Friday 4 December 2009

Advent, 4: The flower

There is a flower sprung of a tree
The root therof is called Jesse;
A flower of price,
There is none such in Paradise.



This flower is fair and fresh of hue,
It fades never, but ever is new;
The blissful branch this flower on grew
Was Mary mild that bare Jesu.
A flower of grace,
Against all sorrow it is solace.

The seed thereof was Goddes sond,*
That God himself sowed with his hand
In Bethlem in that holy land.
Amidst her herbere there he her fond.*
This blissful flower
Sprang never but in Mary's bower.

When Gabriel this maid met
With Ave Maria he her gret
Between them two this flower was set,
And kept was, no man should wit;
But on a day
In Bethlem it con spread and spray.*


* of God's sending

* in her garden there he found her
* began to bloom

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