ER of God! no lady thou: Common woman of common
Our Lady ladies call thee now, But Christ was never of gentle birth; A common man of the common earth.
For God’s ways are not as our ways: The noblest lady in the
Would have given up half her days, Would have cut off her right hand, To bear the child that was God of the land.
Never a lady did He choose,
Only a maid of low degree,
So humble she might not refuse The carpenter of Galilee:
A daughter of the people, she.
Out she sang the song of her heart. Never a lady so had sung.
She knew no letters, had no art; To all mankind, in woman’s tongue, Hath Israelitish Mary sung.
And still for men to come she sings,
Nor shall her singing pass away.‘He hath fillàd the hungry with good things’— O listen, lords and ladies gay!— ‘And the rich He hath sent empty away.’
