Volume 4 — SAINT LUCY.

The giving of my eyes In loving sacrifice Was my appointed way; No soft decline from the meridian day Through dusky twilight slowly into dark, But blackness, bloody, swift, and stark From hands unkind. And I was blind. Thus reads the story, writ on sacred scroll, Of Lucy, virgin martyr: that sharp dole Won heaven's eternal brightness for her soul;— The blotting out of sunshine, the recoil From utter blackness, the heart's gasp and spasm Before the unseen void, the imagined chasm Of untried darkness, was the martyr toil Whose moment's agony surpasses years— The love, long years of patience and of tears Allotted unto others. "All for all;" Not doling out with a reluctant hand, But in one holocaustal offering grand, Will, senses, mind, responding to heaven's call. {173} "Bought at whatever price, heaven is not dear," Sounds like an echoed chorus full of cheer From crypts of mangled martyrs, and charred bones, And blood-stained phials of the catacombs: And that young Roman girl's adoring eyes, One moment darkened, opened in surprise Upon the face of God. The cruel, taunt Of judges obdurate, the accuser's vaunt, The mob's wild shout of triumph deep and hoarse, Might still be heard around the bloody corse When her sweet soul, in peace, at God's own word Had tasted its exceeding great reward; To "see as she was seen," to know as known; The beatific vision all her own. Upon the sacred canon's sacred page. Invoked by vested priest from age to age, Stand five fair names of virgins, martyrs all, As if with some peculiar glory crowned That thus their names should crystallize; "their sound Is gone through all the earth," and great and small Upon those five wise virgins sweetly call With reverent wish: Saint Lucy! Agatha! Agnes! Cecilia! Anastasia! And chanted litany chose names enfold In reliquary more precious than mute gold. With what a tender awe I heard that name— A household name, familiar, dear, and kind. Of gentlest euphony—such honor claim! Thenceforth that name I speak with lifted mind, More loved in friend, because revered in saint; And daily as to heaven I make complaint Of mortal ills, and sickness, sorrows, woes, This one petition doth all others close: Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, by thine eyes Which thou didst give to God in sacrifice, His mercy and his solace now implore For darkened eyes and sightless, never more To gaze on aught created: by that meed Of choicest graces in that hour of need, Sweetness of patience and a joyful mind, And faithful, gentle hands to guide the blind! But more than this, Saint Lucy; thou didst gain, By loss of thy young eyes with loving pain. The vision given to angels; then obtain The lifting up of blinded orbs to where God sitteth in his beauty, the All-fair; Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, aid our prayer!