Songs, Merry and Sad

A Christmas Hymn

     Near where the shepherds watched by night
      And heard the angels o'er them,
     The wise men saw the starry light
      Stand still at last before them.
     No armored castle there to ward
      His precious life from danger,
     But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord
      Lay in a lowly manger.
     No booming bells proclaimed his birth,
      No armies marshalled by,
     No iron thunders shook the earth,
      No rockets clomb the sky;
     The temples builded in his name
      Were shapeless granite then,
     And all the choirs that sang his fame
      Were later breeds of men.
     But, while the world about him slept,
      Nor cared that he was born,
     One gentle face above him kept
      Its mother watch till morn;
     And, if his baby eyes could tell
      What grace and glory were,
     No roar of gun, no boom of bell
      Were worth the look of her.
     Now praise to God that ere his grace
      Was scorned and he reviled
     He looked into his mother's face,
      A little helpless child;
     And praise to God that ere men strove
      About his tomb in war
     One loved him with a mother's love,
      Nor knew a creed therefor.