Speculum Justitiæ. VI. NOT in Himself the Eternal Word Lay hid upon creation's day : His Loveliness abroad He poured On all the worlds; and pours for aye. Not in Himself the Incarnate Son, In whom Man's race is born again, His glory hides. The victory won, He rose to send His "Gifts on Men." In sacraments - His dread behests; His glory, far as man may bear. He shines not from a vault of gloom; The horizon vast His splendour paints: Both heaven and earth His beams illume; His light is glorious in His saints. He shines upon His Church that Moon Who, in the watches of the night, Transmits to man the entrusted boon; A sister orb of sacred light. And thou, pure mirror of His grace! - So, Mary, feeblest eyes the face Of Him thou lovest discern in thee. Munera. VII. Nor for herself does Mary hold But for the brethren of her Son. Pure thoughts that make to God their quest, In her our hearts, no longer nursed Her distance makes her not remote: In her, the weary warfare past, The port attained, the exile o'er, Predestinata. VIII. ETERNAL Beauty, ere the spheres Had rolled from out the gulfs of night, Sparkled, through all the unnumbered years, Before the Eternal Father's sight. Like objects seen by Man in dream, Or landscape glassed on morning mist, Before His eyes it hung a gleam Flashed from the eternal Thought of Christ. It stood the Archetype sublime Of that fair world of finite things Which, in the bands of Space and Time, Creation's glittering verge enrings. Star-like within the depths serene Of that still vision, Mary, thou With Him, thy Son, of God wert seen Millenniums ere the lucid brow E |