MARIA IMMACULATA
By Condé Benoist Pallen
I
How may I sing, unworthy I,
Our Lady's glorious sanctity?
She whose celestial shoon
Rest on the horned moon
In Heaven's highest galaxy;
She whom the poet sang of old
In that rare vision told
In soft Tuscan speech of gold,
The spotless spouse and mother-maid
The goodliest sapphire in Heaven's floor inlaid,
Around whom wheels the circling flame
Of the rapt seraph breathing Mary's name,
While choir to choir replies
In growing harmonies
Through all the glowing spheres of Paradise,
Till universal Heaven's glad estate
Rings jubilation to their queen immaculate.
II
Ah me! Unworthy I to sing
The stainless mother of my King,
My King and Lord,
The Incarnate Word,
Heaven itself comprest
Within her virgin breast!
How may my faltering rhyme
Sing of Eternity in time,
