SAINT MAURA.
113
And after that for ever and for ever!
Ah! If I could but reach that hand! One touch!
One finger tip, to send the thrill through me
I felt but yesterday!--No! I can wait:—
Another body!--Oh, new limbs are ready,
Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve,
Kept for us in the treasuries of God.
They will not mar the love they try to speak,
They will not fail my soul, as these have done!
*****
Will you hear more? Nay—you know all the rest:
Yet those poor eyes—alas! they could not see
My waking, when you hung above me there
With hands outstretched to bless the penitent—
Your penitent—even like The Lord Himself—
I gloried in you!—like The Lord Himself!
Sharing His very sufferings, to the crown
Of thorns which they had put on that dear brow
To make you like Him—show you as you were!
I told them so! I bid them look on you,
Ah! If I could but reach that hand! One touch!
One finger tip, to send the thrill through me
I felt but yesterday!--No! I can wait:—
Another body!--Oh, new limbs are ready,
Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve,
Kept for us in the treasuries of God.
They will not mar the love they try to speak,
They will not fail my soul, as these have done!
*****
Will you hear more? Nay—you know all the rest:
Yet those poor eyes—alas! they could not see
My waking, when you hung above me there
With hands outstretched to bless the penitent—
Your penitent—even like The Lord Himself—
I gloried in you!—like The Lord Himself!
Sharing His very sufferings, to the crown
Of thorns which they had put on that dear brow
To make you like Him—show you as you were!
I told them so! I bid them look on you,
