O Mother of Salvation; lo, to thee
I fain must turn to aid my poverty.
Who may with eye unscathed approach and see
Thee by His Side thus standing, gloriously
Crowned with the palm-branch of His victory?
Four thousand years have fled, and ceaselessly
Hath evil run its course; yet now, oh, see
Rising above our crushed Humanity,
God's Fair Ideal, in our entity
Within the veil of His Divinity.
Oh, with what awful, dread humility
Stand there, God's Holy Ones: in them, oh, see
Jesus and Mary: God's best work is she;
His Wood of Incorruptibility,
Whence rose the Ark of Immortality.
The Son of God and Mary, lo, is He:
And He, the Son of her humanity,
Crowns her as Queen in three-fold dignity;
The Glory of the Blessed Trinity
Circles her brow, for all eternity.
The King and Queen have triumphed gloriously
Over the reign of death; and where they be,
There is the' court of Heaven. Sing joyously,
Oh, sing, ye choirs of Angels: now ye see
The Word-made-Flesh in Godlike Majesty.
In triumph, lo, hath He gone up on high
There to prepare His Place ineffably.
His Father's many mansions, lo, they be
All ready for His Children; henceforth, see
How reign the King and Queen benignantly.
All is not ended; though in Light we see
Those first-born Children of humanity.
Each soul that enters there will also be
The battle-field of a new victory,
Bought with His Blood - 'till time shall ended be.'
- text taken from Mary: The Perfect Woman, by Emily Mary Shapcote