“Belshazzar’s grave is made,
  His kingdom pass’d away,
He, in the balance weigh’d,
  Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state;
  His canopy, the stone: 
The Mede is at his gate! 
  The Persian on his throne!”

_—­Lord Byron_

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

As Joseph was a-walking,
  He heard an angel sing,
“This night shall be the birth-time
  Of Christ, the heavenly king.

“He neither shall be born
  In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise,
  But in an ox’s stall.

“He neither shall be clothed
  In purple nor in pall,
But in the fair white linen
  That usen babies all.

“He neither shall be rocked
  In silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden manger
  That resteth on the mould.”

As Joseph was a-walking,
  There did an angel sing,
And Mary’s child at midnight
  Was born to be our king.

Then be ye glad, good people,
  This night of all the year,
And light ye up your candles,
  For his star it shineth clear.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY

This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of heav’n’s eternal king
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That 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 Majesty
Wherewith He wont at Heav’n’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heav’nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God? 
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome Him to this His new abode,
Now while the heav’n by the sun’s team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how from far, upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet: 
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at His blessed feet;
Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel quire,
From out His secret altar touch’d with hallow’d fire.

THE HYMN

It was the winter wild
While the heav’n-born Child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him
Had doff’d her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize: 
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,
Confounded that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.