Rejoice in God alway,

With Powers rejoice on high,

Who now with glad array

Are gathering in the sky,

His cradle to attend,

And there all lowly bend.

But half so low as He hath bowed

Did never highest Angel stoop from brightest cloud.

Rejoice in God alway,

All creatures, bird and beast,

Rejoice, again I say,

His mightiest and His least;

From ox and ass that wait

Here on His poor estate

To the four living Powers, decreed

A thousand ways at once His awful car to speed.

Rejoice in God alway:

With Saints in Paradise

Your midnight service say,
For vigil glad arise.

Even they in their calm bowers

Too tardy find the hours

Till He reveal the wondrous Birth:

How must we look and long, chained here to sin and

earth!

Ye babes, to JESUS dear,
Rejoice in Him alway.

Ye whom He bade draw near,

O'er whom He loved to pray,

Wake and lift up the head

Each in his quiet bed.

Listen: His voice the night-wind brings:

He in your cradles lies, He in our carols sings.

3.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

(While waiting on an Infant at home.)

"Behold, I and the children which God hath given me."

THOU, who didst choose thine awful room
Within the undefiled womb,-

The bridal chamber, where our God
For spousals high made brief abode,
High spousals, evermore to bind

The Godhead with our fallen kind :

Now while the o'erarching clouds among

Echoes the Angels' matin song,

While, heart and hand,

In every land

The Saints their sacrifice prepare

The Cradle to adore of Heaven's dread Heir,

Behold where in the silent shade

Thy slumbering little ones till matin prime are laid.

Soon will a thousand bells ring out,

A thousand roofs the choral shout

Prolong, where Kings with Shepherds meet
His manger with their gifts to greet.
What shall we do, mine infant dear,
Who may not those glad anthems hear?
How shall we serve Him, thou and I,
Far from that glorious company?

Thou smil'st in sleep :

Who knows how deep

The dream of joy that smile denotes ? Mild as the summer lightning, see, it floats,

As if, the new-born Spirit o'er,

Came voices low from where departed babes adore.

Such is thy silent Liturgy,

But what is ours who wait on thee?
We offer thee to Him, this hour,

Who in like slumber veil'd His power :
Thy cradle with its hopes and fears,
Thy May-day smiles and April tears,
Whate'er thou hast, whate'er thou art,

Howe'er thy mother's dreaming heart
Shapes thy bright doom

In years to come ;—

All with that offering would we blend,

Which saints on earth to Angel hands commend

To bear on high, this favoured day, And on the sovereign Babe's unquenched altar lay.

Mysterious are these smiles of thine;
But of that Face, the Godhead's shrine,
Those holy lips, that awful brow,
Nor Angel then nor Prophet now
Might truly deem; none trace aright
Those hoverings of supernal light.
No more to sight, in earth or heaven,
Shall the Eternal Child be given,
But, Infant dear.

Unveiled and clear,

Thou shalt behold Him as He died,

Thine eye shall gaze upon the Crucified :

In mercy may He meet thy gaze,

And all the joy fulfil of all His bright glad days!