Sunday, August 13, 2017

SALVE REGINA



SALVE REGINA

Even as children all of us learned of sorrow,
but some of us learned with method in a school
where even children study why tomorrow
will bring them tears. Thus I, too, heard the rule
from a voice explaining that any exile must languish
away from home when night draws down on him;
I was given the formula for the hour of anguish,
saying it now while day grows grey and grim
across the years I hear St Bernard singing - *
out of the valley of tears wherein I grope -
his burden of grief: just as I now am bringing
my grief to her our Sweetness and our Hope
and shadows lift today as long ago,
above New York as once above Clairvaux.

Sister M St Virginia BVM
In: Robert. 1946
Used with permission

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* One school of thought holds St Bernard of Clairvaux as author of the prayer Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen). A second school of thought to which Sister St Miriam of the Temple CND belongs, ascribes the authorship of this poem to St Hermann of Reichenau

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