A Chaucer Poem
December 17, 2017
from INVOCACIO AD MARIAM
— Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
Thou Maid and Mother, daughter of Thy Son,
Thou well of mercy, our sinful souls’ cure,
In whom God for goodness chose to dwell;
Thou humble one, yet high over each creature,
Thou makest noble henceforth our nature
That no disdain the Maker had of kind
His Son in blood and flesh to clothe and wind.
Within the blissful cloister of thy sides
Took man’s shape the eternal love and peace,
That of the threefold world both Lord and guide is,
Whom earth and sea and heaven, without cease,
Still praise; and thou, Virgin from all flaw secure,
Bore of thy body — and remained a maiden pure —
The Creator of every creature.
Assembled is in thee magnificence
With mercy, goodness, and with such pity
That thou, that art the sun of excellence
Not only helpeth them that pray to thee,
But often times, of thy benignity,
Full freely, ere men to thine own help appeal,
Thou goest before, and dost their souls heal.
[Transl. Johann M. Moser
Excerpt from “The Prologe of the Seconde Nonnes Tale” in The Canterbury Tales]
