The Bride of Abydos
In this poem of Byron’s there is no bride, for the heroine dies heart-broken and unwedded.
Grandiloquent Outbursts
There is a volume printed at Amsterdam, 1657, entitled: “Jesus, Maria, Joseph; or the Devout Pilgrim of the Everlasting Blessed Virgin Mary, in his Holy Exercises, Affections and Elevations, upon the sacred Mysteries of Jesus, Maria and Joseph.” We append a few extracts from this curious book, as a specimen of the language employed at that time in addressing the Virgin—
“You, O Mother of God, are the Spiritual Paradise of the second Adam; the bright cloud carrying him who hath the cherubims for his chariot; the fleece of wool filled with the sweet dew of heaven, whereof was made that admirable robe of our royal shepherd, in which he vouchsafed to look after his sheep; you are pleasing and comely as Jerusalem, and the aromatical odours issuing from your garments outvie all the delights of Mount Lebanon; you are the sacred pix of celestial perfumes, whose sweet exhalations shall never be exhausted; you are the holy oil, the unextinguishable lamp, the unfading flower, the divinely-woven purple, the royal vestment, the imperial diadem, the throne of the divinity, the gate of Paradise, the queen of the universe, the cabinet of life, the fountain ever flowing with celestial illustrations.”
“All hail! the divine lantern encompassing that crystal lamp whose light outshines the sun in its midday splendour; the spiritual sea whence the world’s richest pearl was extracted; the radiant sphere, the well-fenced orchard, the fruitful border, the fair and delicate garden, the nuptial bed of the eternal world, the odoriferous and happy City of God, etc., etc.”