Analysis of Mater Triumphalis

Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
  Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,
  Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.

Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder
  Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
  Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

Angels and Gods, spirit and sense, thou takest
  In thy right hand as drops of dust or dew;
The temples and the towers of time thou breakest,
  His thoughts and words and works, to make them new.

All we have wandered from thy ways, have hidden
  Eyes from thy glory and ears from calls they heard;
Called of thy trumpets vainly, called and chidden,
  Scourged of thy speech and wounded of thy word.

We have known thee and have not known thee; stood beside thee,
  Felt thy lips breathe, set foot where thy feet trod,
Loved and renounced and worshipped and denied thee,
  As though thou wert but as another God,

"One hour for sleep," we said, "and yet one other;
  All day we served her, and who shall serve by night?"
Not knowing of thee, thy face not knowing, O mother,
  O light wherethrough the darkness is as light.

Men that forsook thee hast thou not forsaken,
  Races of men that knew not hast thou known;
Nations that slept thou hast doubted not to waken,
  Worshippers of strange Gods to make thine own.

All old grey histories hiding thy clear features,
  O secret spirit and sovereign, all men's tales,
Creeds woven of men thy children and thy creatures,
  They have woven for vestures of thee and for veils.

Thine hands, without election or exemption,
  Feed all men fainting from false peace or strife,
O thou, the resurrection and redemption,
  The godhead and the manhood and the life.

Thy wings shadow the waters; thine eyes lighten
  The horror of the hollows of the night;
The depths of the earth and the dark places brighten
  Under thy feet, whiter than fire is white.

Death is subdued to thee, and hell's bands broken;
  Where thou art only is heaven; who hears not thee,
Time shall not hear him; when men's names are spoken,
  A nameless sign of death shall his name be.

Deathless shall be the death, the name be nameless;
  Sterile of stars his twilight time of breath;
With fire of hell shall shame consume him shameless,
  And dying, all the night darken his death.

The years are as thy garments, the world's ages
  As sandals bound and loosed from thy swift feet;
Time serves before thee, as one that hath for wages
  Praise or shame only, bitter words or sweet.

Thou sayest "Well done," and all a century kindles;
  Again thou sayest "Depart from sight of me,"
And all the light of face of all men dwindles,
  And the age is as the broken glass of thee.

The night is as a seal set on men's faces,
  On faces fallen of men that take no light,
Nor give light in the deeps of the dark places,
  Blind things, incorporate with the body of night.

Their souls are serpents winterbound and frozen,
  Their shame is as a tame beast, at their feet
Couched; their cold lips deride thee and thy chosen,
  Their lying lips made grey with dust for meat.

Then when their time is full and days run over,
  The splendour of thy sudden brow made bare
Darkens the morning; thy bared hands uncover
  The veils of light and night and the awful air.

And the world naked as a new-born maiden
  Stands virginal and splendid as at birth,
With all thine heaven of all its light unladen,
  Of all its love unburdened all thine earth.

For the utter earth and the utter air of heaven
  And the extreme depth is thine and the extreme height;
Shadows of things and veils of ages riven
  Are as men's kings unkingdomed in thy sight.

Through the iron years, the centuries brazen-gated,
  By the ages' barred impenetrable doors,
From the evening to the morning have we waited,
  Should thy foot haply sound on the awful floors.

The floors untrodden of the sun's feet glimmer,
  The star-unstricken pavements of the night;
Do the lights burn inside? the lights wax dimmer
  On festal faces withering out of sight.

The crowned heads lose the light on them; it may be
  Dawn is at hand to smite the loud feast dumb;
To blind the torch-lit centuries till the day be,
  The feasting kingdoms till thy kingdom come.

Shall it not come? deny they or dissemble,
  Is it not even as lightning from on high
Now? and though m