Grains of Gold

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 37, 20 September 1923, Page 3

Grains of Gold

TO MARY IMMACULATE.

0 Mother! thou unblemished Eve Who didst our paradise retrieve; Redemption's beauteous instrument, Immaculate, all-excellent;

Lily, whose calyxed purity

Drew, bee-like, Love Divine to thee; Who art unto the Eucharist

A living Monstrancemay thou list, 0 Mother! Thou unblemished Eve, My faltering minstrelsy receive. Ah, what of thee may human tongue Essay, whose glories have been sung By angels when the world was young? Fails saintly eloquence that tries The Saint of Saints to eulogise; Painters have found no flesh and blood True model for thy womanhood; Poets despair a hymn to frame

Fit to extol that sacred name

Of "Mary"sweeter than the sound Of summer foliage whispering round God's Pleasance.

Purest and dearest! Spotless-souled ! Our love is dross beside thy gold; - Yet, stamp of a Queen's countenance The basest coinage doth enhance; So deign, my chosen Liege, with thine To dignify this love of mine.

I know weak words of mortal's song Thy empery and whiteness wrong, By number are inadequate—

God is thy Poet-Laureate!

Though my heart's fond imagining Is but as sea-shell's murmuring Of the vast ocean, I would bring All men free vassals to thy throne; So might thy fame be, too, mine own— Thine be sole memory of me,

And thine my immortality. Amen.

Irish Catholic.