Come down to bring glad tidings unto thee,
For he hath chosen thee for his blest spouse."

He saith again: "In heaven it is decreed
Thou shalt be mother of the Son of God,
Therefore the Father me, his angel, sends
To swift fulfil his sacred will and law.
And down from him the highest Lord to bring
This benediction unto which thou'rt called."

The angel's heaven-sent words were so inflamed
With sacred love's own virtue did they burn
They truly seemed to fall from God above.
With holy joy her beating heart was full:
"Behold," she said, "the handmaid of the Lord,
Be it to me according to his word."

But as she sat within her arched cell
She wondered greatly how this thing should be:
"For I know not, nor speak with any man,"
To Gabriel she timidly responds.
Then quoth he: "Mary Hail! thou favoured art,
And full of grace, the Lord is with thee now."

And then came down the spirit of the Lord,
A ray of golden light shone round about,
It pierced her breast, that fruitful heaven-sent ray,
And from her womb, whose virgin purity
Was still inviolate, was born the Christ
While she a mother, was pure Virgin still.

Oh! lovers true, come hither unto her:
Madonna she of grace and beauty fair,
The earth and air but live for her sweet sake,
The queen of heaven, and pillar of the world:
He who would see the lovely damosel
One this Annunciation he should gaze.

From an anonymous "Laud" reprinted by Galletti, n. CCLXVIII, p. 121.

[16] Op. cit., I, p. 293.

[17] _Vie de Fra Angelico_, p. 243.

[18] Year 1894, p. 370.

[19] Vol. II, p. 510.

[20] Vol. I, p. 297.

[21] Vasari, II, p. 510, note 1.

[22] _Pictures in the National Gallery_, with descriptive text written
by C. L. Eastlake. No. I, p. 10.

[23] Vasari, II, p. 510.

[24] This valuable painting was ceded by the monks of the "Scalzi" to
the Museum of Madrid in 1861 at the suggestion of Senor Don Federigo
de Madrazo.--_Catalogue of the Museum of Prado_, Don Pedro de Madrazo
1889, p. 19.

[25] Vasari, II, p. 510 and 511.

[26] Muentz, _Histoire de l'art pendant la Renaissance--Les
Primitifs_--p. 653 and 658.

[27] Op. cit., I, p. 308.

[28] _La Sculpture Florentine_, Alinari, 1897, p. 152.

[29] Vasari, II, p. 515.

[30] _Par._, Canto XXXI (Carey's translation).

[31] _Par._, Canto XXX (Carey's translation).

[32] The _carola_ was a kind of sacred dance, in which the danc