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
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