And Dante's voice and Petrarch's strain
And Milton's matchless line
Would lend to my poor minstrel note
A harmony divine.
Lady, I choose to be thy son;
For Mother thee I choose;
O, for thy sweet and holy Child,
Do not my claim refuse!
Alone and motherless am I:
Tho' strong, I long for rest—
The thunder of the world's applause
Is not a mother's breast.
Ave Maria! Shield us all.
Thy sons we choose to be.
Mother of grace, we raise our hearts,
Our hearts, our love to thee!
REVELATION
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away."—Revelation XXI:1
By John Jerome Rooney
The Lord God said to His angel: "Let the old things pass away.
They have heaped the earth with slaughter their sin obscures the day.
Roll up the night on a curtain: let the stars fade one by one:
