THE MYSTIC GARDEN

Many coloured suns diffused their gorgeous rainbows through the air O’er a garden strange and fair, Trees and flowers on every side extended far and far away, Like vast armies in array. As I walked within this garden where the earth was mixed with bone, My foot stumbled o’er a stone And the stone in twain was cloven, and a lurid flame was kindled, Which arising slowly mingled With the suns which were revolving in the glory of their noon, Through the skies of burning June. On I strolled and saw a lily which was whiter than the snow; Kissed the lily bending low. As my lips devoutly touched it, lo! it vanished into space; Rose a woman’s haloed face, Where the lily had been basking in the multicoloured day— Just a vision gold and grey— And I knew it was the Virgin by the pity in her eyes, Azure-tinted from the skies. While I gazed upon the visage, while I wondered at its pain, ’Twas a flower once again. Then I turned me from the lily to a fragrant brier tree, Bloom-bespattered, fair to see, Culled a rose, and in its place beheld the thorn-crowned Saviour’s head, The sad brow bedewed with red, With the lips so kind and pallid, parted in their constant prayer. Then upon the perfumed air Played his voice: ‘When death, the angel, touches human clay, as you Touched the rose, then God anew, Free, arises from the dust of mortal man, as I arose From the humble brier rose, As my Mother from the lily, as the Spirit from the stone, The first woman from the bone.’ And the vision slowly faded and I fell upon my knees ’Mid the flowers and the trees, Crossed my hands and bent my forehead, doing reverence all the day To the God within my clay.