Brevi Tempore Magnum Perfecit Opus Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

I

'Twas not in shady cloister that God set His chosen one,
But in the van of battle and the streets of Babylon:
There he in patience served the days of his captivity,
Until the King made known to him the City of the Free.


There One who watched in Salem once beside the Treasury,
And reckoned up the riches of the widow's penury,
Received the offering of him who counted not the cost,
But burnt his soul and body in a living holocaust.


His life was in the Sanctuary and like a fountain sealed;
He to the Master's eyes alone its height and depth revealed;
Of that which every motion spoke he seldom told in word,
But on his face was written up the secret of the Lord.


Through many fiery places in innocence he trod;
We almost saw beside him one like the Son of God:
Where'er he went a perfume about his presence hung,
As tho' within that shrine of flesh a mystic censer swung.


We never heard him laugh aloud, we know he often wept:
We think the Bridegroom sometimes stood beside him as he slept,
And set upon those virgin lips the signet of His love,
That any other touch but His they never should approve.


He grew in grace and stature, he felt and understood
The stirring of the passions and the movement of the blood,
And clung with deepening tenderness about the wounded Feet,
And nestled in the Master's Breast with rapture new and sweet.


He stayed till seventeen Aprils here had budded into May,
Along the pleasant hedgerows that he knew not far away:
But scarcely seventeen summers yet the lily-beds had blown,
Before the angels carried him to gardens of their own.


II

They set the window open as the sun was going down:
Beneath went on the hurry and roar of London town.
But in the narrow room above the rush of life was done,
In silence, once for ever, the victory was won.


He came, the Strong, the Terrible, whose face the strongest fear,
(O world, behold thy Spoiler spoiled, the Stronger Man is here)
He came, the Loved, the Loveliest, whose Face the Saints desire,
To be his Fellow-pilgrim thro' the water and the fire.


Henceforth no more beneath the veils, Viaticum no more,
But Rest and Consummation upon the other Shore.
The bell was ringing Complin, the night began to fall;
They laid him in the ashes and waited for the call.


'Come up, come up from Lebanon,' he heard the Bridegroom say,
'Come up, my Love, my sister, for the shadows flee away.'
And as upon his face they caught the breaking of that morn
They spread his arms to fashion the Cross that he had borne


A smile, a whispered 'Jesus', then the fulness of the day:
Made perfect in a little while his spirit passed away;
And leaning on the Bridegroom's arm he scaled the golden stair
Through all the baffled legions of the powers of the air


Beneath the secret Altar now he tarrieth the End.
From earth he hears the pleadings of holy Mass ascend,
From heaven the voice of Jesus, Who bids the angels haste
To gather in the chosen to the Marriage and the Feast.