  A LITTLE chamber, shadowed, still As cave within a marble hill— O Virgin Mother, thou dost fill The little space, bent down in prayer! Sudden, through tears, thou art aware How One is standing at thy door, As stood, some thirty years before, The Angel when thy fear was sore. O Virgin—Virgin-Mother now, No creature half so still as thou, With the black wimple round thy brow, For He hath entered: very white His body, lovely as first light. Thou tremblest ... Mother, thou dost hear An Ave stealing through thy fear, As He who entered draweth near! “Jesus?”—She quickly hid in dread The name that through her being spread Its lustre, for her Son was dead.... And yet her arms rise up, her eyes Raised as at morning sacrifice: For blessÈd is she in this dower Beyond the Holy Ghost’s, that hour When He encompassed her in power. |
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