---

Gerard Manley Hopkins - The May Magnificat
Work rating: Medium

May is Mary`s month, and I 
Muse at that and wonder why: 
Her feasts follow reason, 
Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day; 
But the Lady Month, May, 
Why fasten that upon her, 
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter 
Than the most are must delight her? 
Is it opportunest 
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother: 
Her reply puts this other 
Question: What is Spring?- 
Growth in every thing-

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, 
Grass and greenworld all together; 
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted 
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin 
Forms and warms the life within; 
And bird and blossom swell 
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing 
Mary sees, sympathising 
With that world of good, 
Nature`s motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind 
With delight calls to mind 
How she did in her stored 
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this: 
Spring`s universal bliss 
Much, had much to say 
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple 
Bloom lights the orchard-apple 
And thicket and thorp are merry 
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes 
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes 
And magic cuckoocall 
Caps, clears, and clinches all-

This ecstasy all through mothering earth 
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ`s birth 
To remember and exultation 
In God who was her salvation.
Source
The script ran 0.005 seconds.