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If the rapid wingbeat makes us joyous, seeing the whirring flight of falcons cleaving the air as they escape their masters who love only themselves, their food, and plunder, so the mind now delights to gaze upon eleven thousand winged warriors, women armed with palms and wreaths, as they search so gladly for a different kind of prey, And afterwards knowing the love they sought, assured, what joy they knew among angels these eleven thousand wary virgins, so let us praise the acts, hope, and harvest of women, and, though the doer is God, in this intense light even their laughter. |
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Notes: From B S2:30:192; first printed Tordi 3:38; MSs L, V2 (Ve2?). A sonnet on the legend of St Ursula; see Jacobus Voragine, Golden Legend. It was a popular subject for illustration; VC is in a brilliantly-lit space, perhaps a church, looking at a picture. Key |