Volume 19 / Part 3 — One Corpus Christi.

“Flowers? Are they for a bride?” he said,

And wondered if that graceful head,

Now bent to catch the soft perfume,

Was soon to wear their tender bloom;

But when she raised her modest eyes,

And answered him in half surprise,

“No, they are for our Lord,” he smiled,

And thought: “This is indeed a child.”

“Give me the loveliest,” she said

“Delicate white and rosy red,

And heliotrope and mignonette,

All that you know and I forget;

And heap these crimson roses, so:

Yes, they are costly, that I know;

But what can be too fair or sweet

To strew beneath His sacred feet?”

The light was fading; broken flowers

Lay scattered through the aisles in showers;

For all their fragrant wealth that day

Had marked the Master's glorious way,

And now, before the altar-rail,

A girl knelt, motionless and pale.

A line of sunlight touched her hair,

Her slender hands were clasped in prayer;

In silent bliss the moments passed,

For she had lingered to the last,

Unconscious, in that holy spot,

Of eyes that watched and wearied not.

“How beautiful!” the whispered thought,

All human, all of earth, she caught;

And reading what that thought expressed

By the one key-note in her breast,

Uplifting her adoring head,

“Is He not beautiful?” she said.

A thrill of awe, a flush of shame,

He knelt, and named his Saviour's name.

Softly she glided from the place:

He never looked upon her face;

Low bent to earth his suppliant head,

“O Lord! make me a child,” he said.

[pg 537]