In my choice of stanzas I have to keep in view some measure of completeness in the result.  These poems, however, are mostly very loose in structure.  This, while it renders choice easy, renders closeness of unity impossible.

From a poem headed—­again from the last line of each stanza—­Be my comfort, Christ Jesus, I choose the following four, each possessing some remarkable flavour, tone, or single touch.  Note the alliteration in the lovely line, beginning “Bairn y-born.”  The whole of the stanza in which we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity.

In the next stanza, how oddly the writer forgets that Jesus himself was a Jew, when, embodying the detestation of Christian centuries in one line, he says,

  And tormented with many a Jew!

In the third stanza, I consider the middle quatrain, that is, the four lines beginning “Out of this world,” perfectly grand.

The oddness of the last line but one of the fourth stanza is redeemed by the wonderful reality it gives to the faith of the speaker:  “See my sorrow, and say Ho!” stopping it as one would call after a man and stop him.

  Jesus, thou art wisdom of wit, understanding.
    Of thy Father full of might! 
  Man’s soul—­to save it,
    In poor apparel thou wert pight. pitched, placed,
  Jesus, thou wert in cradle knit, [dressed.
    In weed wrapped both day and night; originally, dress of
  In Bethlehem born, as the gospel writ, [any kind.
    With angels’ song, and heaven-light. 
  Bairn y-born of a beerde bright,[52]
    Full courteous was thy comely cus:  kiss.
  Through virtue of that sweet light,
    So be my comfort, Christ Jesus.

  Jesus, that wert of yearis young,
    Fair and fresh of hide and hue,
  When thou wert in thraldom throng, driven.
    And tormented with many a Jew,
  When blood and water were out-wrung,
    For beating was thy body blue;
  As a clot of clay thou wert for-clong, shrunk.
    So dead in trough then men thee threw. coffin.
  But grace from thy grave grew: 
    Thou rose up quick comfort to us. living.
  For her love that this counsel knew,
    So be my comfort, Christ Jesus.

  Jesus, soothfast God and man,
    Two kinds knit in one person,
  The wonder-work that thou began
    Thou hast fulfilled in flesh and bone.