Birthsong
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w: Brian Wren
m: David Haas, 1989-1990
Tune: Lamentation
Meter: 7.6.7.6D

[Verse 1]
Her baby, newly breathing, with wailing needful cry,
by Mary kissed and cradled, is lulled in lullaby.
Long months of hope and waiting, the thrill and fear of birth,
are crowned with exultation, and God is on the earth.

[Verse 2]
The eyes that gaze at Mary have yet to name or trace
the world of shape and color, or recognize a face;
yet Holiness Eternal is perfectly expressed
in hands that clutch unthinking, and lips that tug the breast.

[Verse 3]
The milk of life is flowing as Mary guides and feeds
her wordless Word, embodied, in infant joys and needs.
Enormous, formless strivings, and yearnings deep and wide,
becradled in communion, are fed and satisfied.

[Verse 4]
How motherlike the wisdom that carried and gave birth
to all things, seen and unseen, and nurtured infant earth:
unstinting, unprotected, prepared for nail and thorn,
constricted into maleness, and of a woman born.