Verse > Anthologies > W. Garrett Horder, ed. > The Poets’ Bible: New Testament
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W. Garrett Horder, comp.  The Poets’ Bible: New Testament.  1895.
 
Bethlehem
From the Roman Breviary
 
Translated by Edward Caswall

BETHLEHEM! of noblest cities
  None can once with thee compare;
Thou alone the Lord from heaven
  Didst for us Incarnate bear.
 
Fairer than the sun at morning        5
  Was the star that told His birth;
To the lands their God announcing
  Hid beneath a form of earth.
 
By its lambent beauty guided,
  See the Eastern kings appear;        10
See them bend, their gifts to offer,—
  Gifts of incense, gold and myrrh.
 
Solemn things of mystic meaning!
  Incense doth the God disclose;
Gold a royal child proclaimeth,        15
  Myrrh a future tomb foreshows.
 
Holy Jesu! in Thy brightness
  To the Gentile world display’d!
With the Father, and the Spirit,
  Praise eterne to Thee be paid.        20
 
 
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