The Golden Treasury. Various

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       To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

       He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

       Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

       And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

       Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

       Afford a present to the Infant God?

       Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain

       To welcome Him to this His new abode,

       Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,

       Hath took no print of the approaching light,

       And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

       See how from far, upon the eastern road,

       The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:

       O run, prevent them with thy humble ode

       And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

       Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

       And join thy voice unto the angel quire

       From out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

       THE HYMN.

       It was the Winter wild

       While the heaven-born Child

       All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies

       Nature in awe to Him

       Had doff'd her gaudy trim,

       With her great Master so to sympathise:

       It was no season then for her

       To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

       Only with speeches fair

       She woos the gentle air

       To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;

       And on her naked shame,

       Pollute with sinful blame,

       The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;

       Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

       Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

       But He, her fears to cease,

       Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,

       She crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding

       Down through the turning sphere

       His ready harbinger,

       With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;

       And waving wide her myrtle wand,

       She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

       No war, or battle's sound

       Was heard the world around:

       The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

       The hookéd Chariot stood

       Unstain'd with hostile blood;

       The trumpet spake not to the arméd throng;

       And kings sat still with awful eye,

       As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

       But peaceful was the night

       Wherin the Prince of Light

       His reign of peace upon the earth began:

       The winds, with wonder whist,

       Smoothly the waters kist

       Whispering new joys to the mild oceán—

       Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

       While birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave.

       The stars with deep amaze

       Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,

       Bending one way their precious influence;

       And will not take their flight

       For all the morning light,

       Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;

       But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

       Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

       And though the shady gloom

       Had given day her room,

       The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

       And hid his head for shame,

       As his inferior flame

       The new-enlightn'd world no more should need:

       He saw a greater Sun appear

       Then his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

       The shepherds on the lawn

       Or ere the point of dawn

       Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;

       Full little thought they then

       That the mighty Pan

       Was kindly come to live with them below;

       Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep

       Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

       When such music sweet

       Their hearts and ears did greet

       As never was by mortal finger strook—

       Divinely-warbled voice

       Answering the stringéd noise,

       As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

       The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

       With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

       Nature that heard such sound

       Beneath the hollow round

       Of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,

       Now was almost won

       To think her part was done,

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