588
PARTISAN REVIEW
And turned in anguish to the moving wood.
When the black thighs of Mother heaved, the mole
Just underground was God
That brought His lightning upward with the swell
Of loam and blood. Wrapped round by His slow fire,
Prostrate, as
if
in prayer,
We saw
all
brightness dwindle, and the flood
Of pregnant waters slack before His pain
That bent all Nature; flowers, and the weed
Sought that black breast again
Where we are lulled to love; where the dropped seed
Is adult
in
the womb, and all our myrrh
A seed to swell from Her:
Mary is Mother asunder, shook with sin.
