'Our Lady of Walsingham'
Song to Our Lady
Medieval: Author Unknown
Of one who is so fair and bright
Velut Maris Stella
Brighter than the day is light,
Parens et puella.
I cry to thee to turn to me:
Lady, pray thy Son for me,
Tam pia.
That I may come to thee,
Maria.
In sorrow, counsel, thou art best,
Felix fecundate:
For all the weary thou art rest,
Mater honorata:
Beseech Him in thy mildest mood,
Who for us did shed His Blood
In Cruce,
That we may come to Him
In luce.
All this world was forlorn,
Eva peccatrice,
Till Our Saviour Lord was born
De te genetrice;
With thy Ave sin went away,
Dark night went and in came day
Salutis.
The well of healing sprang from thee,
Virtutis.
Lady, flower of everything,
Rosa sine spina,
Thou borest Jesus, Heaven’s King,
Gratia Divina.
Of all I say thou borest the prize,
Lady, Queen of Paradise
Electa:
Maiden mild, Mother
Es effecta.
Well He knows He is thy Son,
Ventre quem portasti:
He will not refuse thy bone,
Parvum quem lactasti:
So courteous and so good He is,
He has brought us to our bliss
Superni.
Who hast shut up the dark foul pit
Inferni.
Bone, request.
The alternate Latin lines mean:
As the star of the sea
Mother and maid
So loving
Mary
Happy and with offspring
Honourable Mother
On
the Cross
In
light
From
Eve a sinner
Of
thee mother
Of
salvation
Of
virtue
Rose
without a thorn
Grace
Divine
Elect
Thou
art become
Whom
thou didst bear in the womb
Whom
thou didst suckle as a baby
Of
heaven
Of
hell.
Medieval: author unknown.
(ack.’The
Mary Book’ – Sheed and Ward 1950)
*******************
‘The May Magnificat’ by
Gerard Manley Hopkins
May
is Mary’s month, and I
Muse
at that and wonder why;
Her feasts follow reason
Dated due to season--------
Candlemas,
Lady Day;
But
the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is
it only its being brighter
Than
the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?
Ask
of her, the mighty mother:
Her
reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?
Growth in every thing --------
Flesh
and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass
and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry- breasted
Throstle above her nested.
Cluster
of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms
and warms the life within:
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All
things rising, all things sizing
Mary
sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature’s motherhood.
Their
magnifying of each its kind
With
delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well
but there was more than this:
Spring’s
universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When
drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom
lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry.
And
azuring-over greybell makes
Wood
banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all -----
This
ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells
Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth.
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.
Gerard
Manley Hopkins
(ack. ‘The Mary Book’ Sheed and Ward 1950)
*********************
'Our Lady of Walsingham' (ack. Saracen 78 at Wikipedia)
***********
“But
He, taking her by the hand, cried out, saying:
Maid, arise.
And
her spirit returned, and she arose
immediately. And He bid them to give her to eat” (Luke viii.
54/5)
A
friend of Our Lord’s in Galilee
Had
a dear little girl who died.
Her
mother was sad, and her father was sad,
And
everybody cried.
Our
Lord was coming to make her well,
But
she died before He came,
So
they told Him not to bother,
But
He bothered all the same.
He
took the little girl’s hand in His,
And
said: “Little maid, arise!”
And
the little girl came to life again,
Sat
up, and opened her eyes!
Death
must come to stay at last
And
sorrow hard to bear,
But
it doesn’t really matter,
So
long as Our Lord is there.
So we ask Our Lady
To pray for us then
And come to us and bring her Son
“At the hour of
our death.
Amen.”
Taken from ‘The Hail Mary’ by
Margaret Hunt.
(Ack. The Mary Book Sheed and Ward 1950.
