Sequence 7. Christmas

FASHIONED as a human creature,
Christ, His Father's image clear,
By His power, and not by nature,
Caused a Virgin's womb to bear.

No more grieving,
New songs weaving,
Let old Adam sing for mirth ! .

Exiles flying !
Captives lying
Prison-bound ! come boldly forth ! lo
Eve bore sadness,
But with gladness
Fruit of life a Virgin bears \
While unbroken
Still the token
Of her chastity appears.

If a crystal that is wetted
To the sun's rays be submitted,
It emits a little spark ;
Neither doth the crystal break,
Neither doth this child-birth take
From the maid her maiden-mark.

Such begetting of a creature
Strikes experience dumb, and nature ;
Reason too fails utterly;
Words could ne'er be found to show
Birth so loving, birth so low,
As at Christ's nativity.

Leaf, flower, nut, a dry rod beareth.
And a maiden pure prepareth
To produce God's Son Most High.

From a fleece heaven's dew-shower springeth ;
She, He made, her Maker bringeth
Forth, what He had made to buy.

In the flower, leaf, nut, and shower
Mystic emblems of the power
Of the Saviour's love are met.

Za/" Christ is — by shelter spreading;
Flower — by sweetness ; nut — by feeding ;
Dew — by grace with heaven's dew wet.

Why should it offend the Jews,
That a virgin bore a son,
When a rod could thus produce
Almonds, though a sapless one ?

On the nut still let us ponder ;
For, if a full light brought under,
'Tis the mystic type of light.

As it three in one appeareth,
So three gifts too it conferreth ;
Unction, food, effulgence bright.

Christ the nut, — its hull His passion,
Closing round His human fashion, —
And His bony frame its shell, —
The incarnate Deity
And Christ's tender sympathy
In the kernel mark ye well.

Christ is light to those not seeing.
Balm, the sick from sickness freeing,
And His loving creatures' food.

O how sweet a rite ! He taketh
Grass — our flesh — and thereof maketh
Grain for those who trust in God.

Those, whose food Thou now providest,
Jesu ! as 'neath rites Thou hidest,
With Thy presence satiate !

Thou, the Father's Co-eternal
Brightness ! us to joys supernal
In His glory hence translate ! Amen,