Page:Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics.djvu/57

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The Golden Treasury


Book Second

lxii

ODE
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY

This is the month, and this the happy mornWherein the Son of Heaven’s Eternal KingOf wedded maid and virgin mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did singThat he our deadly forfeit should release,And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,And that far-beaming blaze of MajestyWherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,He laid aside; and, here with us to beForsook the courts of everlasting day,And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred veinAfford a present to the Infant God?Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strainTo 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?
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