"Assumpta Maria" is "vamped" from the office of Our Lady; he had no notion of concealing its origin, but rather sought to point it out. The prayer to the Virgin is itself a confession--
He wrote in 1893, with an enclosure of poems, including the "Assumpta Maria":--
"They are almost entirely taken from the Office of the Assumption, some from the Canticle, a few images from the heathen mythology. Some very beautiful images are from a hymn by St. Nerses the Armenian, rendered in _Carmina Mariana_. You will perceive therefore the reason of the motto from Cowley: 'Thou needst not make new songs, but say the old.'"
It is at the close of the poem that Francis calls himself "poor Thief of Song." The theme put honesty out of reach. It has been treated too often. Even Donne's "Immensity cloistered in the dear womb" is part of "the great conspiracy" of Marian Song.
The lines most in question in St. Nerses's hymn, thus rendered in English by W. H. Kent, are--
Dwelling-place of light, be gladsome; Temple, where the true Sun dwelleth; Throne of God, rejoice, thou bearest Him, the Word of the Almighty . . . Home of him whom none may compass; Hostel, where the sun finds resting . . . Daniel's great Stone-bearing Mountain; Solomon's fair Hill of Incense; Fountain sealed for him that keeps it; Garden closed for him that plants.
"I remember," Francis writes, "Father Anselm's expression of comical surprise at a passage in 'Her Portrait,' where I had employed the terms of Canon Law relating to ecclesiastical property. Why, he said, here's a whole page of _De Contractibus_ in poetry. His surprise was increased when I remarked that I had never read any work on the subject. . . . I said I got the terms where any one else could get them--from English history.
"Equal was the surprise of another person at finding a whole passage of Anna Kingsford in my poetry. It was a passage describing the earth's _aura_, really remarkably like a passage in a book I had not at the time read."
In all these cases he is an imitator by choice--independent in taking only what suits him and depending only where he will. In one case he was an imitator not by choice but by compulsion, a slavish follower. There was no more choice for him in following Patmore than for a son born like his father. Such a poem as "By Reason of Thy Law" was born of the _Unknown Eros_ odes.
