MARIAN POETRY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH WRITES OF MARY WITH PROFOUND SENSITIVITY, PERCEPTION AND REVERENCE:

     THE VIRGIN

     Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
     With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
     Woman! above all women glorified,
     Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
     Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
     Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
     With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
     Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
     Thy Image falls to earth.  Yet some, I ween
     Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend
     As to a visible Power, in which did blend
     All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
     Of mother's love with maiden purity,
     Of high with low, celestial with terrene!
                                             [1 - 14]

The pun uncrost [1] is striking with its connotation of the shameful death the mother's Son is to undergo. Our tainted nature's solitary boast [4] is a prime example of encapsulation, demonstrating the poet's gift of pressing several truths into a handful of words without apparent effort. To strike home its message of Mary as human anchor to the Divinity, the sonnet relies heavily on the employment of contrast, such as: mixed and reconciled [12], mother's love with maiden purity [13] and high with low, celestial with terrene [14].

Dr Luky Whittle