Anticipation and Retrospection. Christ's Passion eve fell dark and drear Upon His faithful few, But brighter, each returning year, In memory gleam'd anew. And loud the chant of hope and glee But, hapless mother, who like thee F 65 13. JUDAS'S INFANCY. "The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born." ALAS! that e'er the pangs of birth, Yet sure as frail repenting Eve Where all the world shall bow, From fruit of her own favour'd womb, The peace, the home, her wandering lost :— Sure as to blessed Mary come The Saints' and Martyrs' host, Judas's Infancy. To own, with many a thankful strain, The bosom where the Lord hath lain, Sure as her form for evermore The Babe her chaste womb bare ; So surely throes unblest have been, Did not our Lord speak out His ban, Nor may we doubt, His Mother mild By gold as yet unbought. 67 But Time, as holy sages sing, When earth and sin have waxed old, Of mortal seed, of woman bred, The Antichrist, they write, will be, From a soft bosom duly fed, Rock'd on a loving knee. High grace at first to Judas came— May his dread course begin? O ye who wait with hearts too light From the foul dew, the blighting air, May prove Perdition's son. Cradle Songs. 14. THE SAINTS' INFANCY. 69 "And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an Angel." WHERE is the brow to bear in mortals' sight And where the favoured eye Through the dim air the radiance to descry? Wash'd from the world and sin's defiling, And to Faith's arm restored, while yet With the blest dew its cheeks are wet :There Christ hath sworn seraphic Light shall be, There eyes, the Light to see. He who vouchsafed to kindle that pure glow By duteous fear of sin Fann'd into flame the virgin heart within, |