MATRI DILECTISSIMAE--I.M.
In the waste hour Between to-day and yesterday We watched, while on my arm -
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone -
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head Lay uncomplaining, still, contemptuous, strange:
Till the dear face turned dead, And to a sound of lamentation The good, heroic soul with all its wealth -
Its sixty years of love and sacrifice, Suffering and passionate faith--was reabsorbed In the inexorable Peace, And life was changed to us for evermore.
Was nothing left of her but tears Like blood-drops from the heart?
Nought save remorse For duty unfulfilled, justice undone, And charity ignored? Nothing but love, Forgiveness, reconcilement, where in truth, But for this passing Into the unimaginable abyss These things had never been?
Nay, there were we, Her five strong sons!
To her Death came--the great Deliverer came! -
As equal comes to equal, throne to throne.
She was a mother of men.
The stars shine as of old. The unchanging River, Bent on his errand of immortal law, Works his appointed way To the immemorial sea.
And the brave truth comes overwhelmingly home:-
That she in us yet works and shines, Lives and fulfils herself, Unending as the river and the stars.
Dearest, live on In such an immortality As we thy sons, Born of thy body and nursed At those wild, faithful breasts, Can give--of generous thoughts, And honourable words, and deeds That make men half in love with fate!
Live on, O brave and true, In us thy children, in ours whose life is thine -
Our best and theirs! What is that best but thee -
Thee, and thy gift to us, to pass Like light along the infinite of space To the immitigable end?
Between the river and the stars, O royal and radiant soul, Thou dost return, thine influences return Upon thy children as in life, and death Turns stingless! What is Death But Life in act? How should the Unteeming Grave Be victor over thee, Mother, a mother of men?
