Mary, did you know?

 

Advent Four: today is Mary Sunday, in the background she sings her song while I read poetry, this morning by Seamus Heaney. And Yeats: are the Irish poets best? Here's one I liked, "Twice Shy," but then I liked them all, like them all:

Her scarf a la Bardot,

In suede flats for the walk,

She came with me one evening

For air and friendly talk.

We crossed the quiet river,

Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,

Sky a tense diaphragm:

Dusk hung like a backcloth

That shook where a swan swam,

Tremulous as a hawk

Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need

Collapsed each hunting heart

But tremulously we held

As hawk and prey apart,

Preserved classic decorum,

Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia

Had taught us both to wait,

Not to publish feeling

And regret it all too late -

Mushroom loves already

Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,

As a thrush linked on a hawk,

We thrilled to the March twilight

With nervous childish talk:

Still waters running deep

Along the embankment walk.

    Seamus Heaney

Maybe you've been there, I certainly have, ages ago. But here's Mary this morning, and my memory hears it only in Anglican Chant:

    Magnificat. St. Luke i. 46.

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his Name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek;.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel; as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

And that other one,

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

    The Lake Isle of Innisfree

    WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Sunrise 6:35 AM. Sunset 4:48 PM

Welcome, winter morning.

My favorite image of the Annunciation. She was just a girl, someone's beloved daughter. I know how that is.

RSF&PTL

T89&c