Why seems it hard to understand that she,
Whose graceful Being came from God, should be
A Trophy of Omnipotence? - should be
The Arch-type pure of Human Entity,
By Him restored in lost Humanity?
How do we comprehend the last degree
Of that Life-generating Nature, we,
As the prerogative of time, can see?
How understand in Adam all would be
Of his unheard of, countless progeny?
How, in the first small germ that held the tree,
Myriads on countless myriads would be
Ever, till end of time, unceasingly
Developed each in turn? If this must be
A mystery unfathomed, then are we
Too weak to penetrate that mystery
By which all fell in Adam: yet did we
In Adam fall: and, in the fall, fell she
Who was at her Conception, utterly
From taint through fallen Adam, to be free.
O Sovereign Lord Creator, unto Thee
The whole creation looks; yea, groans to be
From this all-cankering blur in Nature, free.
Alone Thy Word in Human guise can be
Regenerator of Humanity.
That Word it was which set the Mother free
At her Conception: Word, that was to be
By her conceived in sacred Mystery:
Word, which had consecrated dust to be
The fragile Vase of Holy Purity.
His was the Act that this Immunity
Gave to the Dust in Adam's progeny:
He was the Maker: its Refiner, He:
He, its Creator: the Created, she -
Sole Sharer of His Pure Humanity.
- text taken from Mary: The Perfect Woman, by Emily Mary Shapcote