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Wednesday 26 August 2015

Another feast today

As I am in an English mood today, here is the poem by Hilaire Belloc on Our Lady of Czestochowa, the great name for Our Lady, the Black Madonna from Jasna Gora Monastery.

Please join me in prayer today and ask her for a very special intention and the success of my three main projects yet realized.

And, a big "hello" to all my dear readers in Poland.



Ballade to Our Lady of Częstochowa
Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
  And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St Hilda did behold
  And heard a woodland music passing by:
  You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
  And this is that in which I mean to die.
Steep are the seas and savaging and cold
  In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
  And harbourless for any sail to lie.
  But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
  And this is that in which I mean to die.
Help of the half-defeated, House of Gold,
  Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled,
  The Battler’s vision and the World’s reply.
  You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengeance and the glories of the bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
  And this is that in which I mean to die.
Envoi
Prince of the degradations, bought and sold,
  These verses, written in your crumbling sty,
Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold
  And publish that in which I mean to die.
Hilaire Belloc