Lucretia Maria Davidson

On Seeing a Picture of the Virgin Mary, Painted Several Centuries Since

 A FRAGMENT.

 (Written in her fifteenth year)

Roll back, thou tide of time, and tell
Of book, of rosary, and bell;
Of cloistered nun, with brow of groom,
Immured within her living tomb;
Of monks, of saints, and vesper-song,
Borne gently by the breeze along;
Of deep-toned organ's pealing swell;
Of Ave Marie, and funeral knell;
Of midnight taper, dim and small,
Just glimmering through the high-arched hall;
Of gloomy cell, of penance lone,
Which can for darkest deeds atone
Roll back, and lift the veil of night,
For I would view the anchorite.
Yes, there he sits, so sad, so pale,
Shuddering at Superstition's tale:
Crossing his breast with meagre hand,
While saints and priests, a motley band,
Arrayed before him, urge their claim
To heal in the Redeemer's name;
To mount the saintly ladder, (made
By every monk, of every grade,
From portly abbot, fat and fair,
To yon lean starveling, shivering there,)
And mounting thus, to usher in
The soul, thus ransomed from its sin.
And tell me, hapless bigot, why,
For what, for whom did Jesus die,
If pyramids of saints must rise
To form a passage to the skies?
And think you man can wipe away
With fast and penance, day by day,
One single sin, too dark to fade
Before a bleeding Saviour's shade?
O ye of little faith, beware!
For neither shrift, nor saint, nor prayer,
Would aught avail ye without Him,
Beside whom saints themselves grow dim.
Roll back, thou tide of time, and raise
The faded forms of other days!
Yon time-worn picture, darkly grand,
The work of some forgotten hand,
Will teach thee half thy mazy way,
While Fancy's watch-fires dimly play.
Roll back, thou tide of time, and tell
Of secret charm, of holy spell,
Of Superstition's midnight rite,
Of wild Devotion's seraph flight,
Of Melancholy's tearful eye,
Of the sad votaress' frequent sigh,
That trembling from her bosom rose,
Divided 'twixt her Saviour's woes
And some warm image lingering there,
Which, half-repulsed by midnight prayer,
Still, like an outcast child, will creep
Where sweetly it was wont to sleep,
And mingle its unhallowed sigh
With cloister-prayer and rosary;
Then tell the pale, deluded one
Her vows are breathed to God alone;
Those vows, which tremulously rise,
Love's last, love's sweetest sacrifice. —