Gorgeous, sensual image of the annunciation

[Gabrielle Dean]

ADVENT by Edwin Muir                                                                         

The angel and the girl are met, 
Earth was the only meeting place, 
For the embodied never yet 
Travelled beyond the shore of space. 
The eternal spirits in freedom go. 

See, they have come together, see, 
While the destroying minutes flow, 
Each reflects the other's face 
Till heaven in hers and earth in his 
Shine steady there. He's come to her 
 From far beyond the farthest star, 
Feathered through time. Immediacy 
of strangest strangeness is the bliss 
That from their limbs all movement takes. 
Yet the increasing rapture brings 
So great a wonder that it makes 
Each feather tremble on his wings. 

Outside the window footsteps fall 
Into the ordinary day 
And with the sun along the wall 
Pursue their unreturning way 
That was ordained in eternity. 
Sound's perpetual roundabout 
Rolls its numbered octaves out 
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune. 

But through the endless afternoon 
These neither speak nor movement make, 
But stare into their deepening trance 
As if their gaze would never break