The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe

Wild air, world-mothering air,     Nestling me everywhere,     That each eyelash or hair     Girdles; goes home betwixt     The fleeciest, frailest-flixed     Snowflake; that's fairly mixed     With, riddles, and is rife     In every least thing's life;     This needful, never spent,     And nursing element;     My more than meat and drink,     My meal at every wink;     This air, which, by life's law,     My lung must draw and draw     Now but to breathe its praise,     Minds me in many ways     Of her who not only     Gave God's infinity     Dwindled to infancy     Welcome in womb and breast,     Birth, milk, and all the rest     But mothers each new grace     That does now reach our race -     Mary Immaculate,     Merely a woman, yet     Whose presence, power is     Great as no goddess's     Was deemd, dreamd; who     This one work has to do -     Let all God's glory through,     God's glory which would go     Through her and from her flow     Off, and no way but so.     I say that we are wound     With mercy round and round     As if with air: the same     Is Mary, more by name.     She, wild web, wondrous robe,     Mantles the guilty globe,     Since God has let dispense     Her prayers his providence:     Nay, more than almoner,     The sweet alms' self is her     And men are meant to share     Her life as life does air.     If I have understood,     She holds high motherhood     Towards all our ghostly good     And plays in grace her part     About man's beating heart,     Laying, like air's fine flood,     The deathdance in his blood;     Yet no part but what will     Be Christ our Saviour still.     Of her flesh he took flesh:     He does take fresh and fresh,     Though much the mystery how,     Not flesh but spirit now     And makes, O marvellous!     New Nazareths in us,     Where she shall yet conceive     Him, morning, noon, and eve;     New Bethlems, and he born     There, evening, noon, and morn     Bethlem or Nazareth,     Men here may draw like breath     More Christ and baffle death;     Who, born so, comes to be     New self and nobler me     In each one and each one     More makes, when all is done,     Both God's and Mary's Son.     Again, look overhead     How air is azurd;     O how! nay do but stand     Where you can lift your hand     Skywards: rich, rich it laps     Round the four fingergaps.     Yet such a sapphire-shot,     Charged, steepd sky will not     Stain light. Yea, mark you this:     It does no prejudice.     The glass-blue days are those     When every colour glows,     Each shape and shadow shows.     Blue be it: this blue heaven     The seven or seven times seven     Hued sunbeam will transmit     Perfect, not alter it.     Or if there does some soft,     On things aloof, aloft,     Bloom breathe, that one breath more     Earth is the fairer for.     Whereas did air not make     This bath of blue and slake     His fire, the sun would shake,     A blear and blinding ball     With blackness bound, and all     The thick stars round him roll     Flashing like flecks of coal,     Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,     In grimy vasty vault.     So God was god of old:     A mother came to mould     Those limbs like ours which are     What must make our daystar     Much dearer to mankind;     Whose glory bare would blind     Or less would win man's mind.     Through her we may see him     Made sweeter, not made dim,     And her hand leaves his light     Sifted to suit our sight.     Be thou then, thou dear     Mother, my atmosphere;     My happier world, wherein     To wend and meet no sin;     Above me, round me lie     Fronting my froward eye     With sweet and scarless sky;     Stir in my ears, speak there     Of God's love, O live air,     Of patience, penance, prayer:     World-mothering air, air wild,     Wound with thee, in thee isled,     Fold home, fast fold thy child.