Towards all our ghostly good,
And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart,
Laying, like air's fine flood,
The death-dance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh He took Flesh:
He does take, fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now;
And makes, oh, marvellous,
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and He born
There evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who born so comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one, and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God and Mary's Son.
In a passage beginning—
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
Oh, how; nay, do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skyward—
the poet analyses the essential mission of the atmosphere, and the blinding, staggering possibilities of a universe unslaked by this "bath of blue." Then the simile is brought to a tender and beautiful conclusion:—
So God was God of old;
A Mother came to mould
