An Advent Sonnet

She waits with mournful joy amidst a work began in blood
In penitential expectation dying with her Liege
His royal visage shining in a flowing, crimson flood
Is pressed upon her beating soul, by sin and death besieged
She sobs, beset by pains and sorrows, beaten, sick and torn
She cries, “How long before this vanity by wind is blown?”
She lies in graves and catacombs, despised, in tears forlorn
She hopes, a bride in foreign lands, with prayers and sighs and groans
He’s coming to redeem His people from enslavement’s wage
Messiah comes to shatter all the chains that kill and bind
Not Babylon nor Rome shall stand before His loving rage
All wrongs will be made right in life, the lost Messiah finds
He comes to slay His enemies with grace and love and death
In love He saves with human blood and tears and sweat and breath