Jean Hay, The Annunciation, 1490/95., oil on panel.
Happy solemnity of the Annunciation!
(If you’re a Tolkien fan, you know today was the day the Ring was destroyed….so go watch Return of the King today.)
I thought I’d share some poetry with you today. I don’t generally do this, but there’s a lot of good stuff about the Annunciation, so, to the poets!
John Donne, Divine Poems, 2. Annunciation
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He’ll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death’s force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother.
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt’st in little room
Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb.
And some Rilke. In this one, the angel Gabriel is the speaker.
Annunciation
The Angel speaks
You are not closer to God than we
We’re all from Him so far
Yet with such sweet wonder
Your hands blessed are.
So do they ripen, so they shimmer
from the sleeves as by no woman before.
I am the day, I am the dew,
But Thou,
Thou art the Tree.
I'm weary, for the way was long
Forgive me, I forgot
What He, who sits in gold array as in the sun sent me to say,
You thoughtful one
(great space bewilders me)
You see: I am the beginning
But Thou,
Thou art the Tree.
Wide I spread the arc of my flight
I found myself so strange and far
And now your little house is drowned
in the folds of my great, bright dress.
And yet you’re alone as never before
You don’t see me at all
As if: I’m a breath of wind in the wood
But Thou
Thou art the Tree.
All the angels fear like this
Let one another go:
Never had we such desire
Uncertain yet so great
Perhaps that something happens soon
You only know in dreams
Hail, for thus my soul now sees:
You ready and so ripe.
You, Lady, are the great, high door
that soon shall open wide.
You, most beloved ear to my song
Now I feel: my word is lost
in you as in a wood.
So I came and I fulfilled
A thousand and one dreams
God looked at me; bedazzled me…
But Thou
Thou art the Tree.