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

____________________________

* 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