Maria.
Another class of poems is dedicated to the sorrows of Mary; from one of which, apparently of the fourteenth century, entitled “The Lamentation of the Blessed Virgin,” I extract but two verses, the exceeding pathos of which can hardly be surpassed. Our Ladye is supposed to be addressing her complaint to some happy mother, and drawing a contrast between her joys and her own sorrows:
O woman, a chaplet chosen thou hast
Thi childe to wear it does the gret likynge,
Thou settest it on with great solas,
And I sit with my Sone sore wepynge,
His chaplet is thornys sore prickynge,
His mouth I kis with a sorrowful cheer,
I sith wepynge, and thou sit synnynge,