"Ave Maria! Blessed maid,
Lily of Eden's fragrant shade,
Who can express the love,
That nurtured thee so pure and sweet;
Making thy heart a shelter meet
For Jesus' holy Dove? {333}
Ave Maria! mother blest,
To whom, caressing and caress'd,
Clings the Eternal Child!
Favour'd beyond archangel's dream,
When first on thee with tenderest gleam
The newborn Saviour smiled.
Ave Maria! thou whose name,
ALL BUT ADORING love may claim,
Yet may we reach thy shrine;
For HE, thy Son and Saviour, vows,
To crown all lowly lofty brows
With love and joy like thine.
Bless'd is the womb that bare Him,--bless'd
The bosom where his lips were press'd;
But rather bless'd are they
Who hear his word and keep it well,
The living homes where Christ shall dwell,
And never pass away."
J. Keble's Christian Year. "The Annunciation."
Would that no branch of the Church Catholic had ever passed the boundary
line drawn here so exquisitely by this Anglican Catholic, from whose
lips or pen no syllable could ever fall in disparagement of the holy
Virgin, as blessed among women, and the holy mother of our Lord. To
bring about the re-union of Christians would in that case have been a
far more hopeful task than it is now.
III. In the third stage, a prayer was offered to God, that He would
permit the intercessions of the saints to help us; or the prayer
contained the expression of a wish,--a desire not addressed either to
God or to the saint, merely words expressive of the hope of the
individual.
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