sw00693sem-5.untaintedewe

Seminary



 Untainted Ewe


   Untainted Ewe to mother lambs
Within the world-derided fold;
To intercede for every sheep
Imperiled now by night and cold,
Of you the story great is told:

   A nigrous night, the wicked world,
Was round, and wound and bound
The sordid orb with serpent skin,
A shedding minding men of sin;
The heavy darkness built
A blacker monument to win
For Hell, where liquid fires spilt,
An earth already devil-downed.
   Then, when the time of fullness came,
Dappled dawn defeated shame
That conquered centuries did claim,
And turquoise day broke free
Above the mountain, marsh, and lea;
Unbound, in peace a newer name
Was echoed through the blue
Gold-effusèd sky:    Mary,
   A simple psalm so sweetly sung
From whence the world's Glory sprung
To kiss a cedar cross and die.
   In childhood, O Mary pure,
You grew in grace beneath the eye
Of providential vigilance:
In humble silence, abundance-filled;
In patience did your soul o'erflow
That only you could ever know
A motherhood
Unparalleled in final good
Or in beginning love.  Thus through
Your bosom all creatures were remade,
Recharged with love, swayed
From above; whole-holied, Untainted Ewe.
Immaculate you ever were;
No sinful stain your soul to blur
Was found to be within:
Virgin-white, transparent-thin,
Alofted air-borne snow, new-grown
Merino fleece, thistle down wind-blown,
A solitary star of Sirius's mould
Transpierced and permeated bold
That being bent by God's will told,
As if no angel need appear
To whisper it in Mary's ear:
A child shall your womb soon bear,
God's only Son placed in your care;
Fear not, O Virgin full of grace;
From lo the Spirit shall this take place,
Namèd Jesus to save the human race.
Yet Gabriel this message brought
To speak what Mary never thought.

   Upon the meadow knoll,
Among the rainbow grasses stroll
The lambs and all the sheep
That daily grow, leap and sleep,
Or sometimes wander far
'Neath stalwart sun and twinkling star
Till, O that Mother-Ewe
Unstained! as if she knew,
Would come and find her stray;
Would find and show the way
Again, within the Blood-won flock:
Purging-path-pointed, Heaven-headed flock,
Warmed by the rays of a fiery light
That rides on a solar sea
Burning as the prayer of a mystic, love-bright,
Caught in an ecstasy,
Caressed by the breeze at play in the trees;
At play with a myriad bees;
Held by the clover till daytime is over
And the birds to their nests all fly,
While the Maker ofnight
Builds His cities of light
Through the vaulted abyss of the sky.
(But if in the dark
 Wild nimbus embark
 With tempestuous rage unknown,
 The timorous fold
 To Mary can hold
 For peace as full as her own.)
To Bethlehem cave when winter frost,
Tenacious fingers heavily laid 
Upon; frigid-fixed and icèd-crossed
On silent soil, solid-cold, made
Unrested treks more wearisome,
Did not the spouse and Mary come
That Jesus might in humbleness
Be born, swaddling-shod, and nothing more?
She knew the wrack of trial;
The tears that tribulation brings,
Yet hers is a peace-filled smile;
A Magniicat she ever sings.
Fear not the tempest-slashèd skies
Or rumbling, thunderous cumuli
That roll therein.  Betake
To our Untainted Ewe
Your sin-suffering soul;
The sorrow your heart endures.  Mistake
Not the words she utters to you
Amid the fold upon the knoll:
   Be poor and love, and peace is yours.

   In silence wrapped did Mary live,
Full-joyed when she, her love, could give
From Bethlehem to Nazareth 
To Calvary: one rising breath
Of lung-bursting virtue;
A heart-rending issue
Of virgin-bonded blood.
   Where blooms the meadow's rosebud,
The Lamb of God is found
With His Untainted Mother-Ewe
Through whom all things are crowned,
Created new,
Made sound,
Upraised true;
Angel choirs confound.
On bloody, cedar-crossèd Calvary
This Lamb, Himself did sacrifice
To end, oh man's marked misery,
With life renewed; and though this should suffice,
He gave Himself as food the eve before:
Eternal sustenance--a wondrous wine
And beauteous bread, boundless gifts
Of glory-winning grace to home incline
The path traversed by man, by man who drifts
So easily from Him he should adore--
Forever-food, new manna made
For all the sheep that sleep and leap
Within the world-derided fold,
That sleep in Mary's arms when cold
As Jesus crucified was gently laid
On Mary's lap, and she,
Not one to weep,
In mystic visions deep,
The wisdom-work of God could see
Through all its shrouded mystery;
That leap round Mary's feet
As Jesus did at Nazareth,
And then, as now, she felt
His final breath
And caught Him up to rest
Against her heaving breast
Where seeming hard defeat
Was victory complete,
And she, in prayer, thendwelt
Upon her Son
Till time was done
And He had won.

   His death--our life,
And limbo rife
With joy sprung free
Upon eternity; and He
Arose in resurrected glow
Of light, as winter snow,
(Reflecting rays of sun,
 Gold-glancing glitters spun
 Through cloudless atmospheres
 To dry earth's tears,)
In primal air-borne fall
Is cherub-pure: and all
Reminds of Easter morn
And Christ's footfall,
The hope of men reborn,
At love's first call
Straight-turned towards her
Who mothered Him to stir
This Virgin's sinless soul,
This Taintless Ewe upon the knoll,
With love that should forever grow
To strengthen straying sheep below;
Alone in wild, tumultuous blow,
The raging thief of day, of day
Returned when men to Mary pray:

   O Virgin wrapped in timelessness,
   The Mother of my God and me,
   Lead onward through the world's duress
   This lamb that would to heaven flee.
   Untainted Ewe, remember me,
   Your little lamb on bended knee,
   And guide to life's eternity
   This flock you bound in Unity
   By willing that in humbleness
   Which God proposed to work through thee,
   And fold in meadow happiness
   This flock you bind in Holiness
   By willing that in charity
   Which God must yet through thee express;
   Thus causing God the globe to bless,
   And every man to give no less
   Than highest praise in poetry,
   The poetry of prayerfulness.


                                  April, 1962 revision
                                 Brian Salchert, N.S.J.



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Blessed Virgin


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Brian A. J. Salchert