Volume 3 — From Aubrey De Vere's May Carols. MATER DIVINAE GRATIAE.
Reading edition
The gifts a mother showers each day Upon her softly-clamorous brood: The gifts they value but for play,-- The graver gifts of clothes and food,-- Whence come they but from him who sows With harder hand, and reaps, the soil; The merit of his laboring brows, The guerdon of his manly toil? From him the grace: through her it stands Adjusted, meted, and applied; And ever, passing through her hands, Enriched it seems, and beautified. Love's mirror doubles love's caress: Love's echo to love's voice is true:-- Their sire the children love not less Because they clasp a mother too. ------ As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead-- So stand the nations thine no more. From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home: They search; yet know not what they lack. Years pass: self-will and passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and "how unlike" Is all the tender neighbors say. And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother's image o'er them flits: Like hers their eyes a moment beam; The voice grows soft; the brow unknits. Such, Mary, are the realms once thine, That know no more thy golden reign. Bold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! O make thine orphans thine again!
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