Regina Angelorum, The Poem

For today, I am posting Regina Angelorum which is a Marian poem written by the Catholic writer, Gilbert Keith Chesterton. The topic of the poem is the Assumption and Coronation of Our Lady. In the poem, Chesterton draws a portrait of Our Lady which is quite beautiful; as an example, in this excerpt:  “…And moving in innocence and in accident, She turned the face, That none has ever looked on without loving.” Another excerpt to ponder is found in the last line which refers to hearing the voice of Our Lady. The theme of hearing Our Lady’s voice is applicable to today’s Catholic Church commemoration of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, as he was sanctified in the womb of St. Elizabeth upon hearing the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Visitation.

Dom Prosper Gueranger describes this biblically recorded event in the following:

Scarce has the Spouse (Jesus, added by SF) taken possession of the Sanctuary (Our Lady, added by SF) all spotless in which the nine months of His first abiding among men must run their course, yes scarce has the Word been made Flesh, than Our Lady inwardly taught what is her Son’s desire, arising, makes all haste to speed into the hill-country of Judea (Luke i. 39). “The voice of my Beloved! Behold he comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills” (Canticles ii. 8).

His first visit is to the “Friend of the Bridegroom,” the first out-pour of His graces is to John (John the Baptist in the womb of St. Elizabeth, added by SF). A distinct feast will allow us to honour in a special manner the precious day on which the divine child, sanctifying His Precursor, reveals Himself to John by the voice of Mary (emphasis added by SF): the day on which Our Lady, manifested by John, leaping within the womb of his mother, proclaims at last the wondrous things operated within her by the Almighty according to the merciful promise which He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever (Luke i. 55). ~Dom Prosper Gueranger  (source)

May you enjoy the poem, Regina Angelorum, and have a good St. John’s Day.  ~S.C. Fischer

Regina Angelorum by Gilbert Keith Chesterton, from The Queen of the Seven Swords, 1926:

“Our Lady went into a strange country,
Our Lady, for she was ours,
And had run on the little hills behind the houses
And pulled small flowers;
But she rose up and went into a strange country
With strange thrones and powers.And there were giants in the land she walked in,
Tall as their toppling towns,
With heads so high in heaven, the constellations
Served them for crowns;
And their feet might have forded like a brook the abysses
Where Babel drowns.They were girt about with the wings of the morning and evening,
Furled and unfurled,
Round the speckled sky where our small spinning planet
Like a top is twirled;
And the swords they waved were the unending comets
That shall end the world.And moving in innocence and in accident,
She turned the face
That none has ever looked on without loving
On the Lords of Space;
And one hailed her with her name in our own country
That is full of grace.

Our Lady went into a strange country
And they crowned her for a queen,
For she needed never to be stayed or questioned
But only seen;
And they were broken down under unbearable beauty
As we have been.

But ever she walked till away in the last high places,
One great light shone
From the pillared throne of the king of all that country
Who sat thereon;
And she cried aloud as she cried under the gibbet
For she saw her son.

Our Lady wears a crown in a strange country,
The crown he gave,
But she has not forgotten to call to her old companions
To call and crave;
And to hear her calling a man might arise and thunder
On the doors of the grave.”