By a wondrous mystery
Christ of Mary's fair body
Upon a middle winter's morn,
Between the tides of night and day,
In Ara's holy isle was born.
Mary went upon her knee
Travailing in ecstasy,
And Brigid, mistress of the birth,
Full reverently and tenderly
Laid the child upon the earth.
Then the dark-eyed rose did blow,
And rivers leaped from out the snow.
Earth grew lyrical: the grass,
As the light winds chanced to pass —
Than magian music more profound —
Murmured in a maze of sound.
White incense rose upon the hills
As from a thousand thuribles,
And in the east a seven-rayed star
Proclaimed the news to near and far.
The shepherd danced, the gilly ran,
The boatman left his curachan;
The king came riding on the wind
To offer gifts of coin and kind;
The druid dropped his ogham wand,
And said, “Another day's at hand,
A newer dawn is in the sky:
I put my withered sapling by.
The druid Christ has taken breath
To sing the runes of life and death.”