Classic Poem

( ST. GILDA DE RHUYS )

T HE stillness of the sunshine lies
 Upon her spirit: silence seems
 To look out from its place of dreams
When suddenly she lifts her eyes
 To waken, for a little space,
 The smile asleep upon her face.

A thousand years of sun and shower,
 The melting of unnumbered snows
 Go to the making of the rose
Which blushes out its little hour.
 So old is Beauty: in its heart
 The ages seem to meet and part.

Like Beauty's self, she holds a clear
 Deep memory of hidden things—
 The music of forgotten springs—
So far she travels back, so near
 She seems to stand to patient truth,
 As old as Age, as young as Youth.

That is her window, by the gate.
 Now and again her figure flits
 Across the wall. Long hours she sits
Within: on all who come to wait.
 Her Saviour too is hanging there
 A foot or so above her chair.

“Sœur Marie de l'enfant Jésus,”
 You wrote it in my little book—
 Your shadow-name. Your shadow-look
Is dimmer and diviner too,
 But not to keep: it slips so far
 Beyond us to that golden bar

Where angels, watching from their stair,
 Half-envy you your tranquil days
 Of prayer as exquisite as praise,—
Grey twilights softer than their glare
 Of glory: all sweet human things
 Which vanish with the whirr of wings.

Yet will you, when you wing your way
 To whiter worlds, more whitely shine
 Or shed a radiance more divine
Than here you shed from day to day—
 High in His heaven a quiet star,
 Be nearer God than now you are?