“ Alas, quoth He, but newly born in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I.
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns,
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiled souls;
For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath, to wash them in my blood:
With this He vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind that it was Christmas day. ”

“ Who was born on Christmas Day,
To save our souls from Satan’s fold
Which long time had gone astray.
And ’tis tidings of comfort and joy.
From him that is our Father
The Blessed Angel came,
And to the watchful shepherds brought
The tidings of the same;
That there was born in Bethlehem
The Son of God by name.
And ’tis, &c.
Fear not, then said God’s Angel,
Let nothing you affright,
This day is born a Saviour
Of a Virgin pure and bright;
He is able to advance you
And throw down Satan quite. ”

“ Oh yes! but fore-and-aft a week
Silent the winds must ever be,
Because the happy halcyons seek
Their nests upon the sea.
Brian.
The Christmas-time! the lovely things
That last of it! Sweet thoughts and deeds!
Sandy.
How strong and green old Legend clings
Like ivy round the ruined creeds!
Menzies.
A fearless, ruthless, wanton band,
Deep in our hearts we guard from scathe,
Of last year’s log a smouldering brand
To light at Yule the fire of faith.
Brian.
The shepherds in the field at night
Beheld an angel glory-clad,
And shrank away with sore affright. ”

“ Then sped my thought to keep that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields and marvelling could not tell
Whether it were angels or the bright stars singing.
Now blessed be the tow’rs that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer unto God for our souls:
Blessed be their founders (said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above and the mad romping din. ”

“ Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him, in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all.
Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion,
Odours of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?
Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
Vainly with gifts would His favour secure;
Richer by far is the heart’s adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor. ”

“ Yet from their beams proceedeth not this light,
Nor can their crystals such reflection give.
What then doth make the element so bright?
The heavens are come down upon earth to live:
But hearken to the song,
Glory to glory’s King,
And peace all men among,
These quiristers do sing.
Angels they are, as also (shepherds) He
Whom in our fear we do admire to see. ”

“ And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary
The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain,
Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.’
Then arose a joyous clamour from the wildfowl on the mere,
Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried—‘Listen!—Christmas carols even here!
Though thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the stars and snows are singing. [Pg 113]
Blind! ”

“ Keen winter grows not cold
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green.
Sudden as sweet
Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, whom we have by heart.
Alice Meynell 83. NOEL: CHRISTMAS EVE, 1913 Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis
A FROSTY Christmas Eve when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above with stars was spangled o’er. ”

“ COME to your heaven, you heavenly quires!
Earth hath the heaven of your desires:
Remove your dwelling to your God,
A stall is now His best abode;
Sith men their homage do deny,
Come, angels, all their faults supply. ”

“ For lo! the world’s great Shepherd now is born,
A blessèd Babe, an Infant full of power:
After long night uprisen is the morn,
Renowning Bethlem in the Saviour.
Sprung is the perfect day,
By prophets seen afar:
Sprung is the mirthful May,
Which winter cannot mar.
In David’s city doth this Sun appear
Clouded in flesh, yet, shepherds, sit we here? ”

“ May sleep in snow,
(Without cold tho’)
For down from cold is free.
Be not amazèd, souls, for this
Is but the half of Joy;
The Angels spare their nimble wings,
For now they’re but superfluous things;
To men, since Heaven descended is
Contracted in a Boy. ”

“ Amidst heaven’s rolling height this earth who stayed.
In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid
A weakling did Him bear, who all upbears;
There is He poorly swaddled, in manger laid,
To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres:
Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize His birth.
This is that night—no, day, grown great with bliss,
In which the power of Satan broken is:
In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth!
Thus singing, through the air the angels swam,
And cope of stars re-echoèd the same.
William Drummond 33. THE SHEPHERDS
O THAN the fairest day, thrice fairer night! ”

“ The Angels’ chanting sounds afar
An ancient waterfall;
They do not listen to their strain,
Nor answer to their call;
Their thoughts are on the little earth,
Not in the heavenly hall.
For there they see a lovelier thing
That is beyond the sky;
They see the little Lord of Heaven
Upon His hard bed lie;
Their hearts are filled with wonder for
The Change of the Most High. [Pg 150]
R. L. Gales 88. CAROL
THE Ox said to the Ass, said he, all on a Christmas night:
‘Do you hear the pipe of the shepherds a-whistling over the hill? ”

“ Enriching every 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. [Pg 60]
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-nipt 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 ev’n His beams sing and my music shine. ”

“ TO Bethlem did they go, the shepherds three;
To Bethlem did they go, to see whe’r it were so or no,
Whether Christ were born or no
To set men free.
Masters, in this hall,
Hear ye news to-day
Brought over sea,
And ever I you pray,
Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!
Sing we clear!
Holpen are all folk on earth,
Born is God’s Son so dear.
Going over the hills
Through the milk-white snow,
Heard I ewes bleat
While the wind did blow.
Nowell, &c.
Shepherds many an one
Sat among the sheep;
No man spake more word
Than they had been asleep. ”

“ That with long beams the shamefac’d night array’d,
The helmed Cherubim,
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display’d,
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. ”

“ A blessèd angel unto shepherds told
Where (in a stable) He was poorly born,
Whom nor the earth nor heaven of heavens can hold:
Thro’ Bethlehem rung
This news at their return;
Yea, angels sung
That God with us was born ”

“ The merry, merry bells of Yule.
2
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. [Pg 108]
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For these that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind. ”

“ Gilded i’ the beams of earthly kings,
Slippery souls in smiling eyes,
But to poor shepherds’ home-spun things;
Whose wealth’s their flock, whose wit to be
Well read in their simplicity.
Yet when young April’s husband-showers
Shall bless the fruitful Maia’s bed,
We’ll bring the first-born of her flowers
To kiss Thy feet and crown Thy head:
To Thee, dread Lamb, whose love must keep
The shepherds more than they their sheep. ”

“ And through the bare twigs saw a great light glide,
With many-colour’d raiment, but far off,
And so pass’d quickly—from the court nought good;
Poor merry Dinadan, that with jape and scoff
Kept us all merry, in a little wood
Was found all hack’d and dead; Sir Lionel
And Gauwaine have come back from the great quest,
Just merely shamed; and Lauvaine, who loved well
Your father Launcelot, at the king’s behest
Went out to seek him, but was almost slain,
Perhaps is dead now; everywhere
The knights come foil’d from the great quest; in vain,
In vain they struggle for the vision fair. ”

“ The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally oft the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay. [Pg 140]
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head. ”

“ The beams of being, moving, life, sense, mind;
And to all things himself communicated
But for the violent diffusive pleasure
Of goodness that left not till God had spent
Himself by giving us himself his treasure
In making man a God omnipotent.
How might this goodness draw ourselves above
Which drew down God with such attractive love!
Joseph Beaumont 48. ON THE NATIVITY OF OUR SAVIOUR
WHY does the frowning winter smile
And check his fierce intent?
Why does he curb his ruffling powers,
As he for snow would sprinkle flowers? ”

“ In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn. [Pg 68]
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals’ ring
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green,
Trampling the unshower’d grass with lowings loud:
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,
Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud ”

“ Nowell, nowell, my masters, God lieth low in stall,
And the poor labouring Ox was here before you all.’
The Ass said to the Ox, said he, all on a Christmas day:
‘Do you hear the golden bridles come clinking out of the east?
Those are the three wise Mages that ride from far away
To Bethlehem in Jewry to have their lore increased....
Nowell, nowell, my masters, God lieth low in stall,
And the poor, foolish Ass was here before you all.’
Dorothy L. Sayers 89. CHRISTMAS CAROL
OH, brother Juniper, come out and play:
Men should be gay on this Holy-Day. ”

“ So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow,
When once they felt the sun so near them glow,
That Nilus Egypt lost, and to a sea did grow.
The angels carolled loud their song of peace;
The cursèd oracles were strucken dumb;
To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press;
To see their King the kingly sophies come;
And them to guide unto his Master’s home, [Pg 56]
A star comes dancing up the orient,
That springs for joy over the strawy tent,
Where gold, to make their Prince a crown, they all present.
Giles Fletcher 37. A CHRISTMAS CAROL [Sung to the King in the Presence at Whitehall.] ”

“ 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 may’st have
A better lodging than a rack or grave.
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be? ”

“ Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Charles Wesley 62. THE SHEPHERDS WENT THEIR HASTY WAY
THE shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed,
Where the virgin-mother lay;
And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A mother’s song the virgin-mother sung.
They told her how a glorious light,
Streaming from a heavenly throng,
Around them shone, suspending night!
While sweeter than a mother’s song,
Blest angels heralded the Saviour’s birth,
Glory to God on high! and peace on earth! ”

“ 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 fix’d in steadfast gaze, [Pg 63]
Bending one way their precious influence.
And will not take their flight
For 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. ”

“ With manna, milk, and balm new broach the mountains. [Pg 75]
He saw how in that blest day-bearing night
The heaven rebukèd shades made haste away;
How bright a dawn of angels with new light
Amazed the midnight world, and made a day
Of which the morning knew not; mad with spight
He mark’d how the poor shepherds ran to pay
Their simple tribute to the Babe, whose birth
Was the great business both of heaven and earth. ”

“ And quite unarm’d me, saying: ‘Galahad,
Rest here a while and sleep, and take no thought
Of any other thing than being glad;
Hither the Sangreal will be shortly brought, [Pg 126]
‘Yet must you sleep the while it stayeth here.’
Right so they went away, and I, being weary,
Slept long and dream’d of heaven: the bell comes near,
I doubt it grows to morning. Miserere!
[Enter two angels in white, with scarlet wings; also, four ladies in gowns of red and green; also an angel, bearing in his hands a surcoat of white, with a red cross.]
An Angel.
O servant of the high God, Galahad! ”