"Spring's universal bliss/
Much, had much to say/
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple/
Bloom lights the orchard apple/
And thicket and thorp are merry/
With silver-surfed cherry/
And azuring-over greybell makes/
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes/
And magic cuckoocall/
Caps, clears, and clinches all -/
This ecstasy all through mothering earth/
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth/
To remember and exultation/
In God who was her salvation."
Gerard Manley Hopkins - 'May Magnificat.'
2 comments:
I really can't stand the pictures of Jesus as a child in which He is naked and fat or looks pale and unhealthy. Does anyone agree?
My favorite picture of the child Jesus is actually one where he's rather plump. He looks to be something over a year and he has his hand tucked underneath Our Lady's robe. It struck me as so much the pose of a nursling of that age. It brought home the fact all over again that Jesus came into the world as a human baby and that He took all over our humanity into himself. It's not all that unusual for babies of a certain age to be rather plump (there's a reason it's called baby fat). Until they actually start moving around can put on some extra weight (undoubtedly stored for when they are too busy to eat later on). I always figured that the painters painted the models that were in front of them. Why they have him unclothed much of the time I'm not sure, but I don't know how unusual that would be in a warm climate.
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