Clair De Lune

How like a well-kept garden is your soul, With bergomask and solemn minuet! Playing upon the lute! The dancers seem But sad, beneath their strange habiliments. While, in the minor key, their songs extol The victor Love, and life's sweet blandishments, Their looks belie the burden of their lays, The songs that mingle with the still moon-beams. So strange, so beautiful, the pallid rays; Making the birds among the branches dream, And sob with ecstasy the slender jets,

The fountains tall that leap upon the lawns Amid the garden gods, the marble fauns.

MON DIEU M'A DIT: . . .

God has spoken: Love me, son, thou must; Oh see My broken side; my heart, its rays refulgent shine; My feet, insulted, stabbed, that Mary bathes with brine Of bitter tears my sad arms, helpless, son, for thee;

With thy sins heavy; and my hands; thou seest the rod; Thou seest the nails, the sponge, the gall; and all my pain Must teach thee love, amidst a world where flesh doth reign, My flesh alone, my blood, my voice, the voice of God,

Say, have I not loved thee, loved thee to death, O brother in my Father, in the Spirit son? Say, as the word is written, is my work not done? Thy deepest woe have I not sobbed with struggling breath? Has not thy sweat of anguished nights from all my pores in pain Of blood dripped, piteous friend, who seekest me in vain?