The Footsteps

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Behold, My bride, how fair My mouth, Mine eyes

Author: Mechthild, of Magdeburg; Translator: Frances Bevan (1899)
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

Behold, My bride, how fair My mouth, Mine eyes;
My heart is glowing fire, My hand is grace—
And see how swift My foot, and follow Me.
For thou with Me shalt scorned and martyred be,
Betrayed by envy, tempted in the wilds,
And seized by hate, and bound by calumny;
And they shall bind thine eyes lest thou should’st see,
By hiding Mine eternal truth from thee.
And they shall scourge thee with the world’s despite,
And shrive thee with the ban of doom and dread,
For penance thy dishonoured head shall smite,
By mockery thou to Herod shalt be led,
By misery left forlorn—
And bound by want, and by temptation crowned,
And spit upon by scorn.
The loathing of thy sin thy cross shall be,
Thy crucifixion, crossing of thy will;
The nails, obedience that shall fasten thee,
And love shall wound, and steadfastness shall slay,
Yet thou shalt love Me still.
The spear shall pierce thy heart; My life shall be
The life that lives and moves henceforth in thee.
Then as a conqueror loosened from the cross,
Laid in the grave of nothingness and loss,
Thou shalt awaken, and be borne above
Upon the breath of Mine Almighty love.

Source: Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series) #20

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Author: Mechthild, of Magdeburg

Mechthild of Helfta, or Mathilde in modern spelling, was a mystic author who lived in the Cisterian nunnery at Helfta near Eisleben, Germany. She is also known as Mechthild of Hackeborn, her parents' home. She was a younger sister of St. Gerturde of Hackeborn. She is mentioned in Bocaccio's Decameron, VII, 1, and in canto 28 of Dante's Purgatory. Cf. "Liber specialis gratiae" in Revelations Gertrudianae ac Mechtildianae (1877). Her "Liber specialis gratiae" was popular in England and was translated into English in the fifteenth century. More recently it has been edited by Theresa A. Halligan as The Booke of Gostlye Grace of Mechtild of Hackeborn (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979). --Leonard Ellinwood, DNAH Arch… Go to person page >

Translator: Frances Bevan

Bevan, Emma Frances, née Shuttleworth, daughter of the Rev. Philip Nicholas Shuttleworth, Warden of New Coll., Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, was born at Oxford, Sept. 25, 1827, and was married to Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, of the Lombard Street banking firm, in 1856. Mrs. Bevan published in 1858 a series of translations from the German as Songs of Eternal Life (Lond., Hamilton, Adams, & Co.), in a volume which, from its unusual size and comparative costliness, has received less attention than it deserves, for the trs. are decidedly above the average in merit. A number have come into common use, but almost always without her name, the best known being those noted under “O Gott, O Geist, O Licht dea Lebens," and "Jedes Herz will etwas… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	Behold, My bride, how fair My mouth, Mine eyes
Title:	The Footsteps
Author:	Mechthild, of Magdeburg
Translator:	Frances Bevan (1899)
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain