| |
| THE MIDNIGHT is as bright as day! | |
| On earth flames wide a stranger ray! | |
| And yet no meteor wanders nigh— | |
| No moon floats through Judæa’s sky! | |
| But there is in the face of night | 5 |
| A mellow, pure and holy light; | |
| Each moment holier, purer, flowing, | |
| But with a tender radiance glowing; | |
| And on the shepherd’s startled view | |
| Are forms of glory breaking through | 10 |
| Those floods of splendour;—throng on throng | |
| Uplifting a triumphant song! | |
| Ne’er flow’d such strains on earthly gale | |
| O’er breezy hill or listening vale | |
| Before; nor shall such sounds again | 15 |
| Break on the raptured ear of man, | |
| Till rising to his native sky, | |
| He put on immortality. | |
| |
| It came—that glorious embassy, | |
| To hail the Incarnate Mystery! | 20 |
| For this awoke that glorious hymn | |
| From glowing lips of Seraphim! | |
| For this—adown the radiant sky, | |
| From bowers of bliss—from worlds on high, | |
| Appear’d, upborne on wings of fire, | 25 |
| That seraph host—that angel choir. | |
| |
| For this, too, flam’d o’er Bethlehem | |
| The brightest in night’s diadem | |
| That mystic star, whose pilot ray | |
| Illum’d the Magi’s doubtful way; | 30 |
| Bright wanderer through the fields of air | |
| Which led the inquiring sages, where, | |
| Cradled within a worthless manger, | |
| Slept on that morn the immortal Stranger. | |
| |
| He might have come in regal pomp, | 35 |
| With pealing of Archangel trump— | |
| An angel blast as loud and dread | |
| As that which shall awake the dead; | |
| His lightning might have scar’d the night, | |
| Streaming insufferable light; | 40 |
| His thunder deepening, peal on peal, | |
| Have made earth to her centre reel, | |
| Deep voices such as shook with fear, | |
| At Sinai’s base, the favour’d seer; | |
| The wing of whirlwind might have borne Him, | 45 |
| The trampling earthquake gone before Him:— | |
| He might have come—that Holy One, | |
| With millions round His awful throne, | |
| Countless as are the sands that lie | |
| On burning plains of Araby, | 50 |
| And arm’d for vengeance, who could stand | |
| Before each conq’ring red right hand. | |
| |
| He came not thus; no earthquake shock | |
| Shiver’d the everlasting rock; | |
| No trumpet blast nor thunder peal, | 55 |
| Made earth through all her regions reel; | |
| And but for the mysterious voicing | |
| Of that unearthly choir rejoicing; | |
| And but for that strange herald gem, | |
| The star which burned o’er Bethlehem, | 60 |
| The shepherds, on his natal morn, | |
| Had known not that the God was born. | |
| There were no terrors, for the song | |
| Of peace rose from the seraph throng; | |
| On wings of love He came—to save, | 65 |
| To pluck pale terror from the grave, | |
| And on the blood-stain’d Calvary | |
| He won for man the victory. | |
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