Guess the poet

So which poet do you think wrote this poem?

Mother, whose virgin bosom was uncrost

With the least shade of thought to sin allied;

Woman, above all women glorified,

Our tainted nature's solitary boast;

Purer than foam on central ocean tost; 

Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn

With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon

Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;

Thy image falls to earth.

                                       Yet some, I ween,

Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend

As to a visible power, in which did blend

All that was mixed and reconciled in thee

Of mother's love with maiden purity,

Of high with low celestial with terrene.

Yep, it was William Wordsworth. Congratulations if you recognised one of his 'Ecclesiastical Sonnets'. To see some more poems addressed to Our Lady by the most unexpected of poets, ranging from John Milton to Lord Byron, from John Donne to Thom Gunn, see In Praise of Our Lady, edited by Elizabeth Jennings.