Our Lady went into a strange country (G. K. Chesterton)

Our Lady went into a strange country, 

   Our Lady, for she was ours, 

And had run on the little hills behind the houses, 

   And pulled small flowers; 

But she rose up and went into a strange country 

   With strange thrones and powers. 

 

And there were giants in the land she walked in, 

   Tall as their toppling towns, 

With heads so high in heaven, the constellations 

   Served them for crowns; 

And their feet might have forded like a brook the abysses 

   Where Babel drowns. 

 

They were girt about with the wings of morning and evening, 

   Furled and unfurled, 

Round the speckled sky where our small spinning planet 

   Like a top is twirled; 

And the swords they waved were the unending comets 

   That shall end the world. 

 

And moving in innocence and in accident, 

   She turned the face 

That none has ever looked on without loving 

   On the Lords of Space; 

And one hailed her with her name in our own country 

   That is full of grace. 

 

Our Lady went into a strange country 

   And they crowned her queen, 

For she needed never to be stayed or questioned 

   But only seen; 

And they were broken down under unbearable beauty 

   As we have been.

--G. K. Chesterton, Regina Angelorum         

Image source: Enguerrand Charonton, Coronation of Mary by the Trinity (1454), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Heaven#/media/File:Enguerrand_Quarton,_Le_Couronnement_de_la_Vierge_(1454).jpg
Poem source