Bud forth a Saviour, Earth! fulfil
Thy first of functions, ever new!
Balm-dropping heaven, for aye distil
Thy grace like manna or like dew!
“To us, this day, a Child is born.’”
Heaven knows not mere historic facts:—
Celestial mysteries, night and morn,
Live on in ever-present Acts.
Calvary's dread Victim in the skies
On God's great altar rests even now:
The Pentecostal glory lies
For ever round the Church's brow.
From Son and Father, He, the Lord
Of Love and Life, proceeds alway:
Upon the first creative word
Creation, trembling, hangs for aye.
Nor less ineffably renewed
Than when on earth the tie began,
Is that mysterious Motherhood
Which re-creates the worlds and man.
Behold, she seemed on Earth to dwell;
But, hid in light, alone she sat
Beneath the Throne ineffable,
Chanting her clear Magnificat.
Fed from the boundless heart of God,
The joy within her rose more high
And all her being overflowed,
Until the awful hour was nigh.
Then, then, there crept her spirit o'er
The shadow of that pain world-wide
Whereof her Son the substance bore:—
Him offering, half in Him she died;
Standing like that strange Moon, whereon
The mask of Earth lies dim and dead,
An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,
Yet girdled with a luminous thread.