LO, in the sanctuaried East,

Day, a dedicated priest

In all his robes pontifical exprest,

Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,

From out its Orient tabernacle drawn,

Yon orbèd sacrament confest

Which sprinkles bénédiction through, the dawn;

And when the grave procession 's ceased,

The earth with due illustrious rite

Blessed,-ere the frail fingers featly

Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte,

His sacerdotal stoles unvest-

Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast,

The sun in august exposition meetly

Within the flaming monstrance of the West.

God, whom none may live and mark,

Borne within thy radiant ark!-

While the Earth, a joyous David,

Dances before thee from the dawn to dark.

The moon, O leave, pale ruined Eve ;

Behold her fair and greater daughter*

Offers to thee her fruitful water,

Which at thy first white Ave shall conceive!

Thy gazes do on simple her

Désirable allures confer;

What happy comelinesses rise

*The Earth.

Beneath thy beautif ying eyes !

Who was, indeed, at first a maid

Such as, with sighs, misgives she is not fair,

And secret views herseif afraid,

Till flatteries sweet provoke the charms they swear

Yea, thy gazes, blissful lover,

Make,the beau ti es they discover!

What dainty guiles and treacheries caught

From artful prompting of love's artless thought

Her lowly loveliness teach her to adora,

When thy plumes shiver against the conscious

gates of mora !

And so the love which is thy dower,

Earth, though her first-frightened breast

Against the exigent boon protest,

(For she, poor maid, of her own power

Has nothing in herseif, not even love,

But an unwitting void thereof),

Gives back to thee in sanctities of flower;

And holy odours do her bosom invest,

That sweeter grows for being prest :

Though dear recoil, the tremorous nurse of joy,

From thine embrace still startles coy,

Till Phosphor lead, at thy returning hour,

The laughing captive from the wishing West,

Nor the majestic heavens less

Thy formidable sweets approve,

Thy dreads and thy delights confess

That do draw, and that remove.

Thou as a lion roar'st, O Sun,

Upon thy satellites' vexèd heels;

Before thy terrible hunt thy planets run;

Each in his frighted orbit wheels,

Each flies through inassuageable chase,

Since the hunt o' the world begun,

The puissant approaches of thy face,

And y et thy radiant leash he feels.

Since the hunt o' the world begun,

Lashed with terror, leashed with longing,

The mighty course is ever run ;

Pricked with terror, leashed with longing,

Thy rein they love, and thy rebuke they shun.

Since the hunt o' the world began,

With love that trembleth, fear that loveth,

Thou join'st the woman to the man;

And Life with Death

In obscure nuptials moveth,

Commingling alien, yet affinèd, breath.

Thou art the incarnated Light

Whose Sire is aboriginal, and beyond

Death and résurgence of our day and night;

From him is thy vicegerent wand

With double potence of the black and white.

Giver of Love, and Beauty, and Desire,

The terror, and the loveliness, and purging,

The deathfulness and lifefulness of fire !

Samson's riddling meanings merging

In thy twofold sceptre meet:

Out of thy minatory might,

Burning Lion, burning Lion,

Comes the honey of all sweet,

And out of thee, the eater, comes foxth meat.

And though, by thine alternate breath,

Every kiss thou dost inspire

Echoeth

Back from the windy vaultages of death;

Yet thy clear warranty above

Augurs the wings of death too must

Occult réverbérations stir of love »

Crescent and life incredible;

That even the kisses of the just

Go down not unresurgent to the dust.

Yea, not a kiss which I have given,

But shall triùmph upon my lips in heaven,

Or cling a shameful fungus there in hell.

Know'st thou me not, O Sun ? Yea, well

Thou know'st the ancient miracle,

The children know'st of Zeus and May;

And still thou teachest them, O splendent Brother,

To incarnate, the antique way,

The truth which is their héritage from their Sire

In sweet disguise of flesh from their sweet Mòther.

My Angers thou hast taught to con

Thy flame-chorded psalterion,

Till I can translate into mortai wire-

Till I can translate passing well-

The heavenly harping harmony,

Melodious, sealed, inaudible,

Which makes the dulcet psalter of the world's desire.

Thou whisperest in the Moon's white ear,

And she does whisper into mine,-

By night together, I and she-

With her virgin voice divine,

The things I cannot half so sweetly tell

As she can sweetly speak, I sweetly hear.

By her, the Woman, does Earth live, O Lord,

Yet she for Earth, and both in thee.

Light out of Light !

Resplendent and prevailing Word

Of the Unheard !

Not unto thee, great Image, not to thee

Did the wise heathen bend an idle knee;

And in an âge of faith grown frore

If I too shall adore,

Be it accounted unto me

A bright sciential idolatry !

God has given thee visible thunders

To utter thine apocalypse of wonders;

And what want I of prophecy,

That at the sounding from thy station

Of thy flagrant trumpet, see

The seals that melt, the open révélation ?

Or who a God-persuading angel needs,

That only heeds

The rhetoric of thy burning deeds ?

Which but to sing, if it may be,

In worship-warranting moiety,

So I would win

In such a song as hath within

A smouldering core of mystery,

Brimmèd with nimbler meanings up

Than hasty Gideons in their hands may sup ;-

Lo, my suit pleads

That thou, Isaian coal of lire,

Touch from yon aitar my poor mouth's desire,

And the relucent song take for thy sacred meeds.

To thine own shape

Thou round'st the chrysolite of the grape,

Bind'st thy gold lightnings in his veins;

Thou störest the white garners of the rains.

Destroyer and preserver, thou

Who medicinest sickness, and to health

Art the unthankèd marrow of its wealth;

To those apparent sovereignties we bow

And bright appurtenances of thy brow !

Thy proper blood dost thou not give,

That Earth, the gusty Maenad, drink and dance?

Art thou not life of them that live?'

Yea, in glad twinkling advent, thou dost dwell

Within our body as a tabernacle !

Thou bittest with thine ordinance

The jaws of Time, and thou dost mete

The unsustainable treading of his feet.

Thou to thy spousal universe

Art Husband, she thy Wife and Church;

Who in most dusk and vidual curch,

Her Lord being hence,

Keeps her cold sorrows by thy hearse.

The heavens renew their innocence

And morning state

But by thy sacrament communicate;

Their weeping night the symbol of our prayers,

Our darkened search,

And sinful vigil desolate,

Yea, biune in imploring dumb,

Essential Heavens and corporal Earth await,

The Spirit and the Bride say: Come!

Lo, of thy Magians I the least

Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs,

To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced

Regions and odorous of Song's traded East.

Thou, for the life of all that live

The victim daily born and sacrificed;

To whom the pinion of this longing verse

Beats but with fire which first thyself did give,

To thee, O Sun-or is 9t perchance, to Christ ?

Ay, if men say that on all high heaven's face

The saintly signs I trace

Which round my stolèd altars hold their

solemn place,

Amen, amen ! For oh, how could it be,-

When I with wingèd feet had run

Through all the windy earth about,

Quested its secret of the sun,

And heard what thing the Stars together shout,-

I should not heed thereout

Consenting counsel won:-

" By this, O Singer, know we if thou see.

When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is here,

When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is there,

Believe them: yea, and this-then art thou seer,

When all thy crying clear

Is but: Lo here! lo there!-ah me, lo everywhere!"