Volume 16 — The Virgin.

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 vane 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 and low, celestial with terrene.—Wordsworth.

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