Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Wordsworth on Our Lady: "Our sinful nature's solitary boast . . ."



The Coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven by Fra Angelico, 
for the altar of the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole near Florence 
(where Fra Angelico later became Prior) 

MOTHER! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

- William Wordsworth (1770–1850) 

And while we are waxing poetical, here is a verse of a Marian hymn from the Assyrian Church of the East: 

‎In her womb, she bore fire.
In her body, she carried the shechinah.
Within her soul the Spirit brooded
and she became, all in all,
a heaven.



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