Star over Bethlehem - Agatha Christie [33]
Gold, frankincense and myrrh … The Sages kneel,
And simple shepherds all agog with joy,
With Angels praising God who doth reveal
His love for men in Christ, the newborn boy …
Where now the incense? Where the kingly gold?
For Jesus only bitter myrrh and woe.
Here hangs no kingly figure—just a son
In pain and dying …
How shall Mary know
That with his sigh: “’Tis finished …” all is told?
Then—at that moment—Christ’s Reign has begun!
Love Poems and Others
Count Fersen to the Queen
IN the North the snows are falling,
In the North the birds are calling,
But my heart that lives for loving
Shall not hear its mate reply.
In the North white streams are flowing,
In the North the flowers are blowing,
But my heart that is a lover’s
Shall not know a second Spring …
Hers the ring upon my finger,
Now I pray may death not linger,
Say of me “He was a Lover,”
Lived and died to serve a Queen.
Beatrice Passes
WHERE she passes, there is Light
After Night …
A smile that follows on a sigh
As she goes by …
With her footsteps comes a sound
All round,
As of wild and woodland things
Gently stirring fragile things
When Beatrice passes by …
With her presence comes a calm
Full of balm …
Where she steps the flowers abound
On holy ground …
At her touch the trembling trees,
Even these,
Put forth tender buds that break,
Blossoming for her sweet sake
Who is Light and Love …
At her coming there is Life
After strife!
Larks are singing in the sky
When she draws nigh!
At her voice the quivering Earth
Knows rebirth,
Stirs me to a sudden cry!
Then she passes—passes by,
Leaving (so to me it seems)
Only darkness filled with dreams …
Undine
UNDINE, straight and gold and white …
Shimmering tresses, braided bright …
Lips, not scarlet—Scarlet? No,
Cool and pale as water’s flow.
Cool and pale against my heart
All thy body, and thou art
Like a lily on the lake
Where no man his thirst shall slake.
And thy petals tightly curled
Hold the jewel of the world,
Looking in thy deep green eyes
Far I see it where it lies
Hidden by the water’s play,
Grave sweet soul behind the gay.
Now I know no jewel’s there
So forever thou art fair …
So forever,
Loving never,
Thou art fair, Undine,
So fair …
Unforgettably, so fair …
Hawthorn Trees in Spring
A Lament of Women
HOW heavy are the hawthorn trees,
Weighed down with blossom,
Laden with heavy perfume,
Like the bodies and souls of women
Heavy with fruit of men’s desire
Or with their own desire in Spring.
Up in the sky, divorced from earth,
The aeroplanes pass
Roaring along on their gallant adventures;
They are the souls of men
Set free from earth,
Set free from the load of blossom
And the cloying perfumes of Spring,
They fly and are free.
Yet at the last they must return,
Fall back to earth,
Gliding down presently and skimming the ground
Or falling in vivid flame,
Yet still returning to earth.
And there shall Earth
Gather them once again in her inmost womb
And in due course
The trees shall be laden again
With leaves and blossom and fruit.
How heavy are the hawthorn trees …
How heavy … how achingly sweet.
Shall there never be peace?
And cold clear air?
With never a scent or a breath
Of the growing clustering flowering earth?
How heavy are the hawthorn trees in Spring,
How painfully, achingly sweet …
The Lament of the Tortured Lover
I HAVE said I adore you;
I have said it—I have said it.
Said it against your throat
Where the pulses beat
And under the curve of your breast …
Outside the moon rides high in the sky,
A lemon moon,
A moon the colour of honey