Scourging

Scourging

When I feared that even a bee might sting you

Still more that a blemish might result,

When it fluttered near your checks (just like an apricot, or golden blossom

If someone had told me that soon men

would lay their hands on such beauty,

to destroy before summer

the pristine fruit promised for autumn,

I would have hidden in the depths of my breast

The goodness of God who is all my being

And would have borne his torture myself......

Is it right that my sorrow

at the scourge which strikes your heart

should received an echo, but no wound?

Miroir de peine ('Mirror of Pain') by the Belgian poet Henri Gheon (the pen name of Henri Vangeon) is a set of five poems which describe Christ's sufferings from the point of view of his mother Mary. Hendrick Andriessen composed his setting in 1923