Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa - and Tolkien

A tidbit gleaned from Holly Ordway's Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography. 

In 1960, Tolkien was contacted about about writing out a version of Hilaire Belloc's poem, "Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa". Belloc had written the poem long before World War II and had made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa where a framed copy of the poem was hung on the chapel wall. But during the war, the framed copy disappeared. "Known for his beautiful calligraphy," Tolkien was asked to make a copy to replace the missing one. Although, according to Ordway, he "had misgivings about the literary merit of Belloc's poem," he approved the devotional act and did produce a calligraphic copy. It was hung in the chapel in 1961.

Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa

By Hilaire Belloc

I

Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold
And heard a woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

II

Steep are the seas and savaging and cold
In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
And harbourless for any sail to lie.
But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

III

Help of the half-defeated, House of gold,
Shrine of the Sword, and Tower of Ivory;
Splendour apart, supreme and aureoled,
The Battler's vision and the World's reply.
You shall restore me, O my last Ally,
To vengence and the glories of the bold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

Envoi

Prince of the degradations, bought and sold,
These verses, written in your crumbling sty,
Proclaim the faith that I have held and hold
And publish that in which I mean to die.