They spoke with hurried words and accents wild;
  Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. 
  No trembling word the mother’s joy revealed,—­
  One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed;
  Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart,
  But kept their words to ponder in her heart.

     Twelve years had passed; the boy was fair and tall,
  Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. 
  The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill
  Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill,—­
  The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun,
  Spoke in soft words of Joseph’s quiet son. 
  No voice had reached the Galilean vale
  Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds’ tale;
  In the meek, studious child they only saw
  The future Rabbi, learned in Israel’s law.

     So grew the boy; and now the feast was near,
  When at the holy place the tribes appear. 
  Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen
  Beyond the hills that girt the village-green,
  Save when at midnight, o’er the star-lit sands,
  Snatched from the steel of Herod’s murdering bands,
  A babe, close-folded to his mother’s breast,
  Through Edom’s wilds he sought the sheltering West.

     Then Joseph spake:  “Thy boy hath largely grown;
  Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown;
  Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest: 
  Goes he not with us to the holy feast?”

     And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white;
  Till eve she spun; she spun till morning light;
  The thread was twined; its parting meshes through
  From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew,
  Till the full web was wound upon the beam,—­
  Love’s curious toil,—­a vest without a seam!

     They reach the holy place, fulfil the days
  To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. 
  At last they turn, and far Moriah’s height
  Melts in the southern sky and fades from sight. 
  All day the dusky caravan has flowed
  In devious trails along the winding road
  (For many a step their homeward path attends,—­
  And all the sons of Abraham are as friends). 
  Evening has come,—­the hour of rest and joy;—­
  Hush! hush!—­that whisper,—­“Where is Mary’s boy?”

     O weary hour!  O aching days that passed
  Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last: 
  The soldier’s lance,—­the fierce centurion’s sword,—­
  The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord,—­
  The midnight crypt that sucks the captive’s breath,—­
  The blistering sun on Hinnom’s vale of death!

     Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light,
  Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night,
  Crouched by some porphyry column’s shining plinth,
  Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth.