Christ, For Whose Only Love I Keep Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

Osculo oris sui osculetur me.


Christ, for whose only Love I keep me clean
Among the palaces of Babylon,
I would not Thou should'st reckon me with them
Who miserly would count each golden stone
That flags the street of Thy Jerusalem-
Who, having touched and tasted, heard and seen,


Half-drunken yet from earthly revelries,
Would wipe with flower-wreathed hair Thy bleeding Feet,
Jostling about Thee but to stay the heat
Of pale parched lips in Thy cool chalices.


'Our cups are emptiness-how long? how long
'Before that Thou wilt pour us of Thy wine,
'Thy sweet new wine, that we may thirst no more?
'Our lamps are darkness,-open day of Thine,
'Surely is light to spare behind that door,
'Where God is Sun, and Saints a starry throng.'


But I, how little profit were to me
Tho' mine the twelve foundations of the skies,
With this green world of love an age below:-
The soft remembrance of those human eyes
Would pale the everlasting jewel-glow;
And o'er the perfect passionless minstrelsy


A voice would sound the decachords above,
Deadening the music of the Living Land-
Thou madest, Thou knowest, Thou wilt understand,
And stay me with the Apples of Thy love.


My Christ, remember that betrothal day;
Blessed be He that cometh was the song:
Glad as the Hebrew boys who cried Hosanna,
O'er hearts thick-strewn as palms they passed along,
To reap in might the fields of heavenly manna-
These were the bridesmen in their white array.


Soon hearts and eyes were lifted up to Thee:
Deep in dim glories of the Sanctuary,
Between the thunderous Alleluia-praise,
Through incense-hazes that encompassed Thee,
I saw the priestly hands Thyself upraise-
Heaven sank to earth-earth leapt to heaven for me.


Rise, Peter, rise; He standeth on the shore,
The thrice-denied of Pilate's Judgement Hall:
His hand is o'er the shingle lest thou fall;
He wipes thy bitter tears for evermore.


'Lovest thou?' My belovèd, answer me,
Of Thine all-knowledge show me only this-
Tarrieth the answer? Lo, the House of Bread;
Lo, God and man made one in Mary's kiss
Bending in rapture o'er the manger bed.
I with the holy kings will go and see.