Classic Poem

Gate of crystal, salutation!
Foundry of the living ration,
Medicine of desolation,
Mary, flower of earth.
Thornless blossom of salvation;
Branch, by heavenly inspiration,
Whence the almond's aspiration
Breaks a way to birth.

Salutation, virtuous maiden!
Blessed womb with glory laden
Fallen from above
Thy entreaty, Queen, shall win us
Grace of God igniting in us
Double flames of love.

Wonderful, a thing unknown;
Lo, a maid conceiving;
God is clothed in flesh and bone;
Marvel past believing.

Son of heaven and star of earth
Wedding one another;
Lo, a novel bed of birth,
Lo, a damsel mother.

As the prophet Moses lay
In his osier basket,
Godhead lurked in human clay,
In this virgin casket.

Open ear and brain alert
At the godhead's message:
Traces melt and leave no hurt
Of the godhead's passage.

Though a thousand sunrays pass
Through a fastened casement,
Nothing ill befalls the glass,
Wreckage or abasement;

Thus, and subtlier than the sun,
(Pure the earthly house)
God, the Father's only Son,
Passes through the spouse.

Thoughts flow outward, from within
Chambers of the heart;
Strange conception without sin
Ripens without smart.

Eyes accessible to ours,
Keep the light which dowered;
Gay the garden bore its flowers,
Mother undefloured.

Whiter than the lily is,
Like the rose prolific,
Ask thy son's indulgencies,
Virgin beatific.

Shield us from a dread award
At his judgment seat;
Be we with thyself restored,
Fed with angels' meat.