Anticipating May

"May is Mary's month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why:

Her feasts follow reason,

Dated due to season -- 

Candlemas, Lady Day;

But the Lady Month, May,

Why fasten that upon her,

With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter

Than the most are must delight her?

Is it opportunist

And flowers finds soonest?

v.9:  Well but there was more than this:

Spring's universal bliss

Much, had much to say

To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple

Bloom lights the orchard-apple

And thicket and thorp are merry

With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes

Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes

And magic cuckoocall

Caps, clears, and clinches all --

This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth

To remember and exultation

In God who was her salvation."

The May Magnificat  Gerald Manley-Hopkins

Images from The Wilton Diptych c. 1395   ©  National Gallery London

Deo Gracias

"Adam lay i-bowndyn,
bowndyn in a bond,
Fowre thowsand wynter
thowt he not to long;
And al was for an appil,
an appil that he tok,
As clerkis fyndyn wretyn
in here book.
Ne hadde the appil take ben,
the appil taken ben,
Ne hadde never our lady
a ben hevene qwen.
Blyssid be the time
that appil take was,
Therfore we mown syngyn
DEO GRACIAS"

Sloane ms. 2593