Christmas.

(GEORGE HERBERT.)

ALL after pleasures as I rid one day,
My horse and I, both tired, body and mind,
With full cry of affections, quite astray,

I took up in the next inn I could find;
There when I came, whom found I but my dear,
My dearest Lord, expecting till the grief
Of pleasures brought me to Him, ready there
To be all passengers' most sweet relief?
O Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted light,
Wrapt in night's mantle, stole into a manger;
Since my dark soul and brutish is Thy right,

To man of all beasts be not Thou a stranger: Furnish and deck my soul, that Thou mayst have A better lodging, than a rack or grave.

The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?

My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

The pasture is Thy words; the streams, Thy grace

Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers

Outsing the daylight hours.

Then we will chide the sun for letting night

Take up his place and right:

We sing one common Lord; wherefore He should Himself the candle hold.

Religious Poems.

I will go searching, till I find a sun

Shall stay till we have done;

A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-night suns look sadly.

Then we will sing, and shine all our own day,

And one another pay:

His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till e'en his beams sing, and my music shine.

Of Christ's Birth in an Inn.

(JEREMY TAYLOR.)

THE blessed Virgin travailed without pain,
And lodged in an inn,

A glorious star the sign,

But of a greater guest than ever came that way,
For there He lay

That is the God of night and day,

And over all the pow'rs of heav'n doth reign.

It was the time of great Augustus' tax,

And then He comes

That pays all sums,

Even the whole price of lost humanity;

And sets us free

From the ungodly emperie

Of Sin, of Satan, and of Death.

O, make our hearts, blest God, Thy lodging-place,

And in our breast

Be pleased to rest,

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For Thou lov'st temples better than an inn,
And cause that Sin

May not profane the Deity within,

And sully o'er the ornaments of grace.

Hymn to the Nativity.

(JOHN MILTON.)

It was the winter wild,

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 cloud 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 armèd 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 kissed,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocear

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 their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.