Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OUR LADY'S BIRTHDAY, by EMILY HENRIETTA HICKEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OUR LADY'S BIRTHDAY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The joy of the world is rising from out love's / infinite sea
Last Line: To bear the immortal ave on music that has no end.
Subject(s): Babies; Birth; Birthdays; Love; Mary. Mother Of Jesus; Religious Education; Women In The Bible; Infants; Child Birth; Midwifery; Virgin Mary; Sunday Schools; Yeshivas; Parochial Schools


THE joy of the world is rising from out love's infinite sea;
The joy of the dead and the living, and the myriads yet to be.

For here is the vision of bliss and the splendour is here of the word
The eye of the seer hath seen and the ear of the hearer hath heard.

And the Temple new is here that shall know the quenchless might
Of the lost, restored Shekinah, the sheen of the Light of Light.

The Shrine of the Word Eternal, the House that is golden piled,
Is here in the swathing bands of a little new-born child;

A child who will sport with her fellows, and laugh and play unafraid,
As erst, before the Almighty, the Wisdom Eternal played.

Oh, she will look on the world of His love with open eyes,
And her open ears will catch the sound of its harmonies.

She will need to ask no secrets of the hidden, above, below,
Herself the secret of God, which He giveth for men to know.

In His temple blest she will love and work and, it may be, pray,
That the Lady who bears the Christ her eyes may see one day;

That she, in the lowly duty which never can fail or swerve,
May wait on that Lady of God, and serve her as love can serve.

Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, and Justice that none gainsaith,
These are the handmaids to wait on her Charity, Hope, and Faith.

And still, as the time draws on that bringeth her womanhood,
Above her, in golden grace, the Spirit of God will brood,

As she goes in her lovely maidhood, the Rose of God's own morn,
The one and only stainless of earth begotten and born.

Then, lo! in her life's fair prime, alone in a still, sweet place,
She will hear the Angel of God who haileth her FULL OF GRACE.

For she herself indeed is the chosen of God to bring
To the world its fair redemption, to Sion her Priest and King.

And she, in her simple meekness, that honour supreme will take,
As a little child the gift that its father's hand doth make.

A shelter meet shall be hers, in a dear and quiet light,
The hallowed love and the care of the stainless workman-knight.

And he will know God's secret, in her, the beloved, revealed;
In her, His garden inclosed; in her, His fountain sealed;

Though none but she can endure the gift that is hers, to win
That great lone splendour of God none other can enter in.

Oh! marvellous things, too deep, too high, for thought and speech,
This Maid, the Spouse of the Spirit, the Mother of God, shall reach.

Thou God, whose thought is creation, Thou God to whom time is nought,
In the babe that is born to-day Thou seest Redemption wrought.

As one great Now before Thee past, present and future lie,
And the manger throne is here, and the altar of Calvary.

The joy and the pain of the Cross are in that ear of Thine,
As the Babe Christ's laugh, and the cry of the Derelict divine.

The little hour of triumph Thou seest, by the children hailed;
And the Mother nailed in spirit where the Son in body is nailed.

The lifted gates eternal, the grandeur of sight and sound,
Where the Mother of love and sorrow in power and joy is crowned;

As all the voices of heaven in one great harmony blend
To bear the immortal AVE on music that has no end.





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