Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, AD MATREM, by PERCY STICKNEY GRANT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

AD MATREM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O christ, you left not even cynthia
Last Line: That man might rise by thy love's regency.
Subject(s): Jesus Christ


I

O Christ, you left not even Cynthia.
The stars are empty now,
Their gods and goddesses are gone.
In leafy glade, on shadowy hillside are
No longer nymphs at play,
Thy sorrow-saddened brow,
The tree you died upon,
Frightened those happy ones away.
Bacchus' exulting crew,
Scorned, fell back from you;
White Aphrodite withered back to foam.
What hast thou brought instead?
All men could pour the lustral, pleading wine
And bear a gift to Hercules' thronged shrine;
Or love, forget and rove
In Cybele's dim grove.
All maids could follow where Adonis led,
In verdant meadows plumed with iris roam,
And laugh and dance and sing
Prinked out with buds of Spring.
Calm priests could slay a lowing hecatomb;
Youths look with wistful eyes,
That longed and might espy
A sweet form glide into her fountain home;
Or hear the quick-drawn breathing of a race
And turn to meet the glory of Apollo's face.

II

What has thou brought? Where is the waving throng,
Bright eyed, with loud hosannas and shrill song
That strewed torn palms before thy regal way?
No cymbal's clash or shouting train,
But tears and moans, reproach, disdain,
Until the end on Calvary did stay.
Art thou our God and archetypal man?
As ages pass must we forever scan
Thy cross, with drooping head and arm stretched wide;
The thorns, thy nakedness and bleeding side;
The skull-shaped hill on which you died?
A sight that blasted Spring's blue heaven blind,
Till midnight stars, amazed, at noon-day shined;
While earthquakes disemboweled pregnant graves,
And holy things stood stark to sneering knaves --
Is that the best our eyes will ever see?
Must heaven be entered through thine agony?
What bringest thou who treadest on past joy?
As Autumn's feet o'er hill and dale
Trample the fallen fruits, the fallen leaves,
Dost lead a load of yellow sheaves?
Or drivest thou the storm and gale
Of Winter desolate and pale?
What givest thou for joys thy griefs destroy?

III

The veil is rent, the shrines in silence rest;
The sphinx, her unguessed secret in her breast,
Around whose feet the bones of wisdom spread,
No longer gives her riddle, all is said.
Nature no more her gilded net can cast,
For thou, O Christ, hast come at last.
Lo, with thee, love has come unknown before:
Not Aphrodite with her Lesbian lore
And reckless boy, blind, hapless, insolent;
But love that gains through suffering content,
Whose face the gates of death revealed,
Where Mary, mother, weeping, kneeled,
And sorrow, holding goads for memory,
And grief, marred portress to love's sacristy.
There death was changed like Aaron's rod
And man beheld blossom the love of God.

IV

All worships change, save that a son can give;
Though altars perish, motherhood will live.
A singer thou, my mother, whose soul's song
Enchants the hearts that hear.
No verse can fitly phrase
The rhythm of thy days;
Sweet rhyme has not thy cheer,
Euterpe, dear to thee, is not so strong.
Daughter of Puritans, like them as stern
To champion right, to fight the wrong.
From thy high path thou wilt not turn,
But look askance at tripping pleasure,
As though her merry dance
Could turn thy heavenly glance
From misery's full measure,
And thou forget thy errand of deliverance;
Thou fleest her caress,
Pleasure to thee is selfishness.
Yet nestling in thy strength lies ever,
Like a reflection in a river,
Sweet as arbutus underneath the snow,
Thy second self, a queen in fairy show.
Thou livest in rich thought,
That comes to thee unsought,
The unspoiled splendor of a summer day.
The common world for thee
Is hung in jubilee;
Each with his best adorns thy royal way.

V

O how can love its vision realize!
For near thee I would ever dwell,
But separation, sin and self arise
To hide thee from mine eyes.
I say "Farewell," --
My heart foreboding falters
To take my leave of thee and happiness,
Till love, my life, its service strangely alters
And slays me by its own excess.
But no! I see a larger plan.
My love need not lament in barren days,
When hands touch not, nor fond eyes scan
The form it broods always
But cannot greet.
Where love exists all love is in relation.
So in Christ's love and loving ministry
Thou art exalted in my exaltation;
Soul touching soul I walk with thee
Alone along the crude mill-village street.
Thou art not absent, nor I desolate,
When I in heavenly love participate.

VI

Thou reconcilest me to things divine
And lead by love where feet are loath to tread;
Alluring as a rainbow draws a child,
Who, breathless, runs to grasp it, but beguiled
By its attainless beauty, still is led
On, on, in ardent quest where heaven and earth entwine.
Yes, farther still. As far
As flames the last, swift star
Upon the brink of being thou shalt lead.
If those orbs cease to roll
And all is void but soul,
In that new world, my life thy light will need.
Bright eyes and merry ways attract a boy,
And youth in these too often seeks its joy;
But manhood looking nearer
The awful spirit sees,
Then, with a vision clearer
Mere flesh ceases to please,
And in the face
It seeks heaven's grace.
Sweet face, sweet mother, I can see
To-day the world's maturity;
The gods forlorn,
The Lord Christ born,
That man might rise by thy love's regency.





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