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JANUARY
To see the Child there came
Three men of pomp and gold
Who shed their cloaks of power
Within that quiet household
Jewel-grown each finger's branch
Rich-kissed each high-blessed head
Low bent before her word
Whom God had visited
They bowed to her the proud Kings
Of Ethiop Pamphylia Nineveh
The sun had seared its mark
Upon the Ethiop's face
And snow was in the hair
Of him from the northern place
Then with the Eastern Lord
They bowed before their King
And bowed for all the world
For all men worshipping
They homage told the golden Lords
Of Ethiop Pamphylia Nineveh
To Mary had they come
For sight of God to ask
And in these men's approach
She saw the ages' task
For of the Mother's love
We weary travelers pray
That through her welcome door
We too her Son may see
Our prayers are theirs
Of Ethiop Pamphylia Nineveh
FEBRUARY
O Sion adorn your bridal chambers
sing to greet the Bride
scent the rooms with prayer's incense
she whose will to His commanding
bowed in loving's comprehending
here within His temple standing
brings the Child before His Father
All men's Light and Guide
O clean your dwellings free of sorrow
let smoke of candles lace the air
light your joy in Mary's coming
leaping ~ the taper's flare
aIl the night of mourning filling
all the death of darkness killing
all a flood of brightness spilling
as a light unto her coming
to her love a rising prayer
Illumine now the bridal chamber
for the Bride appears
Bless the light and bless the Mother
in whose sight decay our fears
Now the night of sin is dying
light its deepest dark defying
and our hope to God is flying
The Sun so bright is risen
and the blinding blackness clears.
MARCH
It was I think a sun-fine day
when Mary knew the promised Word
for He would have the sky
show joy that time man had heard
that God had taken flesh.
Should not Heaven be a part
of earth or earth a part
of Heaven then ?
I know her heart
rejoiced. She saw all round
familiar small domestic things :
the pot upon the fire
the polished floor-stones' glimmerings
all the hundred daily duties
women have to do. She
was one who swept and cleaned
and sewed in house's custody:
to her had God been given
to nurture and to raise as man.
O the joy of it
the given blessedness of it. Can
we see the pride in it?
She is us and we are raised
for God becomes of us
takes form of us and sets ablaze
the smoldering soul in us.
This Love from God O fierce flares high
through her for us in her
most blessed of man to fire the sky.
APRIL
The wise man tells us suffering
makes the heart a stone
Taps the blood and dries
to dust tormented bone.
If this is true then how
did Mary live when high
Her Son was raised as Stapled
Love against the sky?
For Flesh of her was hanging
there the Body torn
And aching for release
the Body she had borne
At Bethlehem. The love
of mother's heart was nailed
Upon the Tree of Blood
where Death the leech had paled
The Body's glow had drained
the Heart in envy's fear
A biting bitter thing
this Death and her to hear
And see the final pain.
The sun of agony
Has made the harried heart
a desert bare and dry.
For she can know the joy
and pain in Death alone.
Her Son is Given-God
but in her breast the stone.
MAY
This is the Mother's month,
The May of Mary's own,
When prayers, like new bloomed flowers
On Autumn winds are blown.
For her these light lit lamps,
For her these hardy buds
That chanced the early frosts.
Hers all the joy that studs
Her altered May.
The northern air is warm
And sweet its gardens' fruit.
To crown her grace this time
And birds her brightest flute.
For her this mantled May
For her this singing joy;
But here our nature's face
Has blushed and hid as coy
In Mary's May.
Upon the Autumn grasses
The frost is hung like gems
The morning's icy stillness
Is clear as Bethlehem's
Upon the night of Birth
.
For her the clean-given gifts
For her this Southern month.
And clear our praising lifts
in frosty May.
JUNE
They stayed in the Upper Room
awaiting the Promised One
but dulled their love in gloom
of fear's oblivion
in this the month of mourning
after their second loss
left their beings' yearning
filled yet with fear the Cross
had brought
Mary's word
helped these hapless hearts
hid in the Cenacle this herd
of fear groping for parts
they should discover
in His Way-she alone
the living link with Lover
lost and heaven gone.
She was their chain to life
His and now their Mother
with them waiting: wife
to their tears another
hope a vessel sweet
and brimming with His Grace
Bride of the Paraclete
most favored of our race.
With the fear that loss created
after He their life ascended
with His Mother there they waited
till the Fire of Grace descended.
JULY
When God's mercy, Mary's self
had sublimated,
she, in woman's joy, resolved
to share with her most close related
this secret, sweet delight.
Light the journey seemed,
though waited
brambling hands to hold her way
across the hilled
and barren waste, where rock dissolved
into a desolated,
dreary mist of heat.
Then journeying complete,
the meeting came.
A fair bouquet
of flowering kindred's love distilled
a fragrant company in air
The happy pair
embraced. Elizabeth adored
and felt the signs of heaven everywhere
as Mary's words arose to magnify the Lord.
AUGUST
She went not with excess of grief
that tarnished souls receive
but in the quiet that Love's
delivery can leave
as fragrance in the empty air
like phantom scents are there
when flowers are broken-crushed
as memory's sad heir
O there it was she lay
Upon the blossoms' bed
But gone all life and form
All past-thought solace fled
And only memories stay
This was the second birth
a new Nativity
all miracle was there
where time and eternity
were joined. Her Son's will raised
her, Heaven-Born, anew
in mystery and power
and mortal clutchings overthrew
O there it was she lay
Upon the blossoms' bed
But now all life and form
In God's desire has sped
Towards Eternal Home
SEPTEMBER
The Sword of loss would pierce her heart
Was Blessed Simeon's word
And where the joy the Birth had brought
Was first by sorrow seared
An ailing ruler's rage had coursed
Her life with fear and flung
Her joy among a strange-tongued folk
To hear her sorrow sung
The Boy was lost in the city's crowd
And found in His Father's House
The sword of loss cut in her heart
The image of a cross
When in the streets she met her Son
Their stones were smeared with Blood
And on His back the felon's scourge
And on His neck the wood.
Upon Golgotha's awful mound
Beneath the Throne of Pain
She saw the mortal Heart of God
Receive Its mortal chain
And then a Corpse from gallow's clutch
And laid upon her heart
She held the final time her Son
And knew the loser's part
Dead swaddled in the clothes of dust
Her Babe and in the vault
The long felt thrusting of her loss
Had made its last assault
Ah still was sorrow's thieving mob
And envy's lusting horde
The Mother's pain-dregged eyes were dry
And sheathed the piercing sword
OCTOBER
My heart has uttered a goodly theme
I speak your works to the King
What finer song than praise of you
Could any poet sing
Your beauty budded as a rose
By the side of a running stream
And sheds its fragrant petals pure
Upon the water's gleam
And flows the sweet'ning flower-drenched flood
Through many drought-filled lands
From Carmel's hills by many years
To lap Lepanto's sands
Of all the flowers to bless the earth
The fifteen-petalled rose
Has scented more the work of man
Than any bud he knows
Its scent has blown on hills of Lourdes
And sweetened Fatima's plains
Its gifts have bathed our griefs and fears
As perfumed soothing rains
Oh let your flower have petals of grace
And praise to Heaven sing
Oh your heart has uttered a goodly theme
And speaks your works to the King
Back to Top
NOVEMBER
A shy and precious maid was brought
Into the temple's pillared court
And offered to the Lord All High
To serve and praise and testify
To the Light of God
Among the servant maids of God
She came to give her virginhood
Our promised Treasury of Grace
His words and service to embrace
To the Light of God
Now whispered voices from afar
Were singing oft an olden air
And sounding sweet the music sharp
From ancient concord of a harp
To the Light of God
The words of hope Isaiah spoke
The music David's harp strings woke
Each song of joy the prophets knew
Here chimed and rolled its words anew
To the Light of God
Sung there now these years' elation
Of a maiden's presentation
Sing we still how Mary came
The promised Bride and still acclaim
To the Light of God
Back to Top
DECEMBER
The gentle hands of night embrace
Your Baby's head in sleep
Its sweet caressing fingers
His tender lashes sweep
His lips with smiles
Now dreams bestrew
So sleep you too
Ah see where Joseph stands to watch
So near the baby's side
And there within the work-weft hand
The little fingers hide
This his to do
To guard His rest
So sleep you too
There now the angel guards appear
And here the shepherds stand
And sweet and glad the song they sing
That God is in their land
They vigil keep
To see His smiles
So you too sleep
Ah Christ is born at Bethlehem
A Child is sleeping there
And Mary smiles at Bethlehem
Her son is sleeping there
And dreams bestrew
His lips with smiles
And she sleeps too.
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last Modified February 11, 2001 by Jim Danis. Please send any comments to ROTEN@data.lib.udayton.edu.
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