Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, STABAT MATER, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

STABAT MATER, by                    
First Line: O thou mournful mother, standing by the cross with / eyes uplift
Last Line: How a mother's pain may be a soul's sublime beatitude.
Subject(s): Crucifixion; Mary. Mother Of Jesus; Mothers; Pain; Women - Bible; Jesus Christ - Crucifixion; Virgin Mary; Suffering; Misery


O Thou Mournful Mother, standing by the cross with eyes uplift
Where thy stricken Son was hanging when doubt's sword thine own heart rift!

Vain man's cry of Stabat Mater, wailing down the mournful years,
To rehearse thy living anguish and the meaning of thy tears;

If on earth one knew thy woe, some mother like thyself 'twould be,
Wrung by pangs for which 'twere vain to seek words' idle pageantry.

Such with pain transfixéd stand as thou beside the struggling clay,
Dumb and lifting helpless hands in heritage of Eden's day.

And to these thou showest near the might of thy stupendous pain—
Woe supremest save the cry that rent the temple's veil in twain.

Such alone the fiery baptism which may give thy grief to know,
Thou who art the ideal Mother sacred to earth's holiest woe.

Lovely type of purest sorrow! Solitude thy fitting shrine,
For the giddy world has nothing for an anguish such as thine.

And thy face with woe transfigured tells from altars grand or rude,
How a mother's pain may be a soul's sublime beatitude.





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