A Brides Chant

I set onward on the road my mother once trod Leaving my bearers roof to meet a new kith and kin Today I trail the path of my heart To be as one with the one I love so dearly Poised like my mother With Her sweet beauty now prevailing in me The beauty watered and refined By heat and cold, in warmth and chills With bright hopes for tomorrow I set on the usual but daring life’s course That many have also travelled In my mother’s care I have bloomed And by her counsel walked In my father’s field I have fared His sweet name has brought me honour But now I must leave and cleave With the one to take on from papa Father, wish me well again this time Mother, recount your blessings to me That I also be a good nourisher to man And set his home and holdings in harmony Mother, pray that my shoulders fall not To the loads that now await That my hands be not wearisome in service And that I may be a true helper of man And aid him to fulfil destiny Father, pray that I be enlivened with earth seedlings The seeds that keep the earth in health That my womb may feel the caress of suckling, Creation’s divine touch That my back may bear gently and be a bed for Tomorrow’s princes and princesses That I also may be a good mother of man And be as my mother was