May is Mary's month, and I <br />Muse at that and wonder why: <br />Her feasts follow reason, <br />Dated due to season— <br /> <br />Candlemas, Lady Day; <br />But the Lady Month, May, <br />Why fasten that upon her, <br />With a feasting in her honour? <br /> <br />Is it only its being brighter <br />Than the most are must delight her? <br />Is it opportunest <br />And flowers finds soonest? <br /> <br />Ask of her, the mighty mother: <br />Her reply puts this other <br />Question: What is Spring?— <br />Growth in every thing— <br /> <br />Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, <br />Grass and greenworld all together; <br />Star-eyed strawberry-breasted <br />Throstle above her nested <br /> <br />Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin <br />Forms and warms the life within; <br />And bird and blossom swell <br />In sod or sheath or shell. <br /> <br />All things rising, all things sizing <br />Mary sees, sympathising <br />With that world of good, <br />Nature's motherhood. <br /> <br />Their magnifying of each its kind <br />With delight calls to mind <br />How she did in her stored <br />Magnify the Lord. <br /> <br />Well but there was more than this: <br />Spring's universal bliss <br />Much, had much to say <br />To offering Mary May. <br /> <br />When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple <br />Bloom lights the orchard-apple <br />And thicket and thorp are merry <br />With silver-surfed cherry <br /> <br />And azuring-over greybell makes <br />Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes <br />And magic cuckoocall <br />Caps, clears, and clinches all— <br /> <br />This ecstasy all through mothering earth <br />Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth <br />To remember and exultation <br />In God who was her salvation.<br /><br />Gerard Manley Hopkins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/may-magnificat/
