Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/183

Rh O strangely moving vision! I behold

The Mighty Mother!—

She who, wandering friendless and forlorn,

Sought far and near the child herself had borne,

Finding nor help nor comfort in another.

Over the weakness here so proven strength,

She, heavenly,

Bends down; and, lo! the room becomes a shrine

And hallowed altar for a love divine,

Pure as her love for lost Persephone!

Last night a shape of fear

Came in the silence drear—

Unlooked-for and unsought—

With stealthy, ghost-like motion drawing near.

I could not see its face

In the unlighted place;

No sound of it I caught;

But, shuddering, I felt its creeping pace.