Welcome back to the Daily Poem here in the Close Streets Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem, another Christmas-themed poem for your third day of Christmas, is by William

Butler Yates.

It's called the Mother of God.

William Butler Yates lived from 1865 to 1939. He was an Irish poet and is absolutely one of the most

important figures of 20th century literature, not just poetry, but literature. He won the Nobel Prize

in Literature in 1923. This poem is called the Mother of God. This is how it goes.

The threefold terror of love.

A fallen flare through the hollow of an ear.

Wings beating about the room.

The tear of all terr is that I bore the heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows every common woman knows, chimney corner, garden walk,

or a rocky cistern where we tread the clothes and gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains?

This fallen star my milk sustains.

This love that makes my heart's blood stop, or strikes a sudden chill

into my bones and bids my hair stand up.

That's a rich poem right there.

Even in the gospels, Mary is such a richly, for as few verses as she actually seems to appear in,

and certainly that she speaks in, she's such a richly defined character.

And certainly over the years, the church through tradition and secondary sources and things like that has

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