Upon Christ’s Nativity

From three dark places Christ came forth this day;
From first His Father’s bosom, where He lay,
Concealed till now; then from the typic law,
Where we His manhood but by figures saw;
And lastly from His mother’s womb He came
To us, a perfect God and perfect Man.

Now in a manger lies the eternal Word:
The Word He is, yet can no speech afford;
He is the Bread of Life, yet hungry lies;
The Living Fountain, yet for drink He cries;
He cannot help or clothe Himself at need
Who did the lilies clothe and ravens feed;
He is the Light of Lights, yet now doth shroud
His glory with our nature as a cloud.
He came to us a Little One, that we
Like little children might in malice be;
Little He is, and wrapped in clouts, lest He
Might strike us dead if clothed with majesty.

Christ had four beds and those not soft nor brave:
The Virgin’s womb, the manger, cross, and grave.
The angels sing this day, and so will I
That have more reason to be glad than they.

Rowland Watkyns (1662)

Nativity

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.  

John Dunne
1573-1631

This Burning Babe

As I in hoary winter’s night
Stood shivering in the snow,
Surpris’d I was with sudden heat
Which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye
To view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright
Did in the air appear;
Who, scorched with excessive heat,
Such floods of tears did shed,
As though his floods should quench his flames
Which with his tears were fed.
“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 shames 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 vanish’d out of sight
And swiftly shrunk away,
And straight I called unto mind
That it was Christmas day.

St. Robert Southwell, SJ, Martyr
1561-1595