Volume 9 — A May Carol.
Reading edition
She hid her face from Joseph's blame, The Spirit's glory-shrouded bride. The Sword comes next; but first the Shame: Meekly she bore, and naught replied. For mutual sympathies we live: The outraged heart forgives, but dies: To her, that wound was sanative, For life to her was sacrifice. At us no random shaft is thrown When charged with crimes by us unwrought; For sins unchallenged, sins unknown, Too oft have stained us—act and thought. In past or present she could find No sin to weep for; yet, no less, Deeplier that hour the sense was shrined, In her, of her own nothingness. That hour foundations deeper yet God sank in her; that so more high Her greatness—spire and parapet— Might rise, and nearer to the sky: That, wholly overbuilt by grace, Nature might vanish, like some isle In great towers lost—the buried base Of some surpassing fortress pile. Aubrey De Vere.