Mary Mother leaned from heaven,
Gazed upon my little wood,
Where the trees stood up to praise her
In the winter solitude.
Snow lay drifted on the branches,
And the undergrowth was snow--
White, all white, and far flung purple
Where the shadows slept below.
Mary Mother smiled in heaven,
Bent and brooded o'er the earth:
White as snow His stainless life was
From the day I gave Him birth.
Mary Mother sighed in heaven
(Long tree-shadows show a cross):
Purple glooms athward for sorrow,
Pain and sacrifice and loss.
Lovely thoughts of white and purple
Mary wove one winter day;
Where they fell, sprang up in April
Violets, violets all the way.
