34. Pentecost

No track is on the sunny sky,
No footprints on the air;
Jesus hath gone: the face of earth
Is desolate and bare.

The blessed feet of Mary's Son,
They tread the streets no more;
His soul-converting voice gives not
Its music as before.

His Mother sits all worshipful
With her majestic mien;
The princes of the infont Church
Are gathered round their Queen.

They gaze on her with raptured eyes,
Her features are like His;
Her presence is their ample strength,
Her face reflects their bliss.

That Upper Room is heaven on earth;
Within its precincts lie
All that earth has of faith, or hope,
Or heaven-born charity.

The Eye of God looks down on them,
His love is centered there,
His Spirit yearns to be overcome
By their sweet strife of prayer.

The Mother prays her mighty prayer
In accents meek and faint,
And highest heaven is quick to own
The beautiful constraint.

The Eternal Son takes up the prayer
Upon His royal throne;
The Son His human Mother hears,
The Sire His equal Son.

The Spirit hears, and He consents
His mission to fulfil;
For what is asked hath ever been
His own eternal will.

Ten days and nights in Acts Divine
Of awful love were spent,
While Mary and her children prayed
The Spirit might be sent.

The joy of angels grew and grew
On Mary's wondrous prayer,
And the Divine Complacence stooped
To feed His glory there.

Her eyes to heaven were humbly raised,
While for her Spouse she prayed ';
Methought the sweetness of her prayer
His blissful coming stayed.
-j 9*

For ever ooming did He seem,
For ever on the wing;
ITis chosen angels round His Throne
Now gazed, now ceased to sing.

How beautiful, how passing speech,
The Dove did then appear.
As the hour of His humility
At jNIary's word drew near I

The hour was come; the wings of Love
By His own will were freed:
The hour was come; the Eternal Three
His Mission had decreed,

Then for His love of worthless men,
His love of Mary's worth,
His beauteous wings the Dove outspread,
And winged His flight to earth,

O wondrous Flight! He left not heaven,
Though earth's low fields He won,
But in the Bosom still reposed
Of Father and of Son.

O Flight! O blessed Flight of Love!
Let me Thy mercies share;
Grant it, sweet Dove! for my poor soul
Was part of Mary's prayer!