Mater Amabilis.

XVI.

MOTHER Of Love! Thy love to Him
Cherub and seraph can but guess: —
A mother sees its image dim

In her own breathless tenderness.

That infant touch none else could feel
Vibrates like light through all her sense:

Far off she hears his cry: her zeal
With lions fights in his defence.

Unmarked his youth goes by: his hair

Still smooths she down, still strokes apart : The first white thread that meets her there

Glides, like a dagger, through her heart.

Men praise him: on her matron cheek
There dawns once more a maiden red.
of battle-fields they speak:
She sees once more his father dead.

Of war,

In sickness

half in sleep — she hears

His foot, ere yet that foot is nigh:

Wakes with a smile; and scarcely fears,

If he but clasp her hand, to die.

Mater Filii.

XVII.

OTHERS, the hours of youth gone by,
A mother's hearth and home forsake;

And, with the need, the filial tie

Relaxes, though it does not break.

But Thou wert born to be a Son.

God's Son in heaven, Thy will was this,

To pass the chain of Sonship on,
And bind in one whatever is.

Thou cam❜st the Son of Man to be,
That so Thy brethren too might bear

Adoptive Sonship, and with Thee
Thy Sire's eternal kingdom share.

Transcendently the Son Thou art:
In this mysterious bond entwine,
As in a single, two-celled heart,
Thy natures, human and divine,

Mater Divinæ Gratiæ.

XVIII. '

"THEY have no wine." The tender guest
Was grieved their feast should lack for aught.
He seemed to slight her mute request:
Not less the grace she wished He wrought.

O great in Love! O full of Grace!
That winds in thee, a river broad,
From Christ, with heaven-reflecting face,
Gladdening the City of thy God:-

Be this thy gift: that man henceforth
No more should creep through life content
(Draining the springs impure of earth)

>

With life's material element.

Let sacraments to sense succeed:

Let nought be winning, nought be good Which fails of Him to speak, and bleed Once more with His all-cleansing blood!

Mater Divina Gratiæ.

XIX.

THE gifts a mother showers each day
Upon her softly-clamorous brood:
The gifts they value but for play,-
The graver gifts of clothes and food, —

Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his labouring brows,

The guerdon of his manly toil?

From Him the Grace: through her it stands
Adjusted, meted, and applied;

And ever, passing through her hands,
Enriched it seems, and beautified.

Love's mirror doubles Love's caress:
Love's echo to Love's voice is true:
Their Sire the children love not less

Because they clasp a Mother too.

XX.

WHEN April's sudden sunset cold
Through boughs half-clothed with watery sheen
Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold,
And bathes a world half gold half green,

Then shakes the illuminated air

With din of birds; the vales far down Grow phosphorescent here and there; Forth flash the turrets of the town;

Along the sky thin

vapours

scud;

Bright zephyrs curl the choral main;

The wild ebullience of the blood

Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain :

Yet in that music discords mix;

The unbalanced lights like meteors play;
And, tired of splendours that perplex,
The dazzled spirit sighs for May.