Thursday, February 08, 2024

Let My Future Radiant Shine

 Hymn
by Edgar Allan Poe 

At morn -- at noon -- at twilight dim --
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
 In joy and wo, in good and ill --
 Mother of God, be with me still!
 When the Hours flew brightly by,
 And not a cloud obscured the sky,
 My soul, lest it should truant be,
 Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
 Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
 Darkly my Present and my Past,
 Let my Future radiant shine
 With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

In some versions, there's another stanza at the beginning:

Sancta Maria! Turn thine eyes
Upon the sinner's sacrifice
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.

This is the original version, which we get in the short story, "Morella". It seems to have been printed independently at different times with or without the stanza, and varying between the titles, "Hymn" and "A Catholic Hymn"; I'm not sure at all what the exact publication history is, although I'm pretty sure the shorter version is the later revised version. In any case, the times in the first line of the shorter version are the times of the Angelus. The 'wo' rather than 'woe' in the third line is not an error.