Why should I any love, O Queen, but thee, If favor past a thankful love should breed? Thy womb did bear, thy breast my Saviour feed, And thou didst never cease to succour me. If love do follow worth and dignity, Thou all in thy perfections dost exceed; If love be led by hope of future meed, What pleasure more than thee in heaven to see? An earthly sight doth only please the eye, And breeds desire, but doth not satisfy: Thy sight gives us possession of all joy; And with such full delights each sense shall fill, As heart shall wish but for to see thee still, And ever seeing, ever shall enjoy. IV Sweet Queen, although thy beauty raise up me From sight of baser beauties here below, Yet, let me not rest there; but, higher go To him, who took his shape from God and thee. And if thy form in him more fair I see, What pleasure from his deity shall flow, By whose fair beams his beauty shineth so, When I shall it behold eternally? Then, shall my love of pleasure have his fill, When beauty's self, in whom all pleasure is, Shall my enamoured soul embrace and kiss, And shall new loves and new delights distill, Which from my soul shall gush into my heart, And through my body flow to every part. HENRY CONSTABLE: 1562-1613. PART TWO CHAPTER XXIV THE HOME OF S. JOHN And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. S. John XIX, 27. But now we unite to praise thee, O Pure and Immaculate One, blessed Virgin and sinless Mother of thy great Son and the God of all. O perfectly spotless and altogether holy, thou art the hope of despairing sinners. We bless thee as most full of grace, who didst give birth to Christ, God and Man. And we fall down before thee. We all invoke thee and implore thy help. Deliver us, O Virgin, holy and undefiled, from every pressing strait and from all temptations of the Evil One. Be thou our peacemaker in the hour of death and judgment. Do thou save us from the future unquenchable fire and from the outer darkness. Do thou render us worthy of the glory of thy Son, O Virgin and Mother, most sweet and clement. A PRAYER OF S. EPHREM THE SYRIAN.