ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS

IN SERIES, 1821-22. PART III.

XXIV. CONFIRMATION CONTINUED

          I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent
          Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;
          In and for whom the pious Mother felt
          Things that we judge of by a light too faint:
          Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint!
          Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved--
          Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,
          And such vibration through the Mother went
          That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear?
          Opened a vision of that blissful place                      10
          Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given
          Part of her lost One's glory back to trace
          Even to this Rite? For thus 'She' knelt, and, ere
          The summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.