How may I sing, unworthy I, Our Lady’s glorious sanctity? She whose celestial shoon Rest on the horned moon In Heaven’s highest galaxy; She whom the poet sang of old In that rare vision told In soft Tuscan speech of gold, The spotless spouse and mother-maid The goodliest sapphire in Heaven’s floor inlaid, Around whom wheels the circling flame Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary’s name, While choir to choir replies In growing harmonies Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise, Till universal Heaven’s glad estate Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate. II Ah me! Unworthy I to sing The stainless mother of my King, My King and Lord, The Incarnate Word, Heaven itself comprest Within her virgin breast! How may my faltering rhyme Sing of Eternity in time, Omnipotence in human frailty exprest, Our earthly garden fragrant with celestial thyme. What Muse, though great Urania guide her flight, May dare the sacrosanct and awful height Of that mysterious sublime Within the secret counsels of the Infinite! Omniscence there supreme and sole Clasps the beginning and the whole Of Love beyond created sight, Uncreate and quintessential light! Before the splendor of that ray Cherub and seraph fall away Dazzled and broken by excess Of everpowering blessedness, Yet panting for the fulness of the bliss That breathes consuming fire from Love’s unkenned abyss. Not through that fiery sphere my way, But here where shines the veiléd day, The flames of mystery insteeped In this our mortal clay; For in her maiden breast asleep Lies all the Love of Heaven’s deep, The holy circle of her zone Incarnate Love’s terrestrial throne. III The great archangel veils his face Before her: “Hail, full of grace!” And Heaven is clasped of earth; While all the wheeling spheres with all their choirs Around her wheel seraphic fires. Eden rises to its second birth; Again the prime estate Of man is renovate, And all the elder worth renewed in her immaculate; Virgin and spouse of Him Who breathes the virtue of the Seraphim, Virgin and mother of the Eternal Son, Daughter, Virgin, Spouse in one! The spotless mate of spotless Dove, The one great miracle of God’s love, From all eternity the chosen bride, Save only her none, none Exempt from sin’s dominion; Save only her of Adam’s race Or heavenly line, none full of grace; On her alone, on her alone The torrent of His love poured down The deep abundance of its flood Into the pure channels of her maidenhood, The fleckless mirror of her grace Reflecting all the beauty of His Face. IV