To Our Lady of Vicarious Atonement
(Ballata)
I
WHO are you that the whole world’s song
Is shaken out beneath your feet
Leaving you comfortless,
Who, that, as wheat
Is garnered, gather in
The blades of man’s sin
And bear that sheaf?
Lady of wrong and grief,
Blameless!
II
All souls beneath the gloom
That pass with little flames,
All these till time be run
Pass one by one
As Christs to save, and die;
What wrong one sowed,
Behold, another reaps!
Where lips awake our joy
The sad heart sleeps
Within.
No man doth bear his sin,
But many sins
Are gathered as a cloud about man’s way.