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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  241. Orient Ode

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Francis Thompson (1859–1907)

241. Orient Ode

LO, in the sanctuaried East,

Day, a dedicated priest

In all his robes pontifical exprest,

Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,

From out its Orient tabernacle drawn,

Yon orbèd sacrament confest

Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn;

And when the grave procession’s ceased,

The earth with due illustrious rite

Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly

Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte,

His sacerdotal stoles unvest—

Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast,

The sun in august exposition meetly

Within the flaming monstrance of the West.…

To thine own shape

Thou round’st the chrysolite of the grape,

Bind’st thy gold lightnings in his veins;

Thou storest the white garners of the rains.

Destroyer and preserver, thou

Who medicinest sickness, and to health

Art the unthankèd marrow of its wealth;

To those apparent sovereignties we bow

And bright appurtenances of thy brow!

Thy proper blood dost thou not give,

That Earth, the gusty Maenad, drink and dance?

Art thou not life of them that live?

Yea, in glad twinkling advent, thou dost dwell

Within our body as a tabernacle!

Thou bittest with thine ordinance

The jaws of Time, and thou dost mete

The unsustainable treading of his feet.

Thou to thy spousal universe

Art Husband, she thy Wife and Church;

Who in most dusk and vidual curch,

Her Lord being hence,

Keeps her cold sorrows by thy hearse.

The heavens renew their innocence

And morning state

But by thy sacrament communicate;

Their weeping night the symbol of our prayers,

Our darkened search,

And sinful vigil desolate.

Yea, biune in imploring dumb,

Essential Heavens and corporal Earth await;

The Spirit and the Bride say: Come!

Lo, of thy Magians I the least

Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs,

To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced

Regions and odorous of Song’s traded East.

Thou, for the life of all that live

The victim daily born and sacrificed;

To whom the pinion of this longing verse

Beats but with fire which first thyself did give,

To thee, O Sun—or is’t perchance, to Christ?

Ay, if men say that on all high heaven’s face

The saintly signs I trace

Which round my stolèd altars hold their solemn place,

Amen, amen! For oh, how could it be,—

When I with wingèd feet had run

Through all the windy earth about,

Quested its secret of the sun,

And heard what thing the stars together shout,—

I should not heed thereout

Consenting counsel won:—

‘By this, O Singer, know we if thou see.

When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is here,

When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is there,

Believe them: yea, and this—then art thou seer,

When all thy crying clear

Is but: Lo here! lo there!—ah me, lo everywhere!’