Classic Poem

I

I cannot think they love the Lord aright,
Or by his promised Spirit have been taught,
Who, from his Mother derogate in aught,
And grudgingly withhold her sovereign right,
And find one speck upon her shield of light,
And deem the sacred Vessel, which has brought
Incarnate-God into the world, is naught
But dust, still soddening in the crypts of night.
No: rather let me cleave to what they say
Who love the legends of the east to reap,
That, when apostles on an August day
Came to the spot where Mary fell on sleep,
They found, where late her precious body lay,
Nought but some fragrant lilies in a heap.

II

" Found nought but fragrant lilies in a heap:
And what, then, had become of Mary dead?"
Oh, slow of heart, to pierce the heavenly keep:
Surely, a host of guardian-angels sped
Unbid, unsummoned, down the inviolate steep,
And hovered o'er the dying Virgin's bed;
And when, with painless sigh, she drooped her head,
And in the brief embrace of death did sleep,
They claimed her priceless body as their own,
And wafted it with jubilee on high,
And set it down before the rainbowed throne,
Where he she bore in Bethlehem ruled the sky,
And waited — willing not to reign alone —
For her who gave him his Humanity.