Damage Control

THE BLESSED VIRGIN by Wm. Wordsworth

Mother! Whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! Above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother’s love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

This iambic pentameter sonnet ( 5 short/long accents, i.e. ‘thy image falls to earth yet some I ween’) with an unconventional rhyme scheme, abbc addb eff gge, beginning with crost,a, allied and glorified, b, boast, c, praises Mary in a form the reading public would have understood, accepted and appreciated in a 19th century wordsmith and Poet Laureate. Fast forward to 2010. Pop music awards are given out tonight at the Grammies to sounds that do equate with music, to artists that do not understand the meaning of art and in a culture that decries transcendent, religious thought.

Mother deliver us!