The Visitation

A poem by Ethel Allen Murphy

(From the picture in Dürer's series on "The Life of the Virgin")


The mountains wonder from their cloudy height,
The skies look on and grow more deep with awe;
From these two women, earthly loves withdraw,
And leave them shrined in some ensphering light,--
More fine than that which greets the earthly sight,
More glorious than that Creation saw,
When, from abeyance to primeval law,
There burst the dawn from out the womb of night;
Yet are all things unchanged around them,--these,
The ancient hills, the town, the quiet trees,
The household presences through which they grope
Blind to all else but to each other's eyes,
Wherein, transforming heaven and earth, there lies
Sublime effulgence of immortal Hope.