not die.

      You stay at last at my bosom, with your beauty

      young and rare,

      Though your light limbs are as limber as the

      foal's that follows the mare,

      Brow fair and young and stately where thought

      has now begun—Hair

      bright as the breast of the eagle when he

      strains up to the sun!

      In the space of a broken castle I found you on

      a day

      When the call of the new-come cuckoo went

      with me all the way.

      You stood by the loosened stones that were

      rough and black with age:

      The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's

      broken cage!

      And we went down together by paths your

      childhood knew—

      Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of

      the dew;

      Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom

      was their scanty dower—

      You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom

      that scarce is flower.

      And now you stay at my bosom with you

      beauty young and rare,

      Though your light limbs are as limber as the

      foal's that follows the mare;

      But always I will see you on paths your childhood

      knew,

      When remote you went beside me like the

      spirit of the dew.

      Christ, by thine own darkened hour

      Live within my heart and brain!

      Let my hands not slip the rein.

      Ah, how long ago it is

      Since a comrade rode with me!

      Now a moment let me see

      Thyself, lonely in the dark,

      Perfect, without wound or mark.

      Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his

      living words.

      His songs were the hurtling of spears and

      his figures the flashing of swords.

      With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature

      of Saadi's mind;

      It was like to the horse of a king, a creature

      of fire and of wind.

      Umimah my loved one was by me: without

      love did these eyes see my fawn,

      And if fire there were in her being, for me

      its splendour had gone;

      When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes

      waste the fire of the grass—

      It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the

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