lady flower

twelve poems and a prayer

in honour of our lady
the blessed virgin
• mary •

printed at the veil press

east hendred
mmvi
lady flower
 First printed and published by the Veil Press Ltd
East Hendred, Wantage, OX12 8LF
www.benedictinenuns.org.uk
a. d. 2006

Digital Edition
a. d. 2008

Selection © Copyright 2006

The Trustees of Holy Trinity Monastery Charitable Trust
Registered Charity No. 1108284
Photography by D.C.W.

Every effort has been made to trace Anne Yeats and Michael B. Yeats
who are believed to be the British copyright holders of
The Mother of God by W. B. Yeats.
Anyone who can give contact information is asked to
communicate with the publishers.

table of contents

Sub tuum praesidium 1

In Praise of Mary 2
I sing of a Maiden 4
O Felix Culpa 5
Now goeth sun under wood 6
Sancta Maria Dolorosa 7
Our Ladie’s Nativitie 8
Mary’s Girlhood 9
he Mother of God 10
The Blessed Virgin Compared to
the Air We Breathe 11
he May Magnificat 16
Ave 19
 I
the earliest known prayer to our lady
(iv th century)

S ub tuum praesidium confugimus,
sancta Dei Genitrix;
nostras deprecationes ne despicias
in necessitatibus nostris;
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos,
semper Virgo, gloriosa et benedicta.

•
To your protection do we fly,
O holy Mother of God;
despise not the prayers
we make to you in our need;
but deliver us from all dangers,
O ever-virgin, glorious and blessed.
in praise of mary (c.1300)

O f one that is so fair and bright

Velut maris stella,
Brighter than the dayës light,
parens et puella:
I cry to thee; thou see to me!
Lady, pray thy son for me,
Tam pia,
That I motë come to thee,
Maria

Lady, flower of allë thing,

Rosa sine spina,
Thou borë Jesu, hevenës king,
Gratia divina:
Of allë thou bear’st the prize,
Lady, queen of Paradise
Electa.
Maidë mildë moder is
Effecta.

Of carë conseil thou art best

Felix fecundata,
Of allë weary thou art rest,
Mater honorata.
Beseech him with mildë mood
That for us allë shed his blood


 In cruce
That we moten come to him
In luce.

All this worëld was forlore

Eva peccatrice,
Till our Loverd was y-bore
De te genetrice.
With ‘Ave’ it went away
Thuster night, and com’th the day
Salutis;
The wellë springeth out of the
Virtutis.

Well he wot he is thy son

Ventre quem portasti;
He will not wernë thee thy boon,
Parvum quem lactasti.
So hendë and so good he is,
He haveth brought us to bliss
Superni,
That hath y-dit the foulë pit
Inferni.

see to me] look on me

Of carë … best] In distress you are the best counsellor
Thuster] dark
wernë] deny
hendë] gracious
y-dit] shut


i sing of a maiden (xv th century)

I sing of a maiden
That is makëles:
King of all kingës
To her son she ches.

He came al so stillë
There his mother was,
As dew in Apríllë
That falleth on the grass.

He came al so stillë
To his mother’s bower,
As dew in Apríllë
That falleth on the flower.

He came al so stillë
There his mother lay,
As dew in Apríllë
That falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden

Was never none but she;
Well may such a lady
Goddës mother be.

makëless] without a mate ches] chose

all so stillë] as silently

o felix culpa (xv th century)

A dam lay y-bounden

Bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter
Thought he not too long:
And all for an apple,
An apple that he took,
As clerkës finden written
In theirë book.

Ne had the apple taken been,

The apple taken been,
Ne haddë never our Lady
A been heaven’s queen.
Blessed be the time
That apple taken was!
Therefore we may singen
Deo Gratias!

clerkës] learned men


now goeth sun under wood
(?xv th century)

N ow goeth sun under wood –

Me rueth, Mary, thy fairë rode.
Now goeth sun under tree –
Me rueth, Mary, thy son and thee.

Me rueth] I grieve for rode] face


 from sancta maria dolorosa
or the mother of sorrows

S
he sees her Son, her God,
Bow with a load
Of borrow’d sins, and swim
In woes that were not made for him.
Ah! hard command
Of love! Here must she stand,
Charged to look on, and with a steadfast eye
See her life die,
Leaving her only so much breath
As serves to keep alive her death.

Richard Crashaw (1613 – 1649)


 our ladie’s nativitye

J oye in the risinge of our orient starr,

That shall bringe forth the Sunne that lent her light;
Joy in the peace that shall conclude our warr,
And soone rebate the edge of Saton’s spight;
Load-starr of all engolfd in worldly waves,
The card and compasse that from shipwracke saves.

The patriark and prophettes were the floures

Which Tyme by course of ages did distill,
And culld into this little cloude the shoures
Whose gracious droppes the world with joy shall fill;
Whose moysture suppleth every soule with grace,
And bringeth life to Adam’s dyinge race.

For God, on Earth, she is the royall throne,

The chosen cloth to make His mortall weede;
The quarry to cutt out our Corner-stone,
Soyle full of fruite, yet free from mortall seede;
For heavenly floure she is the Jesse rodd
The childe of man, the parent of a God.

Robert Southwell (1560 – 1595)


 mary’s girlhood (for a picture)

T his is that blessed Mary, pre-elect

God’s Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Unto God’s will she brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,
And supreme patience. From her mother’s knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were

An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home,
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all, – yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed:
Because the fulness of the time was come.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882)


 the mother of god

T he threefold terror of love; a fallen flare
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows

Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,

This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart’s blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

W. B. Yeats (1865 – 1939)

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the blessed virgin compared
to the air we breathe

W ild air, world-mothering air,

Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-fixed
Snowflake; that’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race –
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is

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Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do –
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,

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Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn –
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead,
How air is azurèd:
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven

13
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks or coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein

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To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my forward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)

15
 the may magnificat

M ay 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

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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:

Springs 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 solver-surfed cherry.

And azuring-over greyball makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all –

17
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 (1844 – 1889)

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 from A ve

O Mary Mother, be not loth

To listen, – thou whom the stars clothe, –
Who seëst and mayst not be seen!
Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
Into our shadow bend thy face,
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882)

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 This booklet was
set in Robert Slimbach's Minion Pro typeface
and printed and bound at the Veil Press, East Hendred
by the Benedictines of Holy Trinity Monastery
for their Friends and Benefactors
in an edition of 50 copies
a. d. 2006
•
Digital Edition a. d. 2008

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