MISCELLANEOUS

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-tabic
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant-God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See, how from far, upon the eastern road.

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet:

lave thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel-quire,

From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

It was the winter wild,

The Hymn.

While the heaven-born Child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize: It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw ; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere,

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing:

And, waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle's sound,

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:

The winds, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean.

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The stars, with deep amaze,

Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warned them thence:

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until the Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new enlightened world no more should need: He saw a greater Sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axletree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Cr ere the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then,

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger strook;

Divinely warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blissful rapture took.

The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close

Nature, that heard such sound,

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat, the aery region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

And that her reign had here its last fulfilling ;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union,

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed; The helmed Cherubim,

And sworded Seraphim,

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, Harping in loud and solemn quire,

With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir.

Such music (as 'tis said)

Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung,

While the Creator great

His constellations set,

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung;

And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,

Once bless our human ears,

If ye have power to touch our senses so:

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;

And, with your ninefold harmony,

Make up full concert to the angelic symphony.

For, if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;

And speckled vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould

And hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea, truth and justice then

Will down return to men,

Orbed in a rainbow; and, like g1ories wearing,

Mercy will sit between,

Throned in celestial sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;

And heaven, as at some festival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate says No,

This must not yet be so,

The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy, That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss:

So both himself and us to glorify:

Yet first, to those ychained in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;

With such a horrid clang

As on Mount Sinai rang,

While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbreak:

The aged Earth aghast,

With terror of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the centre shake;

When at the world's last session,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for, from this happy day,

The old Dragon, under ground

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway:

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,

Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb,

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale,

Edged with poplar pale,

The parting genius is with sighing sent;

With flower-inwoven tresses torn,

The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.