Classic Poem

Who standing thrilled in his bewilderment
Can tell thy humble ways,
The hidden paths on which thy white feet went
Through all thy lonely days?

From what deep root the Lily of the Lord
To grace and beauty grew,
Or in what fires was tempered the keen sword
That pierced thy bosom through?

But we may turn and find within our hands
Our souls' strange bread and wine,
The gathered meanings of thy starry lands
Where mystic roses shine.

Heaven's air might grow for us too cold and tense,
Her towers far and faint,
Did we not know thy sorrowful innocence,
Or soldier, singer, saint,

Earth's heroes with earth's poor not kneel and tell
Their full hearts' burdenings
To those dear eyes before which Gabriel
Bent low with folded wings.

The soldier shall remember whose the heel
That crushed the serpent's head,
How mighty in thy hand hath been the steel
That dyed thy bosom red.

The singer weave for thee a cloak of light
Where earth's wild colours run,
As God hath crowned thee with the stars of night
And clothed thee with the sun.

The saint who in a cloister cool and dim
His difficult road hath kept
Shall think of thee whose body cloistered Him
When in thy womb He slept.

And thou shalt call to thee the poor of earth
To share thy joy with them,
And fill them with thy magnitude and mirth
In many a Bethlehem.