Mid the white spouses of the Sacred Heart,
After its queen, the nearest, dearest thou:
Yet the aureola around thy brow
Is not the virgins’—thine a throne apart.
Nor yet, my Saint, does faith-illumined art
Thy hand with palm of martyrdom endow:
And when thy hair is all it will allow
Of glory to thy head, we do not start.
O more...
-
-
Great spirits now on earth are sojourning:
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn’s summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel’s wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom’s sake:
And lo! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael’s...