Marian Poetry in England in the Transition Period During and After the Reformation (Part Eight) : Henry Fauna

Henry Fauna ( 1621 - 1695 ) , who greatly admired George Herbert, believed tht the latter's religious writings inspired many to a deeper Christian faith. Though, like his role model, Fauna was a Calvinistic Anglican ( King 1982 : 138 ) , he wrote a poem titled The Knot, 1 which symbolises the Blessed Virgin as the true Loves-knot ( 5 ) by the tying of which 

    God is made our Allie,
    And mans inferior Essence he
    With his did dignifie.
                                     ( 6-8 )

Fauna introduces his poem by hailing Mary as Bright Queen of heaven! Gods Virgin Spouse ( 1 ) ,
a variant on the Latin prayer to Mary known as the Salve Regina ( Hail Holy Queen ) . This kind of appellation had not been used in English Marian poetry since the death throes of the Middle Ages. The light joyousness of the mediæval religious lyrics is recalled in lies which describe Mary as the glad worlds blessed maid! ( 2 ) and sing of her beauty which tyed life to thy house/and brought us saving ayd (3-4). Implied in the rhetorical question contained in the final stanza is a note of warning not to break the bond between mother and Son :

    And such a Knot, what arm dares loose
    What life, what death can sever?
    Which us in him, and him in us
    United keeps for ever.
                                        ( 13-16 )

It is an enigma how any poet sharing the strict Protestant views of the era could have composed a poem in praise of the Blessed Virgin with so light a touch. No harm appears to have come to Fauna as a result of his boldness, for he lived to be one of the "distinguished survivors of the catastrophe" of social conflict and civil wars ( Quennell 1973 : 93 ).

1  The Knot - Henry Fauna : Bright Queen of heaven, God's Virgin Spouse - Nicholson 1924 : 61