BLESSED with joy, as daybreak under cloud—
Tender light of youth in the old face—
Blessed with joy beneath the weight and shroud
Of the years before this day of Grace,
Simeon blesses God and praises Him,
As a little child and mother slim
With first girlhood come their way
Toward his face, and night becometh day.

Prophet, joy for thee and for thy land!
Wide the welcome and the peace of joy!
But he takes the infant on his hand,
Graciously receives the milking boy
From the mother’s bosom, from her heart,
While she stands in reverence apart.
Lo, the old man’s countenance,
In a wave of anguish breaks from trance!

All the features lift with power, and sink,
As if sudden earthquake heaved and rolled
Through them, from a sudden thought they think.
Can a child of but a few weeks old
So confuse with terror an old man?
Yea, this child, laid on his fingers’ span,
Is for the ruin or the rise
Of the generations, Simeon cries.

Yea, a child, a tender handful, sleek
As a pearl—and the dire earthquake’s power
In his little body set, to wreak
Dread requital on the souls that cower
Mad with desolation, naked, lost,
Or uplifted wild from a dead host:
For the rise and ruin set
Of so many—but not yet, not yet!

Shattered by the Child, the Prophet turns
To the slender Mother, bright and bowed.
Woe again! A flawless lightning burns
Through his eyes and his weak voice rings loud,
How a sword shall pierce her heart alone
That out of many hearts their thoughts be shown.
Simeon, terror masks all joy
In this Mother and her milking Boy!