MARY, BRINGING

THE DESIRE

CALLED JESUS

TO US.... 

Poem for Today - September 8, 2014

JESU, JOY OF MAN'S DESIRING 

(CHORALE FROM CANTATA NO. 147, BY J. S. BACH, 

ARRANGED FOR PIANO BY NIYRA HESS)

Ivory in her black, and all intent

Upon the mirror of her instrument,

Doubling her beauty to the eye and ear,

My Muse arranged this in a distant year.

I thought my longing then could not abide

The discipline to place me at her side

Whose love and art were joined without defect,

Luxurious touch and sway of intellect.

Kore and lady, Myra, downward glancing

Over the hand that sings to the hand dancing,

Breathe and be present now the shades grow still.

Sweet air, be figured at your mistress' will.

As he of Brandenburg hummed in his heart,

The tenor and the alto, part by part,

Mounted in joy amid the tranquil choir

To dwell but tenderly on man's desire.

Softly that note fell, for the baby burning

Under the wintry sign of his sojourning,

The westward star, lay upon Eden's breast

Where husbandman and hunter seek to rest.

So voices woke from every falling voice,

Bidding the Gentile and the Jew rejoice,

With all that generations may conceive,

In Miriam, who is the grace of Eve.

Had she not borne the seed of the Lord God

To ripen in her splendid belly's pod?

And who but sages of the fragrant East

Dared his epiphany, adorned the feast?

And how but in the Cyprian's tongue went round

The tidings of great joy upon that ground

And peaceful glory promised in the air?

Holy became the rose our bodies bear.

So ran Kapellmeister's hymn unending,

So dreamed the maiden on his word attending,

So, as I cherished her in my degree,

The page of ancient music fell to me.

Now life has turned and all seems far and late,

I find this luminous, and meditate

To praise again, though East and West are wild,

The girl, the singing, and the Christmas child.

© Robert Fitzgerald,

The New Yorker Book

Of Poems, pages 351-352