L

TRUE LOVE

ET me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom:-
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

MARY'S GIRLHOOD

HIS is that blessed Mary, pre-elect

TH

God's Virgin. Gone is great while, and she

Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.

Unto God's will she brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,

And supreme patience. From her mother's knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;

Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God

Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear

At all, yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed;
Because the fulness of the time had come.

These are the symbols. On the cloth of red
I' the centre is the tripoint; perfect each,
Except the second of its points, to teach.

That Christ is not yet born. The books-whose head

Is golden Charity, as Paul hath said

Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich;
Therefore on them the lily standeth, which
Is Innocence, being interpreted.

The seven-thorned brier and the palm seven-leaved
Are her great sorrow and her great reward.
Until the end be full, the Holy One

Abides without. She soon shall have achieved
Her perfect purity; yea, God the Lord

Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

PART II

THE PIPES OF PAN

"When stars into the twilight steer,

Or thrushes build among the may,

Or wonder moves between the hills......"

JOHN DRINKWATER