Two Sonnets From the Hebrew

LOOK back and see this brooding tenderness!
Ye wait till Bethlehem? Nay then, not I!
Under the law doth Israel ever sigh ?
Is there no mercy till the great redress ?
See now, amid the nameless wickedness
Love dreadeth lest one soul of his should die,
Spareth and faltereth and passeth by,
Soft’ning the law to ease a son’s distress.

Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?
Ay, child, and more ! thou hast not learned to spell
Love’s first great letter : centuries of pain
Still leave him terrible in thy scared sight
Who quencheth with his tears the fires of hell,
And yearneth o’er the cities of the Plain!

“ Speak thou for us : with God we will not speak ! ”
Ye will have prophet, yea, and Saviour too,
And saint and creed and priest to worship through,
Whereat Love smiles and gives them, ye being weak.
And most ye clutch at her, that Virgin meek
With cradling arms: ah, child of Love, but who
Curved her soft breast, and taught the dove to coo,
And sent the shepherd forth the lamb to seek ?

Surely great wings are wrapped around our world !
And the one pulse that in us ebbs’ and flows
Leaps at her name, for she has understood:
In our hearts’ lowest leaves her love is curled;
Unshrined, she yet hath comfort for all woes,
If not God’s mother, still God’s motherhood!