Christ's Birth

EACH year when vapours melt and wane,
Child Jesus Christ is born again;
The Angel in air, in grove, in sea,
It is the Saviour, it is He.
Wherefore all Nature, with serene
Rejoicing, buds in hopeful green.

Now the young stainless shepherd lads,
Watching the stars' high myriads,
See God's angels in fields of night
Assemble, trembling in cool moonlight.
'To-day a Saviour is born,' they sing,
'From gentle Mary's womb, from spring.

'His only drink is the earliest dew,
His eyes gaze heavenward into the blue,
His hands reach heavenward; they are bound
With garlands of roses to the ground.
His cry is the breeze, in the straw he lies,
Blue heaven mirrored in his eyes.

'Ah shepherds, go to Bethlehem;
Seek the cold-hearted, counsel them
To go into the fields, and find
The laughing Child, green grass-entwined,
And hear his voice, and see his smile,
That heaven may lift the earth awhile.'

The hovering angels reascend.
To Bethlehem the shepherds wend,
And tell their happy news, but they
Are scorned, and mocked, and turned away
Back to the meadows, where the sod
Blooms with the new-born Child of God.

The stars stretch forth their silver hands
And beckon the kings of the eastern lands;
The rays come singing with holy sound
And humbly sink to the living ground,
Praising the Lord made manifest,
Who smiles from the Mother's lovely breast.

They rise again from the darkened mould
In petals of purple, crimson, and gold,
Innocent children, devout and fair,
Half-lifted, half-bent to the earth in prayer,
Holding their yellow urns astir
With the sweetness of frankincense and myrrh.
Christ's Manhood

I know not where thou art.
Where hast thou gone, dear child,
Thou who from earth's young heart
Hast looked to Heaven and smiled?
Ah, in the scorched field
I search for thee in vain,
But in the woods concealed
I find thee once again.

So tall, so exquisite,
Thou wanderest alone,
In the glades dimly lit,
Far from the fiery zone
Where the pompous Pharisee
Dazzles the sun-cracked mould
With purple pageantry
And flashing sheen of gold.

Thou wanderest, O Young
And Beautiful, away
From splendour, deep among
The cool retreats of day.
I heard as in a dream
Through the green-shadowed hall
Voices of bird and stream,
And thy voice through them all.
The Holy Eucharist

Where hast thou gone, dear child,
Who looked to heaven and smiled,
From the gleaming
Earth, dreaming?

In woods and caverns thou art seen no more.
The air is harsh, the ground is dead and frore.
All her child-like flowers slain,
Nature will not smile again.

She is sick to death, and sear,
Pregnant with the fruitful year.
Yet, above the labouring root
Redden the ripe cheeks of fruit.

I will take thee, little one,
Nourished by the earth and sun,
Feed on thee in peace, and know
Nothing of thy mother's woe.

Wrinkled tree, like thee I stand
In the mighty orchard-land,
Wait as thou dost, to be fed
With the earth's unstinted bread.

Share thy strength with me, renew
My vanished sap and vigour too;
Humbly I would share thy meal,
Kneeling as the flowers kneel;

In thy leaves one mote of dust
Twinkling down the autumn gust.
Great thy power, O generous tree!
Courage, immortality,

Fill thee from thy groping root,
Fill me from thy basking fruit;
Circulation through one whole
Undivided perfect soul.

Mighty body, on thy flesh
I have fed, and live afresh;
Hallowed was that heavenly bread
Why is all thy beauty dead?

Silence ! Ah, the sweetness,
The colours that run through the vineyard with radiant fleetness!
The gladness that flashes through Nature's shadowed dwelling!
What is it that gleams and laughs where the grapes
are swelling?

Exquisite grape, wine-ruddied,
Dark nature revives in thy flame, and is flooded
With light from thy locks as the sunbeams caress
thee.
The shadow weaves
A face in the leaves,
And devoutly into the chalice I press thee.

And the angel who awoke the spring,
Whom sultry summer drove away
To the forest twilight-glimmering,
Is sparkling here in the purple spray.

The gentle flame, the river sound,
Light ether, spring's celestial friend,
The veil of flowers over the ground
All fill this chalice at the end.

Lift the cup with reverent hands,
Stiff though they be with harvest frost,
Deep in the heart that understands
All blooms eternal, nothing lost.

Your withered creeds take root once more;
Your bread and wine are sacrificed;
Drink, heavenward gazing, and adore
This is the blood of Jesus Christ.