The godly Joseph carved a spoon
    From out a brand;
  To ivory it changed full soon
    And adamant. 
  When Mary gave the Babe the food,
  He became Jesus, Son of God. 
    Before their eyes.

EARTH’S EASTER

  She the long sought for and sighed for in vain, the enchantress immortal—­
  Spring, in our very despair, out of inviolate air
  Charioting summons the Eastern gate; the obedient portal
  Opes, and a vision blest yields to the wondering West.

  High on her crystal car she trembles in halycon tissues,
  Gently with golden curb checking her coursers superb—­
  All her ethereal beauty elate with Love’s infinite issues,
  Whilst this enchantment slips forth from her sibylline lips: 
  “Herb and tree in your kinds, free lives of the mountain and forest,
  Shoals of the stream and the flood, flights of the welkin and wood,
  Herd and flock of the field, and ye, whose need is the sorest,
  Suffering spirits of men, lo!  I am with you again. 
  Fear no more for the tyrant hoar as he rushes to battle
  Armoured in ice, and darts lance after lance at your hearts,
  Fear not his flaming bolts as they hurtle with horrible rattle
  Out of the lurid inane fulminant over the plain. 
  Fear not his wizardry white that circles and circles and settles
  Stealthily hour by hour, feathery flower upon flower,
  Over the spell-bound sleeper, till last the pitiless petals
  Darkly in icy death stifle his labouring breath.

  “Late upon yon white height the despot his fugitives rallied,
  Deeming the crest snow-crowned still inaccessibly frowned;
  Idly, for instant upon him my bright-speared chivalry sallied,
  Smote and far into the North swept him discomfited forth,
  Therefore, from root unto hole, from hole into burgeoning branches,
  Tendril and tassel and cup now let the ichor leap up: 
  Therefore, with flowering drift and with fluttering bloom avalanches,
  Snowdrop and silver thorn laugh baffled winter to scorn;
  Primrose, daffodil, cowslip, shine back to my shimmering sandals,
  Hyacinth host, o’er the green flash your cerulean sheen,
  Lilac, your perfumed lamps, light, chestnut, your clustering candles,
  Broom and laburnum, untold torches of tremulous gold! 
  Therefore gold-gather again from the honeyed heath and the bean field,
  Snatching no instant of ease, bright, multitudinous bees! 
  Therefore, ye butterflies, float and flicker from garden to green field,
  Flicker and float and stay, settle and sip and away!

  “Therefore race it and chase it, ye colts, in the emerald meadow! 
  Round your serious dams frisk, ye fantastical lambs! 
  Therefore, bird unto bird, from the woodland’s wavering shadow
  Pipe and ’plain and protest, flutter together and nest.