[Illustration: _The Annunciation by Botticelli_]
Kneeling in prayer, her spirit rapt above, She meets with God, Who bendeth, brooding low, In vast compassion humanward, and so, There comes upon her life the power of Love: Rising--behold! with pinions like a dove, An angel with a rod where row on row Of chaliced lilies spill supernal glow,-- Which all her thought to wonder mute doth move. Then falls upon the rapture of her soul, Dimly some vision of Gethsemane, Athwart the Resurrection's shining goal, And with uplifted hand she pleads as One Shall pray in night of darkest agony, "This cup remove,--yet, Lord, Thy Will be done."
Immortal eloquence of mystic Art! How strangely o'er oblivion and gray time, That hand doth speak, as in the painter's prime It uttered thus his own and Mary's heart, At sight of it, what rich conjectures start, Adown the years, what wistful Aves chime, That wake the soul to rapture how sublime, Wherewith we, too, must bear in Him our part! For unto each to bring redemption's share, Whereby adown the ages Christ is borne, There comes the angel of the lilied rod; And though our souls with anguish sore are torn, We pray once more the world-o'ercoming prayer, And then is born in us the Word of God.
[Illustration: _The Visitation by Dürer_]
(_From the picture in Dürer's series on "The Life of the Virgin"_)
The mountains wonder from their cloudy height, The skies look on and grow more deep with awe; From these two women, earthly loves withdraw, And leave them shrined in some ensphering light,-- More fine than that which greets the earthly sight, More glorious than that Creation saw, When, from abeyance to primeval law, There burst the dawn from out the womb of night; Yet are all things unchanged around them,--these, The ancient hills, the town, the quiet trees, The household presences through which they grope Blind to all else but to each other's eyes, Wherein, transforming heaven and earth, there lies Sublime effulgence of immortal Hope.
[Illustration: _The Madonna of the Magnificat, by Botticelli_]
Behold! the Tabernacle of God's Will This woman's form enshrineth. What is this, More glorious than all our age-long bliss, Which shines within the shadow of her sill? How shall we lift this strangeness which doth fill Her human heart to breaking,--we who miss In our immortal joy, the enlight'ning kiss Of sorrow's bitter lips whence comforts thrill? How shall we sing to her of joys to come, To her who bears upon her breast the sum Of death's dread gloom and heaven's undying light? Lean close, ah, close, about her from above,-- Behold upon the mildness of her love Enthroned the terrors of His Holy Might!