Wherefore let our choir to-day
Banish sorrow far away,
Singing and exulting aye
With the Virgin Mary.
For the Word becometh Flesh
By the Virgin Mary.
On this same subject the following lines of S. Hildebert, which are a good specimen of his rudeness and epigrammatic terseness, deserve translation.
Two Suns appear to man to-day: one made,
One Maker: one eternal, one to fade.
One the star's King; the King of their King, one:
This makes,—that bids him make,—the hours to run.
The Sun shines with the True Sun, ray with ray,
Light with light, Day with Him that makes the day.
Day without night, without seed bears she fruit,
Unwedded Mother, Flower without a root.
She than all greater: He the greatest still:
She filled by Him Whose glories all things fill.
That night is almost day, and yields to none,
Wherein God flesh, wherein flesh God, put on.
The undone is done again; attuned the jar:
Sun precedes day: the Morn, the morning star.
True Son, and Very Light, and Very Day:
God was that Sun, and God its Light and ray.
How bare the Virgin, ask'st thou, God and man?
I know not: but I know God all things can.
