Volume II Part 29 (2/2)
V.
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon Thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
VI.
I am not proud--meek angels, ye invest New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest On mortal lips,--”I am not proud”--_not proud!_ Albeit in my flesh G.o.d sent His Son, Albeit over Him my head is bowed As others bow before Him, still mine heart Bows lower than their knees. O centuries That roll in vision your futurities My future grave athwart,-- Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep Watch o'er this sleep,-- Say of me as the Heavenly said--”Thou art The blessedest of women!”--blessedest, Not holiest, not n.o.blest, no high name Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame When I sit meek in heaven!
For me, for me, G.o.d knows that I am feeble like the rest!
I often wandered forth, more child than maiden Among the midnight hills of Galilee Whose summits looked heaven-laden, Listening to silence as it seemed to be G.o.d's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to press Upon my heart as heaven did on the height, And waken up its shadows by a light, And show its vileness by a holiness.
Then I knelt down most silent like the night, Too self-renounced for fears, Raising my small face to the boundless blue Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears: G.o.d heard _them_ falling after, with His dew.
VII.
So, seeing my corruption, can I see This Incorruptible now born of me, This fair new Innocence no sun did chance To s.h.i.+ne on, (for even Adam was no child,) Created from my nature all defiled, This mystery, from out mine ignorance,-- Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption, more Than others do, or _I_ did heretofore?
Can hands wherein such burden pure has been, Not open with the cry ”unclean, unclean,”
More oft than any else beneath the skies?
Ah King, ah, Christ, ah son!
The kine, the shepherds, the abased wise Must all less lowly wait Than I, upon Thy state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
VIII.
Art Thou a King, then? Come, His universe, Come, crown me Him a King!
Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling Their light where fell a curse, And make a crowning for this kingly brow!-- What is my word? Each empyreal star Sits in a sphere afar In s.h.i.+ning ambuscade: The child-brow, crowned by none, Keeps its unchildlike shade.
Sleep, sleep, my crownless One!
IX.
Unchildlike shade! No other babe doth wear An aspect very sorrowful, as Thou.
No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seen To float like speech the speechless lips between, No dovelike cooing in the golden air, No quick short joys of leaping babyhood.
Alas, our earthly good In heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee; Yet, sleep, my weary One!
X.
And then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy, With the dread sense of things which shall be done, Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword?
_That_ ”smites the Shepherd.” Then, I think aloud The words ”despised,”--”rejected,”--every word Recoiling into darkness as I view The DARLING on my knee.
Bright angels,--move not--lest ye stir the cloud Betwixt my soul and His futurity!
I must not die, with mother's work to do, And could not live-and see.
XI.
It is enough to bear This image still and fair, This holier in sleep Than a saint at prayer, This aspect of a child Who never sinned or smiled; This Presence in an infant's face; This sadness most like love, This love than love more deep, This weakness like omnipotence It is so strong to move.
Awful is this watching place, Awful what I see from hence-- A king, without regalia, A G.o.d, without the thunder, A child, without the heart for play; Ay, a Creator, rent asunder From His first glory and cast away On His own world, for me alone To hold in hands created, crying--SON!
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