The Assumption of our Lady - by Robert Southwell

If sinne be captive grace must finde release
From curse of sinne the innocent is free
Tombe prison is for sinners that decease
No tombe but throne to guiltless doth agree
Though thralles of sinne lye lingring in their grave [5]
Yet faultles cors with soule rewarde must have.

The daseled eye doth dymmed light require
And dying sightes repose in shadowinge shades
But Eagles eyes to brightest light aspire
And living lookes delite in loftye glades [10]
Faynte winged foule by grounde doth fayntly flye
Our Princely Eagle mountes unto the skye.

Gemm to her worth spouse to her love ascendes
Prince to her throne Queene to her heavenly kinge
Whose court with solemn pompe on her attends [15]
And Quires of Saintes with greeting notes do singe
Earth rendreth upp her undeserved praye
Heaven claymes the right and beares the prize awaye.

Notes

Background: According to the general rule, God does not will to grant to the just the full effect of the victory over death until the end of time has come. And so it is that the bodies of even the just are corrupted after death, and only on the last day will they be joined, each to its own glorious soul.
Now God has willed that the Blessed Virgin Mary should be exempted from this general rule. She, by an entirely unique privilege, completely overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and as a result she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the redemption of her body.

St. John Damascene (c675-c749) spoke out with powerful eloquence when he compared the bodily Assumption of the loving Mother of God with her other prerogatives and privileges. “It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles. It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him, should look upon him as he sits with the Father. It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the handmaid of God.”

For more, see: Munificentissimus Deus (1950).

[l5] thralles:  thrall - One who is in bondage to a lord or master; a villein, serf, bondman, slave; also, in vaguer use, a servant, subject; transf. one whose liberty is forfeit; a captive, prisoner of war. fig. One who is in bondage to some power or influence; a slave (to something).

[l6] cors:body.

[l7] daseled: dazzled

[l11] Faynte:  Sluggish, timid, feeble.Wanting in courage, spiritless, cowardly. Obsolete or arch. Wanting in strength or vigour. foule: fowl, birds.

[l14] Prince: Mary. Applied to a female sovereign. Obsolete.1594   Willobie his Auisa iv. f. 7   'Cleopatra, prince of Nile.'

[l17] praye: prey.