Aubade: The Annunciation

The Annunciation. Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi. 1333.

 

Aubade: The Annunciation

Thomas Marian, 1946

 

When the dim light, at Lauds, comes strike her window,

Bellsong falls out of Heaven with a sound of glass.

 

Prayers fly in the mind like larks,

Thoughts hide in the height like hawks:

And while the country churches tell their blessings to the distance,

Her slow words move

(Like summer winds the wheat) her innocent love:

Desires glitter in her mind

Like morning stars:

 

Until her name is suddenly spoken

Like a meteor falling.

 

She can no longer hear shrill day

Sing in the east,

Nor see the lovely woods begin to toss their manes.

The rivers have begun to sing.

The little clouds shine in the sky like little girls:

She has no eyes to see their faces.

 

Speech of an angel shines in the waters of her thought like diamonds,

Rides like a sunburst on the hillsides of her heart.

 

And is brought home like harvests,

Hid in her house, and stores

Like the sweet summer’s riches in our peaceful barns.

 

But in the world of March outside her dwelling,

The farmers and the planters

Fear to begin their sowing, and its lengthy labor,

Where, on the brown, bare furrows,

The winter wind still croons as dumb as pain.