ADVENT SONG

ADVENT* SONG

Lady, what songs are bending

the tall grasses of your mind,

what secret music whispers down your veins,

what wax-leaf ponderings, O Virgin Mary,

waken our little shouts of expectation?

Our thoughts have lumbered down a treeless highway,

have sputtered their heavy loftiness, have wept

their protest. Now we hear the distant birdcall

Oh, dimly! But the woods have heard it well.

The stars are singing in their stupefaction,

the giddy little hills are clapping hands.

But Lady, what songs sway

the supple grasses of your thoughts,

what secret music whispers down your veins?

Glorious things are said about this city

where the small citizen Christ moves in the lanes

of so-brief arteried comfort; but what songs

drift through this templed alabaster town?

We see the windows lighted, Virgin Mary,

City of God, by every hymn we raise

with chipped and broken voices, and our feeble

vision guesses sacred silhouettes.

But when the little Seed fell in the furrow,

the warm and spotless furrow of your heart,

tell us what pure songs stirred your delicate wonder,

what secret music whispered down your veins.

Mother M Francis PCC

Friar. November 1955

Used with permission

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*Advent: a period of four weeks which mark both the beginning of the Church's liturgical year and a time of penance in preparation for Christmas.