Poems for Jesus

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred veinAfford a present to the Infant God?Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strainTo 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 odeAnd lay it lowly at his blessed feet;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,And join thy voice unto the angel quireFrom out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

THE HYMN.

It was the Winter wildWhile the heaven-born ChildAll meanly wrapt in the rude manger liesNature in awe to HimHad doff'd her gaudy trim,With her great Master so to sympathise:It was no season then for herTo wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fairShe woos the gentle airTo 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 eyesShould look so near upon her foul deformities.

But He, her fears to cease,Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,She crown'd with olive green, came softly slidingDown through the turning sphereHis 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 soundWas heard the world around:The idle spear and shield were high up hung;The hooked Chariot stoodUnstain'd with hostile blood;The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;And kings sat still with awful eye,As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the nightWherin the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began:The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kistWhispering 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 amazeStand fix'd in steadfast gaze,Bending one way their precious influence;And will not take their flightFor all the morning light,Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;But in their glimmering orbs did glow,Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloomHad given day her room,The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,And hid his head for shame,As his inferior flameThe new-enlightn'd world no more should need:He saw a greater Sun appearThen his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

The shepherds on the lawnOr ere the point of dawnSate simply chatting in a rustic row;Full little thought they thenThat the mighty PanWas kindly come to live with them below;Perhaps their loves, or else their sheepWas all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweetTheir hearts and ears did greetAs never was by mortal finger strook--Divinely-warbled voiceAnswering 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 soundBeneath the hollow roundOf Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,Now was almost wonTo think her part was done,And that her reign had here its last fulfilling;She knew such harmony aloneCould hold all heaven and earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sightA globe of circular lightThat with long beams the shamefaced night array'd;The helmed CherubimAnd sworded Seraphim,Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,Harping in loud and solemn quireWith unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir.

Such music (as 'tis said)Before was never madeBut when of old the sons of morning sung,While the Creator greatHis constellations setAnd 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 chimeMove in melodious time;And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;And with your ninefold harmonyMake up full concert to the angelic symphony.

For if such holy SongEnwrap our fancy long,Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold;And speckled vanityWill 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 thenWill down return to men,Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,Mercy will sit betweenThroned 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 infancyThat on the bitter crossMust redeem our loss;So both Himself and us to glorify:Yet first to those ychain'd in sleepThe wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep;

With such a horrid clangAs on mount Sinai rangWhile the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:The aged Earth agastWith terrour of that blastShall from the surface to the centre shake,When at the worlds last session,The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread His throne.

And then at last our blissFull and perfect is,But now begins; for from this happy dayThe old Dragon, under groundIn straiter limits bound,Not half so far casts his usurped sway;And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,Swinges the scaly horrour of his folded tail.

The oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRuns through the arched roof in words deceiving:Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:No nightly trance or breathed spellInspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'erAnd the resounding shoreA voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;From haunted spring, and daleEdged with poplar paleThe parting Genius is with sighing sent;With flower-inwoven tresses tornThe nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earthAnd on the holy hearth,The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;In urns, and altars roundA drear and dying soundAffrights the Flamens at their service quaint;And the chill marble seems to sweat,While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and BaalimForsake their temples dim,With that twice-batter'd god of PalestineAnd mooned AshtarothHeaven's queen and mother both,Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn,In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

And sullen Moloch, fled,Hath left in shadows dreadHis burning idol all of blackest hue;In vain with cymbals' ringThey call the grisly king,In dismal dance about the furnace blue;The brutish gods of Nile as fastIsis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove, or green,Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;In vain with timbrell'd anthems darkThe sable stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Juda's landThe dreaded infant's hand;The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;Nor all the gods besideLonger dare abide,Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true,Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So, when the sun in bedCurtain'd with cloudy redPillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to the infernal jail,Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;And the yellow-skirted faysFly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

But see, the Virgin blestHath laid her Babe to rest;Time is, our tedious song should here have ending:Heavens youngest-teemed star,Hath fixed her polish'd car,Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:And all about the courtly stableBright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.

That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight,But in his sweet and amiable sight.

Thenceforth all worlds desire will in thee dye,And all earthes glorie, on which men do gaze,Seeme durt and drosse in thy pure-sighted eye,Compared to that celestiall beauties blaze,Whose glorious beames all fleshly sense doth dazeWith admiration of their passing light,Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright.

Then shall thy ravisht soule inspired beeWith heavenly thoughts farre above humane skil,And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely seeThe idee of his pure glorie present stillBefore thy face, that all thy spirits shall fillWith sweet enragement of celestiall love,Kindled through sight of those faire things above.

I would I were some bird or star,Fluttering in woods, or lifted far Above this inn, And road of sin!Then either star or bird should beShining or singing still to Thee.

I would I had in my best partFit rooms for Thee! or that my heart Were so clean as Thy manger was!But I am all filth, and obscene:Yet, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make clean.

Sweet Jesu! will then. Let no moreThis leper haunt and soil Thy door! Cure him, ease him, O release him!And let once more, by mystic birth,The Lord of life be born in earth.

Christian men, rejoice and sing;’Tis the birthday of a King, Ex Maria Virgine:The God, the Lord, by all adored for ever.

Night of sadness, Morn of gladness Evermore:Ever, ever, after many troubles sore,Morn of gladness, evermore and evermore.

Midnight scarcely passed and over,Drawing to this holy morn,Very early, very earlyChrist was born.

Sing out with bliss, His name is this— Emmanuel,As was foretold in days of old By Gabriel.

O the pity! O the pity!Shepherds hear the heavenly song,Mid the strife and piteous wrong;Peace on earth but not of men,Peace that knows not crime nor sin. O the pity! O the pity!

Lay your sceptres at His feet, O the pity! O the pity!Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem, greet, O the pity! O the pity!Legions stretched in battle line,Saw the star and knew the sign,Yet forgot that Christ was bornPrince of Peace, on Christmas morn, O the pity! O the pity!

Christmas, 1914.

For Mrs. George McIntyre.