O Virgo Virginum
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O Virgo virginum, quomodo fiet istud?Quia nec primam similem visa es nec habere sequentem.Filiae Jerusalem, quid me admiramini?Divinum est mysterium hoc quod cernitis.
O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be?For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after.Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me?The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.
Who are the daughters of Jerusalem,Who glimpse you still as you transform their seeing?Whom have you called to this mysterium,And bathed in the blithe fountain of your being?Daughters of sorrow, daughters of despair,The cast-aside, the overlooked, the spurnedThe broken girls who scarcely breathe a prayerThe ones whose love has never been returned.
O Maid amongst the maidens, turn your face,For when we glimpse you we are not alone,O look us out of grief and into grace,Lift us in love made stronger than our own,Summon the spring in our worst wilderness,And make us fruitful in your fruitfulness. [End Page 269]
Malcolm Guite, poetpriest, is Chaplain and Supernumerary Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and teaches at the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. His recent books include Love, Remember, Mariner (a spiritual biography of S. T. Coleridge), Parable and Paradox, The Singing Bowl, and Sounding the Seasons. He has edited two poetry anthologies for Lent and Advent: The Word in the Wilderness (2014) and Waiting on the Word (2015). Malcolm writes Poet's Corner, a weekly column in the Church Times. www.malcolmguite.com.
