And when he had given all up to Mary—­his body, his soul, his earthly goods, and spiritual chattels—­when he stood before her stripped, bare, with all his prayers exhausted, there welled from his burning lips the Virgin’s litanies, with their reiterated, persistent, impassioned appeals for heavenly succour.  He fancied himself climbing a flight of pious yearnings, which he ascended step by step at each bound of his heart.  First he called her ‘Holy.’  Next he called her ‘Mother,’ most pure, most chaste, amiable, and admirable.  And with fresh ardour he six times proclaimed her maidenhood; his lips cooled and freshened each time that he pronounced that name of ‘Virgin,’ which he coupled with power, goodness, and fidelity.  And as his heart drew him higher up the ladder of light, a strange voice from his veins spoke within him, bursting into dazzling flowers of speech.  He yearned to melt away in fragrance, to be spread around in light, to expire in a sigh of music.  As he named her ‘Mirror of Justice,’ ‘Seat of Wisdom,’ and ‘Source of Joy,’ he could behold himself pale with ecstasy in that mirror, kneeling on the warmth of the divine seat, quaffing intoxication in mighty draughts from the holy Source.

Again he would transform her, throwing off all restraint in his frantic love, so as to attain to a yet closer union with her.  She became a ‘Vessel of Honour,’ chosen of God, a ‘Bosom of Election,’ wherein he desired to pour his being, and slumber for ever.* She was the ’Mystical Rose’—­a great flower which bloomed in Paradise, with petals formed of the angels clustering round their queen, a flower so fresh, so fragrant, that he could inhale its perfume from the depths of his unworthiness with a joyful dilation of his sides which stretched them to bursting.  She became changed into a ‘House of Gold,’ a ‘Tower of David,’ and a ‘Tower of Ivory,’ of inestimable richness, of a whiteness that swans might envy, and of lofty, massive, rounded form, which he would fain have encircled with his outstretched arms as with a girdle of submissiveness.  She stood on the distant skyline as the ’Gate of Heaven,’ a glimpse of which he caught behind her shoulders when a puff of wind threw back the folds of her veil.  She rose in splendour from behind the mountain in the waning hour of night, like the ‘Morning Star’ to help all travellers astray, like the very dawn of Love.  And when he had ascended to this height—­scant of breath, yet still unsatiated—­he could only further glorify her with the title of ‘Queen,’ with which he nine times hailed her, as with nine parting salutations from the censer of his soul.  His canticle died joyfully away in those last ejaculations of triumph:  ’Queen of virgins, Queen of all saints.  Queen conceived without sin!’ She, ever before him, shone in splendour; and he, on the topmost step, only reached by Mary’s intimates, remained there yet another moment, swooning amidst the subtle atmosphere around him; still too far away to kiss the edge of her azure robe, already feeling that he was about to fall, but ever possessed by a desire to ascend again and again, and seek that superhuman felicity.