Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/41

 REDEMPTION. 35

Hail ! long'd for joy; hail ! sweetly breathing name, Divinely gracious and refulgent Queen, Pellucid fountain of life-giving milk, Mother, and frainer of a newer birth; Hail ! masterpiece divine, the last and best Effusion of his all-creating skill; Thee human intellection cannot reach, Nor thee sufficiently exalt. On earth, No mortal can with thee compare; in heav'n, Than angel and archangel more sublime; Brighter than seraphim, more glorious far Than the cherubic hosts, who stand the throne Before; above them all, Mother of God, Art thou extoll'd. In thee the mystic types Of the old law, their full completion find That paradise, which the new Adam held, The ark in whom the world's Salvation lay. Who contains all, was all contain'd by thee, Storehouse and inexhaustible abyss Of heav'nly gifts, effulgent, morning star, Fair queen of infinite delights, and rose Deprived of every thorn, th' unspotted Spouse, Replete with grace, leaning on her Beloved ; Sole daughter, not of death, but heav'nly life, Than virgin Eve more innocent, always Uncorrupt; who never to the serpent Lent an ear, nor yet, with breath of sin Thy purity enstain'd; exempt from spot. Earth virginal, unblemish'd, undefil'd, Sweet paradise of innocence, planted At God's right hand, water'd with crystal streams From Virtue's fount, and fenced from snares malign:

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