In January cold, the year’s short light,
We make new marriage here;
The day is clear, the ground is bridal white,
Songless the brittled air
As we come through the snow to praise
Our Mary in her day of days.
In time’s short light, and less than light, we pray
That odds be thus made evens,
And earthly love in its uncertain way
Be reconciled with Heaven’s.
Before the early dark, we praise
Our Mary in her day of days.
Now let her honest, honored bridegroom come,
All other choice foregone,
To make his vows and claim and take her home,
Their two lives made in one.
He comes now through the snow to praise
Our Mary in her day of days.
All preparation past, and rightly glad,
She makes her pledge for good
Against all possibility of bad,
Begins her womanhood,
And as she walks the snow, we praise
Our Mary in her day of days.
Now, as her parents, we must stand aside,
For what we owed we’ve paid her
In far from perfect truth and love—this bride
Is more than we have made her,
And so we come in snow to praise
Our Mary in her day of days.
January 10, 1981