GABRIEL
When Eve, in love with her own will,
Denied the will of Love and fell,
She turned the flesh Love knew so well
To knowledge of her love until
Both love and knowledge were of sin;
What her negation wounded, may
Your affirmation heal to-day;
Love's will requires your own that in
The flesh whose love you do not know,
Love's knowledge into flesh may grow.
...
Since Adam, being free to choose,
Chose to imagine he was free
To chose his own necessity,
Lost in his freedom, Man pursues
The shadow of his images:
To-day the Unknown seeks the known;
What I am willed to ask, your own
Will has to answer; child it lies
Within your power of choosing to
Conceive the Child who chooses you.
Denied the will of Love and fell,
She turned the flesh Love knew so well
To knowledge of her love until
Both love and knowledge were of sin;
What her negation wounded, may
Your affirmation heal to-day;
Love's will requires your own that in
The flesh whose love you do not know,
Love's knowledge into flesh may grow.
...
Since Adam, being free to choose,
Chose to imagine he was free
To chose his own necessity,
Lost in his freedom, Man pursues
The shadow of his images:
To-day the Unknown seeks the known;
What I am willed to ask, your own
Will has to answer; child it lies
Within your power of choosing to
Conceive the Child who chooses you.
(Photo Note. One of my favorite paintings of the Annunciation. Henry Ossawa Tanner's "The Annunciation" 1898)
