Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AT THE SHRINE, by GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AT THE SHRINE, by                    
First Line: Mary, humanity's woman, immaculate mother
Last Line: Is it thou, thou alone, that art pure, and never another?
Subject(s): Future Life; Humanity; Mary. Mother Of Jesus; Mothers; Women In The Bible; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Virgin Mary


MARY, humanity's Woman, immaculate Mother,
Is it Thou, Thou alone, that art pure, and never another?

For the babe at my breast many deaths did my body endure:
The girl died, the virgin,—yea, all that the Past counted pure.

Then the deepest last dying, the shudder so woeful and wild,
The smothering darkness ... the pitiful cry of the child!

O Mary, the bliss that came after,—the rapture of bliss,—
How I would laugh him to laughter, and how we would kiss!

How I would clasp him in terror when trouble would linger and stay!
Trouble? for any but him, my masterful man-child alway.

How he would lie in my bosom, and how I would breathe his name,
How I would watch him and love him and dream of his lordly far fame!

'T was a wraith, a mistake,—'t was not I that lived there in the Past,
A pale, futile girl,—now a woman, a woman at last!

For how could she know, that pale one, so saintly and so clean,
That Madonna dwells eternal in the breast of Magdalene?

Mary, humanity's Woman, immaculate Mother,
Is it Thou, Thou alone, that art pure, and never another?





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net