@2@3M@1ARY, humanity's Woman, immaculate Mother, Is it Thou, Thou alone, that art pure, and never another?@1 For the babe at my breast many deaths did my body endure: The girl died, the virgin,—yea, all that the Past counted pure. Then the deepest last dying, the shudder so woeful and wild, The smothering darkness ... the pitiful cry of the child! O Mary, the bliss that came after,—the @3rapture@1 of bliss,— How I would laugh him to laughter, and how we would kiss! How I would clasp him in terror when trouble would linger and stay! Trouble? for any but him, my masterful man-child alway. How he would lie in my bosom, and how I would breathe his name, How I would watch him and love him and dream of his lordly far fame! 'T was a wraith, a mistake,—'t was not @3I@1 that lived there in the Past, A pale, futile girl,—now a woman, a woman at last! For how could she know, that pale one, so saintly and so clean, That Madonna dwells eternal in the breast of Magdalene? @3Mary, humanity's Woman, immaculate Mother, Is it Thou, Thou alone, that art pure, and never another?@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT by ALEXANDER POPE SELF-DECEPTION by MATTHEW ARNOLD SEASONS AND TIMES by WILLIAM BARNES THE LOST LOVE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE HOLLYWOOD NOCTURNE by JANE BOWER MY DOVES by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING MY MISTRESS COMMANDING ME TO RETURN HER LETTERS by THOMAS CAREW |